A Compassionate Man & A Humble Woman | Sermon 06/30/2024

Ruth’s Family Crisis and the Hope of Providence

All right, if you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Ruth. It's right after the book of Judges, right before 1 Samuel in your Old Testaments. And we're going to be in chapter 2 today.

In fact, we plan to cover the entirety of chapter 2 today. The title of this sermon today, church, is Simply a Compassionate Man and a Humble Woman. A Compassionate Man and a Humble Woman. I think for today we'll read verses 1 through 3.

We'll go through the entirety in the sermon. So starting in verse 1 of the book of Ruth, chapter 2, hear now the inerrant and fallible words of the living and true God. Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, Please, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter. So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

Thus ends the reading of God's holy and marvelous word. Let's pray once more as a church today. Lord, I ask that you would be with us in this moment. Lord, that you would give us, as Pastor Andrew said, the ears to hear, Lord.

Because even though you've given us those ears and we're believers and we've been changed and you've taken out our hearts of stone and you've put in hearts of flesh, Lord, there's things of the world and there are things of the flesh that like to close our ears off from your word.

And so, God, let not the enemy snatch away anything from us today, Lord. Let us have our every focus on you and your beloved word, Lord. Thank you that it has endured. It is eternal. It will stand the test of time.

We may die one day, and we will, but this word will stand forever, Lord. So we give you all the praise. Please bless our time in Ruth chapter 2 now. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I remember about six years ago, it was 2018, and I was living south of the Phoenix metropolitan area in a town called Maricopa.

It was a desert town. Of course, most towns in Arizona are desert towns. It was a desert town of 50 ,000 people, which I think to some folks is probably kind of big. For us, 50 ,000 was kind of smaller.

And it's a place that you went south of the valley to get cheap housing, and it's where your commute turns from 20 minutes to an hour 20 minutes, which we all loved. And so Maricopa was kind of like this island in a sense because it was surrounded by Native American land.

It was surrounded by government land. It was really not connected to a lot of things, and there was only one main way to get in and out of this town, two lanes going in each direction. And so when there were accidents going home, especially like unfortunate fatalities on Riggs Road, I'm not even kidding.

You could expect to sit in your car from your commute home three to five hours at least when there was an accident. And I would get into the habit then that I was like, I'm never doing this again. It's like 117.

My AC in my car is like, please kill me. And I'm like, please kill me. I can't stand it anymore. And so I at that point would check all the accident reports, all the map applications before I left every single day.

Sometimes you could ask my wife. I'd be like, sweetheart, it's one of those nights. There's an accident. She goes, what movie are you going to see? I'm like, there's this new one called A Quiet Place.

Okay, go enjoy that. And I'd go to a movie or something and have a dinner, have a singles date by myself, treat myself so well. And I'd stay up there because it just didn't make sense to sit in that. And so I started to look for other ways to get home.

How can I get home to my family? I don't want to take myself out anymore. I don't have enough money for this. And I basically made this little map of how to get home. And so one day there was a terrible accident and I thought, this is it.

I'm going to use my handmade map to get home. And so I thought I'd surprise my wife and daughter. And I was on the I -10. I got off on an exit that normally there's nothing. There's like a fry bread cellar and a turquoise cellar.

And then there's nothing for miles. And I got off and I was going through the desert for miles. My directions told me it's time to leave the pavement of the road and turn left heading south onto dirt.

And I was like, okay, I mean, yeah, let's keep going. Let's give this a shot. And so I did that. I didn't know what to expect. I thought I'd be fine. And I started to see, okay, agriculture, dairy farms.

And I'm riding past manure piles and things like that. And then I start to, on this dirt road, realize it's turned into a dirt path. And there's like makeshift canals and kind of big holes and stuff. And I'm like, okay, we'll just keep going, you know.

This will work out. And little by little I start to realize I'm on private land. And you're not supposed to do what I'm doing. And not just private land. I realized I was driving through the Gila Indian River community land.

And so a white SUV starts following me. And I'm a little alarmed. And I'm starting to get nervous. I'm bumping up and down. And the car drives right up next to me. And I look over and they're honking.

And they're like going like this to pull over. And I'm like, do I pull over? Do I go for it? And their SUV was doing way better than this little black Elantra. That was just like, I don't even know if I ever got all the dirt out of my car.

It was just unreal how much red dirt was in my Elantra. Even when we brought it here. I brought Arizona dirt here. So anyways, I'm like, okay, I better pull over. And so I pull over and the guy is like, what the heck do you think you're doing?

What are you doing here, sir? And I was like, you know, the highway gets really bad. There's an accident. I'm just trying to get home to my wife and daughter. I look this up on the maps. It looked like a legitimate road.

And he's like, never, ever go through here again, I'm telling you. You're lucky that some of the other community people don't stop you and hurt you. I'll stop here and watch you leave. You're about three miles now from Honeycutt Road.

You better just go for it. Don't go back. Go for it. Hope your car turns out right, but get out of here now. And I'm like, okay. And so I go ahead and I get to Maricopa. And I resolve, okay, I'm never going to do that again.

And I say that because the last two weeks we've been talking about the road of the Christian life. And the road Elimelech and his family took to Moab and the path that led them there was not what they expected.

And then we saw the road that was back to Bethlehem with Ruth and Naomi. And, you see, we try to venture on new roads expecting one thing but finding another. That's what happened to me. Taking my shortcut home didn't turn out how I expected nor how I wanted.

And taking the road to Moab for this family turned out far worse than even my excursion, right? That's what we saw. Death and barrenness, desolation and bitterness were what Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth found.

Naomi tried to convince the girls to go back to Moab. Don't go to Israel with me. Go back to your families. She couldn't feed them. She couldn't clothe them. She couldn't care for them. She would have a hard enough time on her own as it is.

And always seeing her daughters-in-law could be a constant reminder of her desperate affliction. She lost her sons. She lost her husband. She says, leave. Go. Go home. There's nothing more for you here with me.

God has struck me down. God, let me go down these paths. The Lord has dealt unfairly with me, and he has caused me great harm. Those were the type of charges she said towards God. She didn't see her family's sin in this.

She didn't see her own sin in this. And so what? Forsaking the covenant, forsaking their people, disobeying the commandments, forsaking the Lord Yahweh, and telling these women to go back to their false gods.

That's what happened. The road has kind of appeared like a dead end for Naomi. How can she keep going? Well, that is, right at that moment, when we began to see glimpses of providence and grace, she heard how God had visited his people in Israel.

And that's, at that point, when Ruth wouldn't let her leave alone. She wouldn't abandon her mother-in-law. Those were moments of grace. God has come to his people. Ruth won't leave me. She said, where you go, I will go.

Where you stay, I'll stay. Your people will be my people. Your God, my God. Where you die, I'll be buried. And may Yahweh, may your God, may the Lord take my life and do worse to me if I go back on this vow.

So we saw such an example of selflessness and love. Ruth had every, and I'm telling you, just as much reason, I think, to be as bitter as Naomi. But she wasn't. And in that, we saw a glimmer, a ray of light, a hope beyond hope that things could change for the better.

Sin and brokenness got them into this. Only God can get them out of this. And it all starts in a small village called Bethlehem in Judah, at the reaping season of the barley harvest in late April or early May.

Their emptiness is already being reversed by God as they return at the time Bethlehem, which I told you in Hebrew means what? The house of bread. The house of bread will be filled once again. And this is where they come into it, okay?

Boaz the Man of Virtue and Ruth the Moabitess

So verse 1 introduces us to someone we haven't seen before. Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. So this was no acquaintance of Naomi's.

This man is family. And not only that, Boaz is no ordinary Israelite. This Hebrew phrase, which is translated in my Bible, a man of great wealth, is actually typically translated mighty man of valor. It's used for valiant warriors who fight for Israel.

But here it is more to indicate that Boaz is a man of virtue and noble character. Virtue and noble character. And as far as his name goes, the name Boaz, there is no other word in the Bible that uses the same root as his name.

It's hard to be certain, but the Septuagint translates Boaz's name to strength, or it could be shortened for strength in the Lord, okay? And so already we begin to see in verse 1 that there's some sort of hope.

There's a connection. There's a family member here. But the women are hungry. They've been getting hungry for a while. And if they are to survive, they must begin working. They have no one to care for them but themselves.

They have to start working. Verses 2 and 3 set up the scene for today before a substantial section of dialogue. It says,. So the narrator brings up the fact that this woman is not an Israelite. We're struck with that from the very beginning.

This is no Israelite woman. She isn't simply Ruth in this narrative. She is Ruth the Moabitess. She is a foreigner in the land, and she can't stay hiding in their place of lodging forever. How will the people of Bethlehem think of me, she thinks?

How will they treat me? Will this Yahweh that I came to His land, I came to Israel, will this Yahweh of Israel, will He protect me now? There must have been so many things running through Ruth's mind, so many trepidations.

What's going to happen? But as we saw with her speech last week, she's also a woman who will do whatever it takes to care for other people. And in this case, she needs to care for her mother-in-law.

She needs to bring food home. And so she asks to glean in the fields for the ears of barley grain. And remember, gleaning is not synonymous with ordinary harvesting. Gleaning is gathering the scraps. It's gathering the leftovers.

It's the lingering surplus on the field, finding what you can after it has already been worked through. And there was often grain overlooked. So you could go and you could glean the field, but God also commanded Israelites not to what?

Not to harvest all the way to the corners of their field. This is the ancient welfare system of the day, but it wasn't just a handout. It didn't turn people into beggars. God's law is so incredible because it gives people a sense of dignity in their poverty.

I will work for this. It's not just a handout. You see, when people from foreign nations, especially third world nations, when they visit America and they see the homeless in our streets, and the homeless in our streets are standing up and moving around and they got cell phones with the programs that we have here.

And they have a sign that says, you know, homeless, need money, need help. People from these other nations go, this is unbelievable. You're able to walk. You're able to work. They're incredulous. You can even see these sort of dialogues on interviews online.

People from other countries can't believe it. Our homeless are able to work. They say, you go back to my country, the people who are begging for money are people who are blind, they're paralyzed, or they have a terrible disease.

They're resorted to begging because they can't do any work. And so, gleaning is something that preserved dignity. You could still gain food for free, but you had to labor for it. God is concerned. Listen, God is concerned about not reducing people down to just beggars.

Leviticus 19, 9 -10, it's in your printout. It says, Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest, nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard.

You shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God. Now, every Israelite didn't obey this. Some treated the sojourner and the needy with contempt. One commentator states, As a Moabite woman and a widow, Ruth qualified to glean on two counts.

But for these same two reasons, being a woman and from Moabite, it was also possible that she could not count on the goodwill of the locals. Hence her concern to glean behind someone who would look upon her with favor.

Gleaning was hard work. It was hard work. It was hot work. May in Israel, it was hot. Gleaning wasn't always safe work either for a foreign woman who had no family or clan connections to call upon if she needed protection or if in an emergency.

It was dangerous. Gleaning for a single woman was dangerous. And here we see Ruth putting herself in a vulnerable situation for the sake of herself and Naomi. And she's looking for favor though. This word favor is also the word for grace.

In faith, Ruth is stepping out and hoping for grace. Because faith doesn't just sit around. God directs our steps when we're walking and we're moving forward. You see that though? When the Bible says God directs our steps, what does that presuppose?

You're taking steps? You're walking? You're moving forward? Even when we wait on God, we don't literally wait and do nothing and wait for something to fall out of heaven. That's not what we're supposed to do.

Now we don't know, by the way, why Naomi doesn't join her considering that her presence might aid Ruth quite a bit in gleaning. Maybe Naomi is too old now. Or maybe she's too bitter and angry. We don't know.

Maybe since she arrived in Bethlehem, she hasn't started that walking again. She hasn't started moving forward. Naomi could still be living in the past. The bitterness of what happened to her husband and her sons, we don't know.

We look in the text though and find something amazing has occurred. Verse 3 says, Ruth happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz. This is a Hebrew idiom. When it says Ruth happened to come, it literally says her chance chanced upon the portion of the field belonging to Boaz.

It's to say something like, by the stroke of luck, so to speak. And yet even then, every faithful follower of God would have known that there's no such thing as luck. In Ruth's eyes, this may seem like coincidence, but it's not.

Proverbs 16 .33 says, The law is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Proverbs 16 .9 says, The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. And so out of all the fields that Ruth could have gone to, she veered into the one that was owned by a relative of Elimelech, Naomi's relative, the man of virtue in town, Boaz.

And this divine plan didn't just start here. I told you in the first sermon that God will be in everything that we perceive as bad in Ruth, and God will be in everything from the bad to the good in the book of Ruth.

His providence is evident throughout the whole thing. The hand of God that struck Israel with famine, the hand of God that provided food, again in chapter 1, is the same hand that brought back these women precisely at the time of the barley harvest.

And this is the same hand of God that led Ruth to Boaz's field. Out of all the fields, the one who might have eyes of favor and the one who could actually do something about their desolation is the man whose field she's in.

This is amazing. And so that's to say, if she went to one who was not Boaz, she would have received no favor. If she went anywhere else, of a person who wasn't of the same clan as her father-in-law, it would set off even a domino effect that would impact even the coming of the Messiah.

We'll see that more in chapter 4. But this is critical. God brought her exactly out of all the fields, out of all the landowners, God brought Ruth to Boaz's field. And it would change everything for her and it would lead even to the coming of the Messiah.

Boaz’s Compassion, Protection, and Table Fellowship

Go to verses 4 -7. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, May the Lord be with you. And they said to him, May the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, Whose young woman is this?

The servant in charge of the reapers replied, She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. And she said, Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.

Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now. She has been sitting in the house for a little while. The biblical writer says, Now behold, pointing to the fact that not only is Ruth in Boaz's field, he arrived there at the same exact time while she's gleaning.

And when he does arrive, he is the type of man that blesses his workers. Boaz comes up to his workers. He says, May the Lord be with you. And what does this tell us about Boaz? Boaz understands it was not only the blessing of the Lord that gave this bountiful harvest, but it will be the Lord God that sustains his reapers to perform the harvest.

Boaz knows in this harvest, in this life, he needs God every step of the way. And his workers respond in kind. May the Lord bless you. This is Luke chapter 6, 31 in action. Jesus says, Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.

So whether in your family or at your job or in your church, if you are a blessing to others, they will be a blessing to you. Treat your family with contempt, but don't expect happy responses or obedience.

Belittle your employees and don't expect dutiful workers. Burn relationships in a church and see who wants to spend time in fellowship with you. Boaz understands these things. He blesses them. He treats them well.

But now he finally sets his eyes on Ruth. He finally looks at her. And strangely, he doesn't ask, Who is this young woman? But Boaz says, Whose young woman is this? And although she is a stranger to him, he knows no woman was ever alone.

She must be engaged to some man. She must be the daughter of some man. Whose wife is this young woman in my field? What family or clan does she belong to? Boaz has never seen this woman in her field ever.

And Bethlehem wasn't exactly the largest city. He knew people. Everyone was often related. So he's never seen her before. She's out of place. But she can't be alone, he thinks. And so the servant says, She is the young Moabite woman that we've all heard of, the one who returned with Naomi.

He then relays that Ruth first came up and asked him if she could glean. She's respectful. But she didn't just ask to glean the scraps. Ruth was truly in need. It's been a long time since they've had abundance of food.

And she asked the foreman, the leader of the workers, if she could glean right behind the reapers among the bundles so that if anything fell or was left behind, she could be right there and collect it.

She asked for special treatment. She asked for favor, hoping she would get it, thinking of her mother-in-law, thinking of the need she has. And so the harvest supervisor essentially says he allowed her to work behind them.

And she's been in the field since early in the morning, and she hasn't even stopped working, even until now, aside from a small break that she took in the house. This is a hard-working woman, very hard-working woman.

And it seems between this statement of the foreman and the report about the devotion of this woman, Boaz has heard of her. He's already heard of her. She's not like other foreigners. She's not like the Moabites they have grown up hearing stories about, the Moabites who have attacked their ancestors.

So taking initiative, this man takes initiative. He approaches her. Go to verses 8 through 14. This is a big one. 8 through 14. Then Boaz said to Ruth, Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field.

Furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw.

Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? Boaz replied to her, All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me.

And how you left your father and your mother in the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord reward your work and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.

Then she said, I have found favor in your sight, my Lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants. Then at mealtime Boaz said to her, Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.

So she sat beside the reapers and he served her roasted grain. And she ate and was satisfied and had some left. So from the moment that Boaz opens his mouth to the end of the evening, this man displays sympathy, generosity, and grace.

He doesn't talk down to Ruth, but endearingly says, My daughter. This is something that you would typically only say to a young Israelite woman, not a Moabitess. It's more important than you know that he says this.

He's breaking down barriers between them. Now you might wonder, why did he say daughter besides that? I believe in addition to his respect for her, despite her being a foreigner, I think it's likely that Boaz is older than her.

She's a younger woman. He's older. I don't know if that means late 30s, 40s. We're not sure. We don't know that. But also I believe it comes from a sense of genuine duty to her. He feels responsible for her now.

It's starting to grow in him. He already made up his mind when he left his foreman's side and he made a way straight to her. She's alone. I will give her what protection and provision I can offer. That's what he thinks.

First, he says, Don't go anywhere else. Don't glean in another field. All that I have in this one is yours to glean from. All that I have, you can glean. In other words, he wants to make sure she has plenty.

She's filled. She fulfills her need. She won't need to go anywhere else. And then Boaz tells Ruth to dabak. That's in Genesis 2. That was in chapter 1. Cling. Cling or cleaved to his female servants. This is the same word where Ruth clung to Naomi.

It's stronger than just, Hey, stay here. Would you stay here with my maidservants? It's stronger than that. It's probably not the same level of devotion as it was for Ruth to Naomi, but it does describe something differently.

He says, Stick with them. Stay here with my maids. Stick to them closely. Don't get away too far from my maids. You see, the fields back then in Israelite time, the fields were connected to other fields.

There wasn't like some big gap between fields, other people's fields. And so he essentially says, Keep your eyes fixed on the fields of my maids that they reap in. Where my maids go, they know the border.

They know the border of my field. Follow my maids as they reap. And this will ensure her safety and that he can make sure she isn't accosted because that was a possibility back then. And so Boaz has even already commanded his male workers, Don't touch her.

Don't harass her. And now it's not that maybe his workers were the type of men who would typically do this to women, that they would harass her, but he doesn't know at this point how Israelite men will treat a Moabite woman.

She's foreign. Maybe they'll look down on her. Maybe they'll fall upon her as Naomi was worried about. And here's the amazing thing. Of the water that is only provided for his hired laborers, the privilege of his servants alone is hers as well.

You see, gleaners would normally have to bring their own supplies. They'd bring their own lunch. They'd bring their own water. But she can partake and go freely. She can take from the water that only his hired laborers were allowed to have.

This is a big deal. Because normally, even so, foreigners, foreign servants, would have to draw water for Israelites and then also women would have to also typically draw water for men. But she, Ruth, a foreign woman, may come up and drink water from the cisterns that Israelite men draw from.

This is extraordinary treatment for this woman. And how does Ruth respond to this? She's beside herself. She's beside herself, overwhelmed by Boaz's kindness. She falls on her face. She's bowing so low that her head touches the earth.

This is something that you typically only did for royalty, and especially God. You would bow so low you would touch your head to the ground for God, but also royalty, someone of high regard. Okay? She's amazed that Boaz has extended such grace to even take notice of her.

She considers herself insignificant to everyone else around her. How could you give a foreigner such favor? And there's a play on words here in the Hebrew. She says, How can you act like I am not strange to you when I am a stranger?

And Boaz continues to give her honor. All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me. How you left your father and you left your mother and you left the place of your birth and you came to a people that were strangers to you.

You say you're a stranger to us. We're strangers to you. It goes both ways. He says, I've heard about you. I know about you. Whether the townspeople of Bethlehem spoke about Ruth in a marveling or mocking way or genuinely kindly, Boaz only sees, no matter what was said about her, Boaz only sees the virtue of a loyal young woman.

That's all he sees. She didn't need to extend any loyalty to Israelite blood, but she did. She did. He brings up the fact that Noom, he released her and Orpah to go back to their homes. She could have gone back to their families, legally declared eligible for remarriage among Moabite men, but she didn't.

She stayed when she was not legally bound to stay. Her land, her people, her gods, she forsook it all, especially security and blessing to do the right thing. But this isn't probably the only answer to her question.

Why have I found favor in your sight? It's also because Boaz was simply an upright man. He was an upright man. He was a faithful man. And while not denying total depravity, we could call him a good man.

Boaz was a good man. And why is he these things? Because he is of the faith community of the one true God, the Lord. And he fears God. He's not a fake follower of the Lord. He's a true follower of God.

This isn't just about where he lives, that Yahweh is his God. This isn't just about the nation that he belongs to. For Boaz, this is about the God he belongs to, the God who exhibits kindness himself when people don't deserve it.

The Lord is Boaz's example. And behind it all is once again the providence of God. In verse 2, Ruth expressed her hope to Naomi that she might find favor from someone that day. And God gave it to her.

God gave it to her. He put her exactly where she ought to be. God is kind to this woman. And he had already prepared Boaz's heart for her. Boaz could have said, get out of here. I don't care that we're somehow related.

But he didn't. And this is especially shown in verse 12 when Boaz calls upon Yahweh on her behalf. May the Lord reward your work. May your wages be in full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.

And he's not talking about her work of gleaning. May God bless your gleaning today. It's may God be faithful to you as you were faithful to my family, as you were faithful to Israelites, you were faithful to what was put in front of you.

You were faithful to Naomi. And the word reward here is derived from the same root for shalom, the word for peace, the word for wholeness from God. May God give you shalom. May God give you peace. May God give you wholeness for what you did.

And it's not that her work entitles her to God's blessing. It's that Boaz hopes that the covenant blessings of God will touch down on this foreign woman who shows she is as much an Israelite based on her deeds, even though she isn't by blood.

And ultimately, as much as Boaz is trying to be a protector, it is the Lord, he says, it is the God of Israel whom she must seek shelter from. The deities in Moab can't help her. Chemosh and Baal and Asherim could not offer what the one true and living God could.

And she's beginning to see that. Boaz uses an image many in the ancient Near East understood. You see, a mother bird was relentless, relentless in the protection of her chicks. To come under the wing of the mother bird was to be protected from the elements, from rain, from hot desert winds, from storms.

And this is the image Boaz uses most of all to be under the wing of God is to say that anything that wants to hurt you has to go through God first. That wing is around you. May you find shelter under God's wings.

The chicks would go under the wings of the mother bird. They'd be comforted there. That is to say, if a hawk or a falcon or whatever came up, it'd have to go through the mother first. And so Boaz says, may you find refuge and shelter under the wings of God.

May He protect you before anything comes at you. This is such an amazing blessing. It's a powerful image. Still overwhelmed, Ruth responds that Boaz is so very kind to her that he has comforted her. This word comfort has the Hebrew root that means breathe deeply.

She's relieved. She can breathe deeply. Finally, the trepidations that she has had about coming to Israel are over. Yahweh is good. The Lord is good here. I will be taken care of. She literally says, indeed, you have spoken to the heart of your maidservant.

You've spoken to my very heart, it says. First, he, an Israelite, treated a foreigner well. Now, there is a recognition that a master or lord over at a state, a nobleman, has treated a servant so well.

That's what she said. You've spoken to the heart of your maidservant. I'm no one. But Boaz has no regard for classes or social status. This word literally means slave girl. I'm a slave girl. How could you talk to me?

How could you do this for me? She's one that in that time was considered as property, that you could sell her by. That's how low she puts herself. She says, you treated me better than the slave that I am, and you've treated me as one of the maids of your own household, even though I know I could never be one.

I could never be even a maid in your own household. That's how much lower I am than the maids in your house. That is to say, I have done nothing for you, but you have done so much for me, Boaz. I deserve nothing, but you treated me like I am something.

You treated me like I have worth. Well, some time elapses from this initial conversation. She has stayed working and gleaning until mealtime, and Boaz hasn't gone away. And he isn't finished giving compassion to Ruth.

In fact, we can imagine that he has possibly continued to think about her all day. And he's about to do something that was very taboo for their culture back then, very taboo. You see, mealtime wasn't just about sustenance.

Mealtime in Israelite culture is about status and hospitality. Whoever you were willing to eat with spoke something about your character. There's a reason the scribes and Pharisees would mock at Jesus.

Oh, he eats with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners. He's of the same status. That's what they would say of Jesus. That was a big deal during this time. To eat with the wrong person was to associate yourself with them.

And yet, Boaz doesn't care at all about that. He invites Ruth to draw near to his table. He says, eat of the bread. You could even dip your piece in the vinegar. So she sat with Boaz's employees as equals.