The Reward of Faithfulness | Sermon 07/14/2024

All right, if you would, please open your Bibles with me to the book of Ruth. Chapter 4. We're going to be in verses 1 through 17. This is our fifth sermon on Ruth. There's going to be one more next week, and we will have finished the series.

Verses 1 through 17 today. The title of the sermon today, church, is the reward of faithfulness. The reward of faithfulness. Faithfulness. So starting in verse 1 of the book of Ruth, chapter 4, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God.

Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the close relative of whom Boaz spoke was passing by. So he said, turn aside, friend. Sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. He took ten men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here.

So they sat down. Then he said to the closest relative, Naomi, who has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell the piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech. So I thought to inform you, saying, buy it before those who are sitting here and before the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if not, tell me that I may know. For there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am after you. And he said, I will redeem it. Thus ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

Let's pray once more as a church. God, we come before you today with open hands, ready to receive, hands that recognize none of what we need comes from ourselves. None of what we need comes ultimately from our own hands, our own spirit, Lord.

We are vessels. We are jars of clay with treasure hidden in them. You put that treasure in us, Lord. We need you, God, at this moment. We need you to fill us up. We need you to fill us up that we may pour out back to you, that we may pour out to the saints, that we may pour out in our communities.

God, we need you to teach us your word. We need you to renew our minds in your word. We need you, Lord, to help discern it and know it and live it. And God, I pray that today as we go through Ruth chapter 4, we would see how, God, you are so mightily pleased by faithfulness.

You are so mightily pleased and glorified by when the saints are faithful. But we know, Lord, it takes you. It takes all of you. And so, Lord, we thank you for this moment. Please be with us. Pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. You know, Church, I'll never forget when I first met my wife. We had only known each other for like maybe a month or two, and I remember calling my father after that 30 to 60 days, and I said, Dad, I think I found my wife.

I know I've never had a girlfriend or anything serious like that, but it's like I just know this is my wife. And I thought my dad was going to respond, scolding me and telling me, look, you're nuts. You know, how could you know this is your wife only after such a short time?

And you're only 23 years old. Just wait, Wade. But I was shocked. I'm telling you, this was probably one of the most shocking moments for me, knowing my dad. Very calmly and very slowly and gently, he said, Wade, that's exactly how I felt when I met your mother, and we've been together ever since, and they've been married over 40 years now, and I couldn't believe it.

He said, you should probably marry this woman. I'm telling you, I was so shocked by this, and we bonded in that way that day in a way that means so much to me even to this moment. So I went to Sarah's parents, and I asked them if they'd be willing to have lunch with me, and I have something to ask them, of course.

They consented. Okay, let's meet. I think they knew what was coming. Well, as you can imagine, it was really awkward, you know. When you get lunch with someone's parents, and you're about to ask them if you can marry their daughter, it's just like, how's the weather, right?

It's pretty hot. It's Phoenix, you know. It was really hard to do. I was nervous, and I finally mustered up the courage, and I said, you know, I know it's been a really short time since I've known your daughter.

It's been a short time since you've known me, but it's like I know she's my wife, and I know I'll take great care of her. I know that I want to be with her forever. Will you let me marry your daughter, Sarah?

Her parents kind of smiled, and they looked at each other with that smile, but then they turned back to me, and when they turned back to me, their smiles faded, and they were like, no, we don't think you're ready.

How are you going to do this? How are you going to do that? How are you going to do this? They just like blasted me with all these obstacles, and in my mind, there was nothing. There was nothing and no one that could keep me from marrying this woman.

I didn't even have a plan B. I didn't think about how I'd have to argue my case. I thought they'd see I was such a great lad, you know, and please rescue our daughter. Yeah, take her from us, and they didn't.

That blew me away. You know, it was a gut punch. You know, I was full of so much hope like Ruth and Boaz as they were coming up with their idea at the threshing floor, right, and I imagine that that gut feeling that I felt was something similar to what Ruth and Boaz remembered when they realized although he was a Goel, he was a Goel, a kinsman redeemer.

He wasn't the Goel. He wasn't the one with the highest rights as a kinsman redeemer, okay? So I told you they must have laid down to sleep at that threshing floor that night. Their minds were racing. What's going to happen?

Why would God bring us together over this barley and wheat harvest just to bring us apart? Why? She's maybe thinking, Yahweh, you brought me to this man's field. You brought me from my home. You brought me to Moab.

You're my God now. These are my people. What if he won't be my husband? What if I have to go with this other kinsman redeemer? Boaz is probably thinking something similar. Yahweh, Lord, I thought this was to be my wife.

She came to me now. She came all the way. She sacrificed so much. She's come from Moab. She's come to help my kin, Naomi, and out of all the fields, Lord, that she could have gone to, she came to my field.

She came to my field. But just like I made my case, and you could ask me after church what that was like, just like how I made my case to my wife's parents, God helped Boaz with a plan. Something was going on in his mind.

So let's see how this concludes for this woman of excellence, this man of excellence. Will God's has said his kindness touch them one more time at least. Go to verse one. Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the close relative of whom Boaz spoke was passing by.

So he said, turn aside, friend, sit down here, and he turned aside and sat down. This is the same morning that Boaz and Ruth woke up. She departed early from the threshing floor so that no one would think anything or see anything.

He wanted to, you know, guard her honor, guard her reputation, and so this is the same morning. This is the same morning in which Ruth went home and Naomi was like, don't worry, a man like this is going to figure it out before the end of the day.

And this is the same exact day. So Boaz went up to the gate. He went to the place in town where town gatherings took place. The gate is where administrative and judicial proceedings occurred, okay. That's how important the gate was.

This isn't a simple friendly conversation at the main entrance of Bethlehem, but Boaz is conducting official court proceeding right here, okay. Normally people go in and out of the gate all day, but when a man sits down at the gate, that means he's waiting for someone, and he's going to carry out an official proceeding.

So Boaz sits down. He's waiting for this man to conduct his business, and so just in the previous chapter, as Boaz made his oath, as the Lord lives, we will do this. We'll figure it out. We can see the hand of God in this again.

Instead of passing by and Boaz not seeing him, instead of the man staying at his property out by the fields because it's the threshing time, instead of the man visiting a neighbor at another field far away from there, miles away from there, instead of him being out of town, the man that Boaz needs, the man out of everyone that he needs is walking by.

Now we've seen that names have meaning in the book of Ruth. I told you at the beginning how Elimelech's name means God is king, but it was reversed through his actions. Naomi's name means lovely or sweet or kind, but she said call me Marah, call me bitter.

Orpah means neck. In Hebrew, some believe that that name was given to her as she turned her neck on her mother and left and went back to Moab. Ruth's name likely means refreshing or satiating, while some believe it to be a companion or friend or neighbor.

And Boaz means the Lord is my strength. But interestingly, in a book where names mean so much, the Hebrew word here that says friend in our translation is just a Hebrew idiom to essentially say the man named so-and-so.

Hey, so-and-so friend, turn aside here. And the narrator's doing that to make him anonymous. Hey, so-and-so, you know, you really don't care about someone very well when you're like, yeah, who's that guy again, so-and-so, you know, because it's a respectful thing.

It's a thing of courtesy to remember people's names, am I right? But the narrator here is purposefully trying to get us to not root for this man. He won't even name him. We don't want to root for this higher Goel.

We don't even really want to grant him our respect, okay? We've put our stock in Ruth. We've put our stock in Boaz and Naomi, not some nameless guy. But again, this man is a higher-up Goel. He's a higher-up kinsman redeemer for Naomi.

And so he turns aside and he sits down with Boaz. And so now that Boaz obtained the man that he needs to make an agreement, he will not delay. He goes out. He's planned this in his mind. It says in verse 2, he took 10 men of the elders of the city and told them, sit down here.

So they sat down. And these 10 men, these elders in Bethlehem will adjudicate as witnesses, okay? This is part of what makes this whole proceeding legally binding. So now that all the people are in place, that he's got the guy, he's got the 10 elders, he's at the gate, Boaz starts his speech.

Look at verses 3 and 4. Then he said to the closest relative, Naomi who has come from the land of Moab has to sell the piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech. So I thought to inform you saying, buy it before those who are sitting here and before the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if not, tell me that I may know. For there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am after you. And the man said, I will redeem it. So what's happening here? Boaz brings up Elimelech, he brings up Naomi, he brings up the land, and he brings up what is a possible sale of that land.

The question is, was Naomi actually trying to sell her husband's land? Well, Numbers 27 verses 8 through 11 says that she cannot, she cannot sell the land. It says in Numbers 27, further you shall speak to the sons of Israel saying, if a man dies, that's Elimelech, and has no son, his sons are dead, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter, blood-related daughter.

If the man has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. The uncles get it. But if he has no brothers, you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. If his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his own family, and he shall possess it, and it shall be a statutory ordinance to the sons of Israel, just as the Lord commanded.

So in the end, if you don't have anyone, you give it to the nearest relative, and you're like, great, well, isn't Naomi the nearest blood relative? Well, technically she is, but in Hebrew law, she wasn't considered the one able to receive the land.

This is one of the reasons life was so hard for widows in Israel, because if everyone around her died, she couldn't even get the land of her husband. Widows were precluded from inheriting the husband's land as a direct owner, and so what we can imagine is that when Elimelech's family was facing starvation at the beginning of the story, he probably sold his portion of land to an outsider for money, okay?

He didn't sell it to a kinsman, he sold it to an outsider, and when that ran out, when that money from the sale of Elimelech's land ran out, he could have done one of two things. In Israel, when you were out of land, when you sold your land and you ran out of money, you either sold you and your family into a six-year slavery contract with another Israelite, and it's not like the chattel slavery of America where, you know, you were beaten and, you know, just taken just the most worst conditions.

You did, you were basically an employee. You were a servant in their home, different things like that, but there are laws that Israelite brethren were to take care of those who had to sell themselves into slavery to you, so he could have done that, or he was to flee, which we know he fleed, right?

He fleed to Moab, so when Naomi came back to Bethlehem 10 years later after Moab, she had the right, and this is where she has, these are her rights, so what does she get to do? If she can't get the land directly, if she can't own it directly, she has the right to petition a relative to acquire the land back from the outsider who bought it.

Now, she wouldn't be able to own it if she did that, but in the process, anything that her family member did on it when it was given back to a kinsman, if they grew wheat, if they grew grapes, if they grew anything and they made proceeds and profit from it, then Naomi could collect a portion from that profit, okay?

So it's advantageous for this woman to come home and basically find a relative who will acquire her husband's land, because when they produce from it, she'll get money, she'll get proceeds from it, okay?

And that's why I don't love this translation in the NASB, it says the language is sell and buy, that's not actually it. Replace those words with acquire. She could acquire the land, a kinsman could acquire the land, it wasn't a selling and purchasing condition, okay?

It wasn't hers to sell, and that's also why when they got back to town, Ruth needed to glean, because at that time, they had no goel, they had no redeemer to acquire the land and gain her provision from its produce, but what we also know is that Naomi, in the story, hasn't necessarily asked for this.

She hasn't asked for this. Boaz is working in her favor. Boaz knows the law, he knows what would help Naomi, and he takes it upon himself to say, we, either you or me, should acquire the land back and produce wheat or whatever in it and give some to Naomi.

We should do the right thing, we should take care of her. He doesn't want her to relinquish her connection to this land, because land is a gift from God in the Bible. Land is a gift from God in the Bible, that's why, especially when they, when you see this socialist regime right now, what's happening?

They want no one in America to own land, they want no one to own a house, they want to make whole cities, 10 -20 minute cities where you rent everything, you don't own anything, but in the Bible, having land is considered being blessed by God, okay?

So it needs to stay in the family, and he knows after the previous night with Ruth that it's not right that this land be used for an outsider, it should be used to help these women. You see, it's like a man, this happens to women, a man who builds up a 401k, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he dies, and imagine his wife doesn't have access to the 401k funds, right?

Someone else takes it, or it's locked up in some legal process, that would be horrible, right? And so Naomi needs an advocate to petition on her behalf, and Boaz is that man. So in verse 4, he literally says, I thought to open your ears to the news, to his kinsmen, he says, acquire the land, and he says, acquire it in front of all these witnesses and elders, be the goel for this woman, but if not, I will be.

You are the highest redeemer, and I am just after you, and honestly, this guy's probably thinking, what a great deal, this relative. To this man, he must be hearing, hey, the land of Elimelech can be yours, and there aren't any sons or daughters who can take it, it'd be absorbed by you, and so this man is thinking, wow, all right, that's a pretty good deal.

By now, the text shows that more people started watching, besides the ten elders, a group of people start gathering as they're going through the proceedings, and I wonder if Naomi and Ruth came too, you know, I really wonder that.

If the town started forming around Boaz and the elders, I wonder if Naomi and Ruth came up as well, and if they did, if Ruth was there, her heart must have sunk at the words of the relative when he said, I will redeem, I will redeem.

I'm sure both you and I are wondering, as well as Ruth, if she was there, she's wondering, why isn't she mentioned in the deal? Remember at the threshing floor the night before, he brought her up, and apparently she's going to be part of the proceeding, so what does she have to do with this arrangement, okay?

So back to the deal, we'll see that. The relative wants the land, Leviticus 25, 25 says, if a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor that he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.

But does this man, does he only care about land? Does he care about these women? Does he care about his kin? Does he care about Naomi? I'm sure Boaz expected the man to want the land, but there's a catch.

It's time for someone else's heart to sink. This is all part of Boaz's plan. This is, this is a really amazing plan. Look at verse five. Then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance.

There's a complication here, okay? This is not some simple transaction that this man thought it was going to be. The day you acquire the land is the day you acquire the widow, Ruth the Moabitess, Elimelech's son, has a wife that has remained in the picture.

This is something that he would not foresee. Now God has already softened Boaz's heart toward Ruth. It doesn't matter to him that she's from Moab. She is, as he said, a woman of excellence. That's rare to find.

That's hard to find. But to this relative, hearing her emphasized as a Moabitess in front of everyone and all his peers could make him possibly doubt his pronouncement of, I will redeem. Oh, wait, what?

Ruth, the Moabitess, comes with the land? And notice that Boaz doesn't call her an available maid, but he calls her the widow of a dead man. The widow of a dead man. He does not devalue her. Boaz isn't trying to defame his future wife.

He's being wise with his words. Hey, if you redeem the land, you're going to need to take the widow of this man. She's from Moab. So it's kind of like, okay, what should I do? What should I do? But what's interesting here is I told you last week that the Goel, the kinsman-redeemer, his functions are separate from what's called leveret marriage.

Leveret marriage is in the Old Testament. That's raising up offspring for a dead relative, and those are different things. Being a Goel and being the one, the brother, to raise up offspring for your dead brother, that's leveret marriage.

Those are two different things, but it seems like Boaz is bringing them together here. Okay, if you get the land, you must raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance. You must preserve the bloodline, but preserving the bloodline technically would be preserving the bloodline through Naomi.

Naomi, not Ruth, not the young maiden Ruth. It would be through Naomi, but Naomi is beyond childbearing. So according to one commentator, when Boaz says raise up the name, name here in the Hebrew is more used for Elimelech's honor and reputation, not his actual bloodline.

In the ancient world, one of the most fearful curses a person could invoke on another was, may your seed perish and your name rot. May your seed perish and your name rot. And technically, there's nothing in the prescription concerning leveret marriage in Deuteronomy 25 that obligated either Boaz or the relative to marry Ruth and establish the name of Elimelech or Malon.

Okay, you see, in leveret marriage, it had the immediate brother in mind, not a kinsman, not a cousin, not someone far off. Leveret marriage is about brothers. The next brother in the line will take his older brother's wife and raise up children under his brother's name.

That's what it is. So these men don't even have to do this. They don't even have to marry Ruth. Okay. By the way, you see the biggest example of leveret marriage in Genesis 38 with Er, Judah's son Er and Onan with Tamar.

We'll go over that shortly. So when Boaz challenged the relative, raise up the name of the deceased, he was not appealing to the letter of the law. He couldn't. Oh, you're going to have to raise up the name of the deceased and he's not appealing to the law as it's stated.

He's appealing to what he believes is the spirit of the law. What's the right thing to do here, right? Isn't it right to help this woman? Isn't it right to give this woman a future? So these men have no moral obligation to do it technically, but do they have a moral obligation because of who God is and what the right thing is?

Okay. Boaz was prepared to go beyond the call of Goel and he was even willing to go beyond the call of leveret marriage in Deuteronomy 25. He'll go beyond the call of Goel. He'll go beyond leveret marriage.

He'll do what he thinks God would do, what would honor God. Was this other man willing to do that? You see, what is it to gain land? What is it to gain land if the people who deserve that land are dying in poverty and are not taken care of?

Could you imagine this man gets this land and Naomi's going to get some proceeds, but Ruth rots and dies on the side of the road, begging for alms in Bethlehem. Is that right? That's not right. And so we see in this moment that even the way that Ruth is regarded, she's no longer considered an outsider.

She's considered a woman of excellence. She's considered in some ways an Israelite and she should be afforded the rights and privileges and protections of other Israelites. And it's astonishing the fact that they treat this woman this way, knowing the history of the Moabites, knowing how much that they fought, knowing how much they hate their gods, but they treat this woman like another Israelite, like she's part of them.

Go to verse six. So in front of all the ten elders and the growing number of witnesses, the closest relative said, I cannot redeem it for myself because I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Redeem it for yourself, you may have the right of redemption, for I cannot redeem it.

So with learning Ruth came with the land transfer, the relative decided that he couldn't redeem. He forfeits his rights as Goel, the kinsman redeemer, and it seems clear in the text that this man could have taken several paths in front of him.

One path would have been to simply do what Boaz said, be the Goel, acquire the land, help out Naomi, and marry Ruth. That could have been one route for this man, but he doesn't do it. He's got too much at stake, and this could ruin his reputation in his mind, right?

Because maybe he's too fearful about what people would think if he married a Moabite woman. The other path that he could have taken is to state that he will be the Goel, he will acquire the land, but then he could go back on his word to marry Ruth.

He could have done that. This could also ruin his reputation as someone who is showing the witnesses in front of him what he intends to do, okay? And the third path that he could have taken would have been to challenge Boaz with the law of God, and he could have told him, look Boaz, you're asking something that is not expected of me.

This is no leverant marriage. I don't have to marry anyone, Boaz. The word of God says, the law says that I only have the rights of redemption. I don't have to marry anyone, and he could have argued that, but he didn't.

Again, maybe he's worried about what people will think, okay? It's possible that if he didn't do that, Boaz could have still married Ruth, but eventually, if that were the case and Boaz was still taking care of Naomi, then Naomi may be able to acquire the land from this relative, and it's just, it wouldn't be a clean deal.

Things wouldn't work out that way, okay? But chiefly, what I believe is this man's worried about his reputation. So instead of these three paths, he goes down the one that he believes saves his neck the most, gives him the least trouble.

He forfeits his rights to everything. The relative said taking that first route would jeopardize his own inheritance. Did you see that? This would jeopardize his inheritance. We don't know exactly how, but he says so.

It's possible he believes to maintain the land and to care for Naomi was just too high. Cost was too high. Maybe he thought that even if he did marry Ruth, that she's getting older. This woman hasn't borne any children for 10 years in Moab.

She's been 10 years. She's had no children. What if this woman is permanently barren? What if she can't have kids? Then how would I be taken care of later in life if I don't have children to raise for myself?

So Boaz sees, though, that yeah, she doesn't have children. Yeah, she may be barren. I may never have a son who shares my name, but Boaz doesn't care. He's willing to take care of them. He's willing to take this woman, no matter the cost, doing the righteous thing is most worth it to him.

And so this man says, redeem yourself. Redeem it yourself. I give my rights to you. I'm done. Go to verses 7 and 8. Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning the redemption and the exchange of land to confirm any matter.

A man removed his sandal and gave it to another. And this was the manner of attestation in Israel. So the closest relative said to Boaz, buy it for yourself. And he removed his sandal. So what this custom established for Boaz and the relative, as well as the elders and the witnesses, is a transfer of ownership or rights, okay?

So what they would do is, the man who was forfeiting his rights is, he would take off his sandal, and in front of everyone, he would pass the sandal over to Boaz saying, it's yours. What was mine, what was my right, is now your right.

And the sandal would be passed in front of everyone. And that, at that moment, he's legally making a statement. I'm not in this. I'm done. He hands his sandal over to Boaz. It's legally over. This man, in front of everyone, has forfeited his rights to the land, to Naomi, to Ruth, to everything, okay?

Go to verses 9 and 10. Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses today that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech and all that belong to Kilion and Malon.

Moreover, I have acquired Ruth and Moabitess, the widow of Malon, to be my wife, in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased will not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birthplace.

You are witnesses today. So the court proceedings at Bethlehem are concluded. The responsibility of Elimelech's estate and the care of these two women have passed into Boaz's hands. The man whom scripture called so-and-so, the relative, the nameless man, he's passed out of memory.

His name wasn't even put in the Bible, and now he'll never be remembered. Proverbs 10 .7 says, the memory or the name of the righteous is blessed, but men who don't do what is right are often forgotten.

That's true. Now, despite mentioning that he has acquired the land of Elimelech from Naomi today, we can all see what Boaz really wanted. What does he emphasize in this second speech? He says, I have acquired Ruth and Moabitess to be my wife.

This woman will be my wife. And he uses the name that most people recognize her by. Everyone in the city has been calling her Ruth and Moabitess. Have you heard of Ruth and Moabitess? Have you heard that she left her family and her town and her gods, and she came to take care of Naomi?

And people have known her this way. And so he states her just like that. He's not concerned about her being from Moab. All that she is, all that she's done, all that she will do, he wants her. Ruth is my wife.

Her nationality, who she used to be, is no obstacle. Doesn't matter where she come from, she came from, who is she now? Who is she now? That's what matters to Boaz, okay? Proverbs 12 .4 says, a wife of excellence, which is the title she was given, a wife of excellence is the crown of her husband.

And it's not just her reputation among the people that Boaz cherishes, but every single precious moment that he's shared with her. And he now knows that he's going to share more moments with her, more time with her.

He didn't just acquire a woman. He didn't just buy a woman. And that's how some people would speak. He didn't just acquire a woman. He says, she will be my wife. That is such a difference. That is such a difference in the Old Testament.

That shows us how much he already cherishes this woman. And in a way, Boaz restores Elimelech and Malon and Kilion. They were faithless, they were disobedient, but at least now their names will not be cut off from among the brethren.

They are remembered. Today, their names are spoken of. Why? Why are they remembered? Because of Boaz and because of God. Boaz is honoring men who don't really deserve to be honored, but he's selfless, he's gracious.

Now, if Naomi and Ruth were present here at the gates, if they were watching all of this, they must have tried their best to restrain their joy, right? You could imagine when the man said, you redeem it, I won't do it.

You know, Ruth and Naomi are like, oh my goodness, yes, praise the Lord, right? They're so excited. And then, you know, he says, I have acquired the land from Naomi. I've acquired this woman. Then he says, Ruth will be my wife.

I wonder if she was just like, yes, you know, praise the Lord. Wonderful moment. They wouldn't want to embarrass the relative. Honor and dishonor was a real thing back then, but I can imagine that they're absolutely elated at the outcome.

God has not withheld his kindness from them, not at all, not at all. So let's see how everyone responds. Go to verses 11 and 12. All the people who were in the court and the elders said, we are witnesses.

May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel, and may you achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem. Moreover, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, through the offspring, which the Lord will give you by this young woman.

So Boaz says in his speech, you are all witnesses today. And in one mighty chorus, everyone, the elders and the people at the gate, literally say one word in the Hebrew and they say, witnesses, witnesses.

And that was the end of the proceeding. We've seen what has been declared today. We honor it. And they go beyond that. They go beyond the legal necessity of why they were there. They go to a blessing.

Okay. God has touched the hearts of the people in Bethlehem with this situation. They offer more than legal obligations. They give a benediction of sorts. That means bene, that is good diction word. They give a good word, a blessing.

May Yahweh make the woman who will be carried over the threshold of your door. May this woman who is carried into your home be as blessed as the matriarchs of Israel. This is an incredible blessing. This is unheard of to a Moabite woman.

To a Moabite woman who was considered less than a slave. May she be as blessed as Rachel and Leah, the matriarchs of Israel. In one way, there's an acknowledgement that God uses women of character over other women who are related by blood.

Rachel and Leah were daughters of Laban, if you remember, who was an Aramean. Laban was an Aramean and they were brought into the Hebrew family, Abraham's offspring. In another way, by giving this blessing, Rachel and Leah are invoked under the Lord's name because of their fertility.

Their fertility. The millions of people that make up the whole house of Israel come from these women as well as their two maids, of course. It's saying, may Boaz and Ruth build their house. May the Lord build the house.

Otherwise they labor in vain who build it. May the Lord build their house and build the house of Ruth and Boaz because building a house is less about bricks or timber or mortar and it's more about children, they're saying.

May God build your house. May he give you many children. Then they pray that Boaz achieves prosperity as well as his name is called. It says, may your name be called in Bethlehem. That is to say, may his name be remembered forever.

That even after he dies, may many know of the name Boaz who is compassionate. His deeds are compassionate and glorious. But then they bring up Genesis chapter 38. These people bring up Tamar. They bring up Judah.

They bring up Perez. If you remember, who is Judah? Judah is one of the 12 sons of the 12 tribes of Israel. Judah had a son that was named Er and he erred. It's always the joke. It's a terrible joke. His name is Er and he erred.

He had another son named Onan. Er took a wife named Tamar and it says in Genesis 38 that Er was evil in the sight of the Lord. It says that the Lord took his life, killed Er, took his life. Then Judah, the father of Er and the father of Onan, orders his second son, the next son, to perform leverant marriage according to the law to raise up offspring to the name of his brother Er.

But Onan, it says that Onan was more concerned about his own name. He was more concerned about his own future offspring, his own future inheritance. He did not want to raise up children under the name of his brother.