A Pirate Christian's Guide to the Old Testament Part 6 - Ruth

The Old Testament as Types and Shadows of Christ

Welcome to another installment of a Pirate Christian's Guide to Understanding the Old Testament. Now, in previous installments of this teaching, if you haven't already watched them, then I really strongly recommend that you do, because I am building today off of principles of biblical texts that I've shown you in the previous installments, and let me just kind of make reference to the fact that the New Testament itself teaches us that the Old Testament stories are types and shadows, and that the body, the substance, belongs to Jesus.

And so, over and again, you'll recognize that within the Old Testament, oftentimes there are stories of devastation and the need for God to intervene and to save, and there's these stories of salvation in the Bible that, when you look at that as somehow reflecting Jesus' love for us, because Jesus, he said, remember, he told the Jews, you diligently search the scriptures because you think that in them you have life, yet they are the very scriptures that testify about me.

These stories are about Jesus. And so, as a result of it, here we've got these stories of, like, devastation, of loss, and then the need for salvation, and God comes through and saves and delivers his people.

Ruth, Kinsman-Redeemer, and Levirate Marriage

So today, we're gonna be looking at the book of Ruth. Now, I liken the book of Ruth to, like, the ultimate chick flick in the Bible, and it is one of my favorite stories, which means, yeah, Roseboro likes chick flicks.

You're sitting there going, what's wrong with you, Roseboro? Now, I get it, but let me kind of work it out this way. Jesus warns us that because of the increase of wickedness in the last days, that the love of many would grow cold.

And so, I would note that when you get an account like the book of Ruth, where the love of Christ is exemplified in the character of Boaz, and I'll note this, that the line of the Messiah at the time of Ruth had come to Boaz and no further.

And so, I always like to point out that historically, when the the bloodline of Jesus comes to a certain point in history and hasn't moved beyond that, watch out. Because oftentimes, this is where in the types and the shadows, you're gonna see the the greatest parallels of Christ and his great love for us sinners.

Remember, the Scriptures say that God so loved the world. He loved the world. And he loved the world so that anyone who believed in his only begotten Son would not perish, but have eternal life. You see, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

And so, here in this biblical text, the story of Ruth, we have a picture of a fellow who becomes known as, and this is the biblical term for this, would be a kinsman redeemer. Uh-huh, a kinsman redeemer.

And I can think of a kinsman redeemer when it comes to Jesus, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Now, we'll do a little bit of work to kind of set up how this all works in the time of the Old Testament patriarchs, and I'll be in Deuteronomy 25 and explaining to you what is called leverite marriage, a marriage to a brother-in-law.

And brother-in-law can extend out to, you know, to further cousins and people like that. Brother is gonna have a more expansive meaning in this than a direct blood relation brother. And we'll note how this all works, and then at the very end, we'll kind of tie this all back into Christ, because ultimately this is a story about Jesus, and Boaz exemplifies the love that Christ has for his bride, the Church.

So with that, yeah, I know, chick flick, we get it. So a little bit of a note before we get started, I will be using my standard software to set up, and the ESV to set up, but I will be switching over to Logos to actually read out the story of Ruth, and the translators of the Net Bible, NET, have given me permission to use their entire translation of Ruth for this particular teaching, and so a shout out to the people at the Net Bible Translations, and all the information on how you can, you know, get to the Net Bible is down below in the description.

And if you want to, again, know the software I use, normally I use Accordance when I'm teaching here on our channel. Sometimes I will use a website, and then today I'll be using Accordance as well as Logos, so if you ask what I use, I have a lot of different Bible tools.

But all that being said, let's open up the desktop here and kind of set the ground rules here. Now, children of Israel, as they're coming into the Promised Land, we've got an issue, and that is that this is a biblical patriarchy, and it's the dudes who have the land rights and things like that.

But what happens if a woman doesn't have a husband, or her husband dies, and she doesn't have a son? How does an inheritance get passed on when there's been tragedy, and people have died early, young, unexpectedly, and things like that?

The answer to the question is found in the concept of leverite marriage, which is spelled out for us in Deuteronomy 25 in verse 5. This is the ESV. So if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger, her husband's brother, and here this could mean somebody, not just direct brother, it could mean a cousin, it's a little bit more expansive here, her husband's brother shall go into her and take her as his wife, and he shall perform the duty of a husband's brother to her, and the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother.

So here, you know, so the idea then is that the inheritance, land inheritance, is handed down from father to son, and if a son dies and he doesn't have any children, then his next nearest of kin, brother first and then cousins and kind of working down, that they must perform their duty here and take the woman to be a wife, even if he's already married.

So you know, this is kind of, in some cases, this would require polygamy, and in becoming that fellow's wife, the first son conceived and born as a result of that union is not considered the brother's son, it's considered the son of the dead brother.

So kind of an interesting thing how this works. Again, it's called leverite marriage. So the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel, and if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, my husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel, and he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.

So then the elders of the city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists saying, I do not wish to take her, then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off of his foot, spit in his face, and she shall answer and say, so shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house, and the name of his house shall be called in Israel, the house of him who has his sandal pulled off.

Yeah, now what's with the sandal? Well, remember that God told the children of Israel that whatever land their sandals trod on, that would be their land. And so in ancient Israel, coming out of the wilderness into the Promised Land, sandals were like the symbol, the symbol of the inheritance of land, and so now you kind of got the idea.

So this is the setup. So this is going to be important, especially in chapter 1, to understand what it is that Naomi is saying to her daughter's in-law, but also then to understand what is going on here, why is Ruth, you know, pursuing Boaz, and we'll explain all that as we go in all of this, again, type and shadow of Christ.

And so let's head over to Logos, and I'll be reading from the other side of the screen here, the way that the Logos works with its parallel, and again, this is the NET translation, the net translation.

Naomi, Ruth, and the Barley Harvest

And here's what it says, during the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land of Judah, so a man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live as a resident foreigner in the region of Moab, along with his wife and his two sons.

Now the man's name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi, and his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were of the clan of Ephrath from Bethlehem in Judah. Now see, immediately you should be sitting there going, man, this sounds a lot like it has something to do with Jesus, because Jesus was born where?

In Bethlehem. Yeah, so already you can kind of start to begin to see the connections. Oh, Bethlehem, Ephrath, you know, all you...yeah, the prophecies are starting, so they're kind of tingling here, and I'll tell you that the line of the Messiah has come to Boaz, we'll meet him shortly, and no further.

He does not, he has not born the next, he has not born the son to whom then the line of the Messiah would go to next, okay? That's kind of important. So the man's name was Elimelech, we got all of that.

Now they entered the region of Moab, settled there, sometime later Naomi's husband Elimelech died, so she and her two sons were left alone. So her sons married Moabite women. Now already we got some problems, and let me explain what the problems are here.

So here we've got Elimelech and Naomi from Bethlehem sojourning in Moab, you know, in order to survive, because the judgment of God has come on Israel during the time of the judges because of their idolatry, and they've technically worked themselves backwards.

Rather than being in the Promised Land, they're back out in the wilderness, and now we got a real problem here, and that is that Machlon and Chilion are marrying Moabite women, which they're not supposed to do.

And so complete devastation then ensues, and as a result of it, the women folk will be left, but the dudes are gone, and now how can they be restored? How can Naomi be restored? How can Ruth be, you know, taken care of when the men that are necessary for having their inheritance given back to them and for them to have it restored to them, all the men are gone at this point.

So this is a serious problem. So her sons marry, we got that. So they continue to live there about ten years, and so the Moabite woman, one was named Orpah, the other Ruth, and they continue to live in Moab for about ten years.

The Naomis' two sons Machlon and Chilion also died, so the woman was left alone, bereaved of her two children as well as her husband. This is like utter devastation. I mean, you are looking at abject poverty straight in the face, there's, I mean, this is just like utter devastation here.

And so she decided to return home from the region of Moab, accompanied by her daughter's in-law, because while she was living in Moab, she had heard that Yahweh had showed concern for his people, reversing the famine by providing abundant crops.

So now she's thinking, time to head back, but again, utter devastation. She doesn't, she's not even gonna have the right to to work her land at this point, and she's got no men to work it anyway. She's got to be restored.

She's got to be redeemed. She needs a kinsman-redeemer to work this all out, so we've got some problems here. But again, little gospel note, she had heard that the Lord had shown concern for his people, reversing the famine by providing abundant crops.

And think of it this way, that God in Christ has shown concern for us, and has provided for us in Christ the forgiveness of our sins, and the restoration of that which we have lost as a result of humanity's fall into sin.

So you note kind of the major themes that are at work in this text. Now as she and her two daughters-in-law began to leave the place where she had been, living to return to the land of Judah, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, listen to me, each of you should return to your mother's home.

May Yahweh show you the same kind of devotion that you have shown to your deceased husbands and to me, and may Yahweh enable each of you to find security in the home of a new husband. So then she kissed them goodbye, and they wept loudly, but they said to her, no, we will return with you to your people.

But Naomi replied, go back home, my daughters. There is no reason for you to return to Judah with me. I am no longer capable of giving birth to sons who might become your husbands. So you'll note here, she's got Deuteronomy 25 somewhat in mind here.

She knows they've lost the inheritance, they need a Redeemer, and the normal way in which this would work then is that she's thinking, you know, Naomi is thinking, I've got to marry a fellow, I've got to marry a kinsman-redeemer, and I need to bear a son or sons that I can give to my daughters.

But that it doesn't require her at this point, you know, beyond the childbearing years to do this, but we do need one of the wives to come back for a kinsman-redeemer to do his duty in love or right marriage, and we'll talk about that as we keep going.

So she says, go back, I'm no longer able to give birth, go back, my daughters, I am too old to get married again. Even if I thought that there was hope I could get married tonight and conceive sons, surely you would not want to wait until they were old enough to marry.

And so you'll note then that in the ancient world, kind of a note here, older women marrying younger men, older men marrying younger women, it's not an issue. It might be an issue for the younger person, but culturally, yeah, you know, marriage, there's some duties involved here, and so they didn't necessarily marry for love all the time.

You know, just saying, it's kind of a thing, so keep that in mind. So she says, surely you would not want to wait until they were old enough to marry, surely you would not remain unmarried all that time.

No, my daughters, you must not return with me, for my intense suffering is too much for you to bear, for the Lord is afflicting me. So she feels as if what she is going through is an affliction from the Lord Himself, and she's even despairing at this point.

So again, they wept loudly. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung tightly to her. And by the way, man, Ruth, her character is just amazing. I mean, this is an amazing woman, just, you know, impressive beyond belief here.

But Ruth clung tightly to her, so Naomi said, look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her God. Follow your sister-in-law back home. But Ruth replied, and note, this shows that she, this woman has faith.

Stop urging me to abandon you, for wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will become my people, your God will become my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried, and may Yahweh punish me severely if I do not keep my promise.

Only death will be able to separate me from you. When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to dissuade her. So the two of them journeyed together until they arrived in Bethlehem.

When they entered Bethlehem, the whole village was excited about their arrival. The women of the village said, can this be Naomi? But she replied to them, do not call me Naomi, call me Mara. Mara means bitter, because the Sovereign One has treated me very harshly.

I left here full, but Yahweh has caused me to return empty-handed. And so this picture of devastation, this then applies to us kind of in the greater types and shadows in this way, that in the Garden of Eden we had everything, we had plenty, but as a result of our fall into sin and our rebellion against God collectively, and each and every one of us are responsible for Adam's sin, that we have been basically left empty-handed, having to toil and to work and to suffer, and all of this is...so you can see the bigger themes, the salvation themes that are in play here.

So why do you call me Naomi, seeing that Yahweh has opposed me? The Sovereign One has caused me to suffer. So Naomi returned, accompanied by her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, who came back with her from the region of Moab.

Now they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Now a little bit of a note, and that is that there is a rule in Israel, and there's a standard mandatory welfare system set up, and the welfare system in Israel, according to the Mosaic Covenant, basically requires that when farmers harvest their field, they are not permitted to harvest all the way out to the edges of their field, and while they are harvesting, anything they drop, they cannot pick it up.

So those are called the gleanings, and the gleanings belong to the poor. The gleanings belong to those who do not have the ability to feed themselves, and so the idea then is that in order for them to receive the gleanings, they had to roll up their sleeves, and they had to go to work.

And so the poor would follow the harvesters, and they would harvest whatever was out on the edges of the field, the poor did, and whatever was dropped, they would be allowed, permitted to pick up. In fact, God forbade anything that dropped to be picked up by the farmers, it had to be left for the poor.

This was a means by which God provided for the poor in his time, in the time of Ruth Boaz the Patriarch, so you get the idea. So Naomi had a relative on her husband's side of the family named Boaz. We'll talk more about Boaz as far as his lineage in a little bit, but suffice it to say that Naomi's got an eye on him, and by relative, he or she's thinking loverite marriage.

He was a wealthy, prominent man from the clan of Elimelech, so close family relation. And one day, Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, let me go to the fields so I can gather grain behind whoever permits me to do so.

Naomi replied, you may go my daughter. So Ruth went and gathered grain in the fields behind the harvesters. Now she just happened to end up in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

You know, this is, again, this is just a great story. Yes, it's a flick-flick, and yes, I get a little watery-eyed, but again, the love of Christ here is so exemplified in the story. How can your heart not melt when you consider it, right?

We continue. Now at that very moment, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem, and he greeted the harvesters, may Yahweh be with you, and they replied, and may the Lord bless you. Boaz asked his servant in charge of the harvesters, to whom does this young woman belong?

And the servant in charge of the harvesters replied, she's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the region of Moab. She asked, may I follow the harvesters and gather grain among the bundles?

Again, great story. Sorry, I get choked up. I know, I know, I know, but it's so amazing. She's arrived. She's been working hard from this morning until now, except for sitting in the resting hut for a short time.

And so here you see that Ruth is, I mean, this is a hard-working woman. And note that Naomi is not working, and that Ruth is working hard for the both of them. And her selflessness, her character, her love for her mother-in-law Naomi, it just shines through.

This is a worthy woman. This is a godly woman, and it's just so amazing to me. So anyway, so he's caught the eye now of Boaz. He's got the story on her, and watch what he does. So Boaz said to Ruth, listen carefully my dear, do not leave to gather grain in another field.

You need not go beyond the limits of this field. You may go along beside my female workers. Take note of the field where the men are harvesting, and follow behind with the female workers. I will tell the men to leave you alone.

When you are thirsty, you may go to the water jars, drink some of the water the servants draw. So note, he gives her privileges even while she is poor and gleaning from his own harvest, and he's offered her his own protection.

Again, the kindness of Christ is exemplified here in Boaz here. It's amazing. So Ruth knelt before him with her forehead to the ground and said to him, why are you so kind and so attentive to me even though I am a foreigner?

And Boaz replied to her, I have been given a full report of all that you have done for your mother-in-law following the death of your husband, how you left your father and your mother as well as your homeland to come and live among a people you did not know previously.

May Yahweh reward your efforts. May your acts of kindness be repaid fully by Yahweh Elohim of Israel, from whom you have sought protection. And so you'll note here that Boaz notes that in reality the person whom Ruth has really sought the protection of is none other than God of Israel, the God who exists, the one true God who is.

And so she said, you really are being kind to me, sir, for you have reassured and encouraged me, your servant, even though I am not one of your servants. So later during the mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here and have some food.

Dip your bread in the vinegar. So she sat down beside the harvesters, and then he handed her some roasted grain, and she ate until she was full and saved the rest. And so you'll note then that other translations may actually translate vinegar here as a form of wine.

Bread and wine are present. I always like to point out the bread and wine show up in the scriptures, and when they do, pay attention. So you get little types and shadows, little tie-ins that you can connect back to the Lord's Supper, but all of that's just part of the mysteries and the symbols.

But note here that, you so much kindness to her, and that Ruth, when she is done eating, she saves the leftovers in order to bring them to Naomi. Again, look at her selflessness here. So when she got up to gather grain, Boaz told his male servants, let her gather grain even among the bundles, which he doesn't have to allow her to do.

Don't chase her off. Make sure you pull out ears of grain for her, and you drop them so that she can gather them up. Do not tell her not to. And so now he is actively seeking to meet her needs. So much so, he's telling his men, his servants, listen, drop some stuff.

Make sure she has things to pick up, and you can see them walking ahead of her going, whoops, oops, we lost some more. And by doing so, you know, Boaz is just so sweetly meeting her needs. And then don't tell her not to.

Whatever you do, don't chase her off, don't scold her, she's under my protection, and I'm giving you these orders. So she gathered grain in the field until evening, and when she threshed what she had gathered, it came to about 30 pounds of barley.

That's a hard day's work for a young woman without a husband who's taking care of not only herself, but also her mother-in-law. So she carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much grain she had gathered.

Then Ruth gave her the roasted grain she had saved from the mealtime, and her mother-in-law asked her, where did you gather grain today? Where did you work? May the one who took notice of you be rewarded.

So Ruth told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, she said, the name of the man whom I worked today is Boaz. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be rewarded. Hard for me to read. It's just so amazing.

May he be rewarded by Yahweh, because he has shown loyalty to the living on behalf of the dead. So then Naomi said to her, this man is a close relative of ours. He is our guardian. You could also translate guardian here, say he's one of our redeemers.

That's the way you could translate it. So Ruth the Moabite replied, even he told me you may go along beside my servants until they have finished gathering all my harvest. Naomi then said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, it is good, my daughter, that you should go out to work with his female servants.

That way you will not be harmed, which could happen in another field. Sad commentary there that, you know, in the ancient world, you know, that a woman could be harmed, assaulted, sexually, when gleaning.

Sad but true reality, and so you'll note here that Boaz, by saying you're under my protection, giving his servants directions not to touch her, don't have, you know, he is protecting her, not just in her work, but also making sure that she's not going to be violated and mistreated, and so sad commentary that Naomi says here shows us a reality of human history that existed all the way back then, and exists even to this day.

Anyway, so that you will not be harmed, which could happen in another field. So Ruth worked beside Boaz's female servants, gathering grain until the end of the barley harvest, as well as the wheat harvest.

After that, she stayed home with her mother-in-law, and so we don't know the exact, how many days, weeks, you know, she worked, but she worked all the way through the barley harvest, she worked all the way through the wheat harvest, and so, you know, she's, she was a regular feature in Boaz's fields during the times of these harvests, and she worked very hard in order to provide for herself, but also for Naomi.

Ruth Proposes to Boaz and the Threshing Floor

So at that time, Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, my daughter, I must find a home for you so you will be secure. Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, he is our close relative, and you can say that he is our redeemer, you know, it's, it's, he, close relative is referring back to this Leverite marriage concept.

So look, tonight he's winnowing barley at the threshing floor, so bathe yourself, rub on some perfumed oil, get dressed up, then go down to the threshing floor, but do not let the man know that you're there until he finishes his meal.

When he gets ready to go to sleep, take careful notice of the place where he lies down, then go and cover his legs and lie down beside him. He will tell you what you should do. So Ruth here, I don't know how to say this any other way, is that the plan is for Ruth to propose to Boaz.

I know, you're sitting there going, it's supposed to go the other way. Well, in this particular case, she's going to be invoking the fact that he is their redeemer, and, and, and so this is not, this is not a marriage out of love, although there's going to be great love in this marriage, and you can tell, but this, this is going to be a marriage and duty, and so you'll note then, I want you to consider Ruth's selflessness here.

I mean, as a young woman, she could marry just about anybody, but if she doesn't marry a redeemer, then the inheritance doesn't come back to Naomi, and she remains kind of out in the, in the cold, disinherited.

But if she marries a redeemer, which means that she's going to have to put away her free will on this, she's going to have to put away any kind of romantic, sentimental notions of marriage, and, and do this for a greater cause, in duty and in love for another person.

I mean, this just, again, speaks of her character. This is such a hard-working and selfless woman, and as we're going to find out, Boaz isn't exactly young, all right? So that's, that's kind of also part of what plays into, into the story, but she's going to dress nicely, put a little perfume on, dress up her, her hair, and dress up her, her clothes, and she's going to kind of stalk.

She's going to stalk Boaz, and when he lays down to sleep, she's going to uncover his legs so his feet are cold, and then, then he's going to tell her what to do. So Ruth replied, I will do everything that you have told me to do.

So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had instructed her to do. And I would note here, threshing floor oftentimes, you know, this is a picture of harvest, and just thematically, we're dealing with end times kind of stuff here, and so I would, I would remind everybody that in the end, we're, you know, the great thing that we're, we're looking forward to is the great marriage feast of the Lamb when the harvest is ended.

Yeah, that's the, you know, the end of the last day. So some eschatological, you know, colors and flourishes are painted into this amazing story. God, the Holy Spirit knew what he was doing in having this written, and it's just so beautiful, again, typifying of Christ.

So when Boaz had finished his meal, he was feeling satisfied. He lay down to sleep at the far end of the grain heap, then Ruth crept up quietly and uncovered his legs, and then lay down beside him, right?

So in the middle of the night, he was startled and turned over. Now he saw a woman lying beside him, and he said, who are you? And she said, I am Ruth, your servant. And no, she's gonna propose. Marry your servant, for you are a guardian.

You are a redeemer of the family interests. So he said, may you be rewarded by Yahweh, my dear. This act of devotion is greater than what you did before. You have not sought to marry one of the young men, whether rich or poor.

Now, my dear, don't worry. I intend to do for you everything that you propose. For everyone in the village knows that you are a worthy woman. It's absolutely just stunning. You know, he recognizes that she's doing this in devotion to Naomi, in devotion to her dead father-in-law and her dead husband.

And so he praises this woman's selflessness, her devotion, and he can't help but say yes to her marriage proposal. Yeah, I know, I know, it's great, it's awesome. Anyway, so don't worry, I intend to do for you everything that you propose.

For everyone in the village knows that you are a worthy woman. Now, yes, it is true that I am a guardian, and you can say redeemer here, he's a kinsman redeemer. But there is another guardian who is a closer relative than I am, and so he knows the Mosaic Covenant demands here.

And he doesn't have technically the first right of refusal, although their relationship is well on its way, and the proposal has been made by Ruth, and for him to fulfill his duties. But he notes that there's one who's actually in line before me, and so you'll note Boaz is going to do the right thing here by giving this fellow the opportunity to do his Leverite duty.

So there is another guardian who is a closer relative than I am. Remain here tonight, then in the morning, if he agrees to marry you, fine, let him do so. But if he does not want to do so, I promise, as surely as Yahweh lives, to marry you.

So sleep here until the morning. So she slept beside him until the morning. She woke up while it was still dark, and Boaz thought, no one must know that a woman had visited the threshing floor. Then he said, hold out the shawl that you are wearing and grip it tightly.

And she held it tightly, and he measured out about six pounds of barley into the shawl and put it on her shoulders. Then he went into town, and she returned to her mother-in-law. When Ruth returned to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, how did things turn out for you, my daughter Ruth?