Two Ways to Read This One, Week 9 Day 4, Ruth 3

Two Ways to Read This One, Week 9 Day 4, Ruth 3

There are a couple of different ways that you can read or interpret this passage.  I don’t think which interpretation you choose really changes what happens in the story.  But it might change how you feel about characters.

 So, I’ll be blunt, and you children may want to leave the room for a moment.  One school of thought is that Naomi is telling Ruth to sleep with Boaz.  And that is what Ruth does.  Basically, men would have gone to the threshing floor during the harvest.  Prostitutes would know this and would go there to sleep with the men.  Naomi is basically telling Ruth to take advantage of that social convention and catch herself a Boaz as it were.

The another possible interpretation is that Naomi is telling Ruth to quit mourning the death of her husband and to make sure that Boaz knows that she is now available for marriage.  The idea is that she should clean herself up, take off her clothes of mourning, put on her best everyday clothes, and meet with Boaz. She’s not presenting herself to him for sex, but instead she is demonstrating that she is now once again ready for marriage.  I lean towards this interpretation, but I’m really not enough of an Old Testament scholar to give a definitive statement.  Since there’s disagreement on how to interpret this part of the story, perhaps no one can give a definitive answer.

There seems to be two very different interpretations.  And honestly there are a few other possible interpretations too.  How can I say that it doesn’t really matter?

In the last chapter it seems that Boaz at least has a favorable view of Ruth.  He thinks well of her.  He provides for her physical safety and financial well being.  And perhaps he is interested in her.  But their customs for meeting and engagements are so different from ours, we need to be careful to not project our modern dating, engagement and marriage customs onto their story.  Their relationship is guided and ruled by the time and society in which they live, not ours.

When Ruth goes to Boaz he is clearly taken with her.  It seems as though she a fair bit younger than him.  He is flattered that she would present herself to him and not a younger man. And apparently, whatever did or didn’t happen that night, they find the relationship mutually agreeable.  And for that time this is a romance story worthy of note.  A man and women’s marriage would generally be arranged by the parents and not left to something as “silly” and romance and personal choice.  Or it would be decided by the rules of kinsman redeemer.  And under those rules Ruth should marry another man.  There is another man who is first in line to marry Ruth.  So Boaz has some work to do.  Boaz goes off to see if that man will let Boaz take his place.

In Old Testament terms this is a story of great romance, but it’s a bit hard to see that with the eyes or our culture.  Ruth chooses Boaz.  Boaz chooses Ruth.

Again with the choosing.   Apparently God is big on choosing.  How can a God who is sovereign, a God who knows everything that has happened and will happen, how can that God create a world where a widow and an older man can choose each other?  I don’t know. But here it is.  They get to choose, or at least they will get to choose if they figure out how to get around the guy who is first in line for Ruth’s hand in marriage.

Sometimes we don’t have a choice.  Sometimes we do.  Ruth and Boaz had a choice.  They choose each other going against the conventions of their day.  We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it all works out.

God, thank You that You give us choices.  Sometimes You let us chose even when society says that we shouldn’t.  Sometimes You insist, but not all the time.  That messes with my theology.  That messes with my preconceived notions of who and what You are.  But I’m glad.  I’m glad because You’ve left room for Ruth and Boaz to chose each other.   And You’ve given me the greatest choice, the ability to choose You.  Amen

Leonard