Here we are, back at Pentecost. As a matter of fact, tomorrow will be Pentecost Sunday in the year 2020. Every time this feast day rolls around, I find myself wondering why the book of Ruth is read in synagogues around the world on Shavuot (Hebrew is Shavuot, Greek is Pentecost). I must admit, I always think, "I should study this out." But I never have. I just file it away in my 'One of these days' list. That is, until this year. I studied it out and got a very pleasant surprise, a surprise I am going to share with you now.
If you have read my stuff, here and elsewhere, for any length of time, you know that I often think God has shown me great favor with a deep revelation from His word, only to find out that everyone has known what I have just been shown all along. This insight from Ruth is no different. I have never heard what I'm about to share with you so I thought the insight was unique to me. It was not, well at least not most of it. I did get a little nugget specially for me.
I also want to say that I don't mind that God hasn't given me special insight. I appreciate that as I study out the revelations God gives me, He confirms them by leading me to teachers that give me greater insight that I would have gotten on my own and keep me from going off the rails. I am very thankful for the continuing revelation of God's Word.
This particular journey started, again, with the thought, "I wonder why the Jews read the book of Ruth at Pentecost. Of all the books or passages, why Ruth" I started mulling it around.
I get it from a Christian perspective. It's all about Ruth coming out of the World (Moab) to be the bride of the kinsman redeemer, a type of Christ. But the Jews don't have that whole 'redeemer of our souls' perspective.
I'm going to tell you the Sunday school version of the story. And to be honest, I hadn't taken it much deeper than that (except for that whole 'rapture' thing I have written about in another post). I mean, how much can be in the story? Well, there is a lot. Here goes.
There was a man from Israel called Elimelech who was married to a woman named Naomi. They had two sons named Mahlon and Chilion. They lived in Bethlehem during the time of the Judges.
There came a famine so Elimelech moved his family to Moab where there was food. Moab was the perpetual enemy of Israel, if not always in a physical sense, for sure in a spiritual sense. The Moabites didn't show hospitality to Israel on their journey to the Promised Land. But worse than that, it was the Moabites that had hired Balaam to curse Israel and when he couldn't curse them, the Moabites caused them to fall into the great sin of Baal Peor.
So, Elimelech's family lived in Moab for ten years, but somewhere along the line, after their two sons married Moabite girls, Elimelech died as did his two sons. This left these three women in a rather precarious predicament. In those days, it was pretty much a given that a woman needed a man, either her father, a husband, or a son.
Naomi hears the famine in her own land is over and decided to return home. It is likely her prospects for survival were better. Maybe a member of her family would take her in. Remember, the Jews were commanded to take care of widows and orphans.
The way I read it, her daughters-in-law just start packing to go with her. It was just assumed they were going. After all, they were family now.
Naomi spoke reason to them and told them to return to their families in Moab. She reminded them that she doesn't have another son in her for them to marry and would they really want to hang around long enough for them to grow up if she did. Apparently, Orpah hadn't thought it through because after she considered, she left for home.
Ruth, on the other hand, said her famous line, "Where you go, I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God."
They return to Bethlehem at harvest time. Ruth offers to go glean the fields of a relative of Naomi and Naomi gives Ruth her blessing. Ruth speaks to Boaz, the owner of the field, and asks permission to glean. Boaz had heard of Ruth's loyalty and made special provision for her and told his men to look out for her.
The story goes on, and in it we learn of the kinsman redeemer. The whole book is a foreshadowing of Christ, our redeemer, and the church. I'll leave off with the story her because the book of Ruth in the Bible is a short book, only four chapters, and is very easy to read and glean your own nuggets.
So, why do the Jews read from the book of Ruth at Shavuot? From what I can tell, there are a couple of reasons. The first is that it is set at the time of the harvest so it gives kind of a backstory to the feast.
The second reason is the biggie. Shavuot is the feast of the celebration of the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. I know you may be wondering how that relates to the story of a simple Moabite woman harvesting grain at the corners of a kinsman redeemer's fields, but it has everything to do with it.
You see, the Law was the ketubah, or the marriage contract, between God and Israel. And if we are being honest, there was actually a kind of wedding ceremony. Let's look at some parallels between the giving of the Law and a Jewish wedding. These are just a few. There are many more.
God proposes to the people:
Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. Exodus 19:5
The people accept God's proposal:
And all the people responded together, "We will do everything the Lord has commanded." So Moses brought the people's answer back to the Lord. Exodus 19:8
The people perform a mikvah or ritual bath like a Jewish bride does before her wedding:
Moses came down from the mountain to the people and warned the people to stay pure, and the washed their clothes. Exodus 19:14
God and the people join under a marriage canopy or chuppah:
Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. the smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently. Exodus 19: 17-18
So you could say that Shavuot or Pentecost is God's wedding anniversary to Israel, and it parallels the story of Ruth and Boaz.
None of this is the revelation God gave me about the book of Ruth though it did answer my question about the reading of Ruth at Pentecost. The cool thing I got was way more than what's at the surface of the story, more than you get from a cursory reading or Sunday school lesson. God gave me insight about this story around something called the levirate law. I never thought of it before, but the writer of the book and its readers certainly did.
According to Levirate Law, if a man dies before fathering children with his wife, his brother was to marry the widow and the first son of the union was to be the brother's. It was a big deal, big enough that God blessed Tamar who dressed up as a prostitute in Genesis 38 and basically forced Judah to carry out his obligation for levirate marriage.
We know from the story that this is on the minds of the women. This is what Naomi was talking about when she said:
Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? … And even if it were possible, and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters! Ruth 1:11-13 NLT
As I said, Orpah thought it through and no matter how much she loved Naomi, she realized Naomi was right. Naomi offered no prospects. The only logical hope was for her to return to her family and find a husband among the Moabites.
Ruth, however, insists on going with Naomi. It is clear from the text that Ruth loved Naomi, but I think there is a deeper meaning to the fact that Ruth goes with Naomi and I think it is because of levirate marriage. Some relative in Israel was going to give her a son, and that was that.
When we read the story, it is Ruth that asks Naomi if she can go to glean in the field of Boaz, not the other way around. Later on in the story Naomi tells Ruth what to do, but at the beginning, the whole thing is initiated by Ruth.
I think that Ruth believed in the God of Israel. Actually, she made a statement of faith when she said, "Your God shall be my God."
I also think she trusted God for a child. I think she thought, "I would rather be childless than to have a child outside of Israel."
I came to this conclusion after the revelation, "This is all about the promise of the Son! This is about the Seed of the Woman!!!" That was the 'just for me' nugget.
There it is folks. The Book of Ruth is all about the promise of the Messiah from the Seed of the Woman through the tribe of Judah. Ruth believed God for a son and went about it the right way. She came out of Moab, the world, and sought her redeemer.
Boaz praised her for her faithfulness and married her. She is listed in the linage of Jesus and was the great-grandmother of the great King David. And this all because she would rather take a chance on the God of Israel than to have a guaranteed family with her kin in Moab.
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