Study

The Book of Ruth

Grant Partrick

5 Days

The Next Right Thing

Day 4

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God is hardly mentioned in the book of Ruth, yet He is at work in every verse. This is true of days two and three, and it is no different for day four as we focus on Ruth gleaning in the field and meeting Boaz for the first time.

We read a story filled with promises from the Lord that you may mistake for coincidences. As we study these following verses together, we recognize God’s sovereignty in the story of Ruth and Boaz and see that character and integrity matter to God.

Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”

Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”

“The Lord bless you!” they answered.

Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”

The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

Ruth 2:1-12

Summary

It “just so happened.” Ruth chooses to glean in a field that happens to belong to Boaz. Boaz is a close relative of her father-in-law, making him a kinsman-redeemer. And on that same day, Boaz shows up and sees Ruth.

There are no coincidences in the economy of God.

On day two, we noted that Bethlehem translated as “House of Bread.” Later, the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, his name meaning “Bread of Life.” Where some may see coincidence, the believer can recognize God’s sovereign hand at work. God was foreshadowing what was to come: that one day, the tiny town of Bethlehem would become the home of Jesus.

The city you were born in, the family you grew up in, the schools you attended, and the jobs you took are all minor details of God’s bigger story for your life. Romans 8:28 reads, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

This can bring hope to the darkest places for us: even if we can’t hear Him speaking or don’t understand why we’re facing the circumstances, we can trust that He is working. We don’t have to know every detail of the plan to trust every word of the promise.

What's Next?

Ruth and Boaz were obedient and known to have good character and integrity, two things that matter a great deal to God. Read Proverbs 12:22.

How has reading this verse convicted you about how you live your life? Would you consider yourself to have good character and integrity?

Scripture References

10We’ll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred from a thousand, and a thousand from ten thousand, to get provisions for the army. Then, when the army arrives at Gibeah in Benjamin, it can give them what they deserve for this outrageous act done in Israel.”

Blessings for Obedience

1If you fully obey the

Lord

your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the

Lord

your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the

Lord

your God:

3You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

4The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

5Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

6You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

7The

Lord

will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

8The

Lord

will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The

Lord

your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

9The

Lord

will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the

Lord

your God and walk in obedience to him. 10Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the

Lord

, and they will fear you. 11The

Lord

will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.

12The

Lord

will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. 13The

Lord

will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the

Lord

your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. 14Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

Curses for Disobedience

15However, if you do not obey the

Lord

your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

16You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

19You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

20The

Lord

will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.21The

Lord

will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22The

Lord

will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24The

Lord

will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

25The

Lord

will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27The

Lord

will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28The

Lord

will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

30You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34The sights you see will drive you mad. 35The

Lord

will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

36The

Lord

will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the

Lord

will drive you.

38You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

43The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail.

45All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the

Lord

your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. 46They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. 47Because you did not serve the

Lord

your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the

Lord

sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

49The

Lord

will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. 51They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. 52They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the

Lord

your God is giving you.

53Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the

Lord

your God has given you. 54Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. 56The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter 57the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.

58If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the

Lord

your God— 59the

Lord

will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61The

Lord

will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the

Lord

your God. 63Just as it pleased the

Lord

to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

64Then the

Lord

will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the

Lord

will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see. 68The

Lord

will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.

2The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

3Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.

4They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,

5both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

6When Naomi heard in Moab that the

Lord

had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.

7With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

8Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the

Lord

show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me.

9May the

Lord

grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

10and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

11But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?

12Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—

13would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the

Lord

’s hand has turned against me!”

14At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

15“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

16But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

17Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the

Lord

deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

18When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Ruth and Boaz at the Threshing Floor

1One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for. 2Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. 3Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. 4When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”

5“I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered. 6So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.

7When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down. 8In the middle of the night something startled the man; he turned—and there was a woman lying at his feet!

9“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.”

10“The

Lord

bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character. 12Although it is true that I am a guardian-redeemer of our family, there is another who is more closely related than I. 13Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to do his duty as your guardian-redeemer, good; let him redeem you. But if he is not willing, as surely as the

Lord

lives I will do it. Lie here until morning.”

14So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized; and he said, “No one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor.”

15He also said, “Bring me the shawl you are wearing and hold it out.” When she did so, he poured into it six measures of barley and placed the bundle on her. Then he went back to town.

16When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did it go, my daughter?”

Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her 17and added, “He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’ ”

18Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”

14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—

15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Grant Partrick

Grant Partrick is a part of the team at Passion City Church and serves as the Cumberland Location Pastor. He is passionate about inspiring people to live their lives for what matters most. Grant and his wife, Maggie, live in Marietta, Georgia with their daughters, Mercy, Ember, and Charleigh. He is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary where he earned a masters of theology degree.