GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
RUTH 4:11-12
11 All the people who were in the gate, and the elders, said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is entering your home like Rachel and like Leah, the two who built the house of Israel. May you be treated as a worthy man in Ephrathah! May you be famous in Bethlehem! 12 May the family the LORD gives you through this young woman be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”
Verse 11 begins by mentioning “all the people” even before the elders. This probably means that some time had passed, enough for the people to gather, and in my opinion we have here the beginning of Boaz and Ruth’s wedding. This is the contract part of the ceremony, the public declaration of their marriage. The announcement is met with approval by the community, and the people spoke various blessings upon the couple after saying as a group, “We are witnesses.”
As for the blessings, remember that Rachel and Leah were Jacob’s wives and the mothers of his sons. Those sons were the original children of Israel. The blessing is a prayer that Ruth would give Boaz many children and build up their family. The blessing echoes the one given to Rebekah when she went off to marry Isaac: “Our sister, be the mother of thousands upon tens of thousands. May your descendants posses the fate of those who hate them!” (Genesis 24:60). There is also a marriage blessing in the apocryphal book of Tobit, where a father says, “May the God of heaven prosper you, my children, before I die” (Tobit 10:11), and a mother says, “May the Lord of heaven bring you back safely, and let me see your children by my daughter Sarah, so I may rejoice before the Lord” (Tobit 10:12). Here, the women of Bethlehem bless Ruth by praying that God would make her like Rachel and Leah—and Tamar, too.
The reference to Tamar has a double significance. Judah and Tamar were the ancestors of Naomi and Boaz. But Tamar was also a woman who needed to have children via the levirate law (Genesis 38:8-11). In Tamar’s case, the law was flaunted by the brother who should have fulfilled his duty (he was put to death by God). So Tamar took matters into her own hands and got pregnant by disguising herself to Judah, who was her father-in-law. Despite the sinful flaws in that family, God used the situation to bring about his plan. Here, Ruth and Boaz have gone about things without taking matters into their own hands, allowing God to work things out for the good of his people.
Ephrathah was a word often attached to the town of Bethlehem. The name Ephrathah means “on the way to Ephrath” and was often used to distinguish this town from another Bethlehem in the north (Joshua 19:15). Incidentally, many NIV Bibles include a cross-reference at Joshua 19:15 with Genesis 35:19. This cross-reference appears to be in error, since the Bethlehem “on the way to Ephrath” is Bethlehem Ephrathah, a little south of Jerusalem, but the Bethlehem in Zebulun (Joshua 19:15) would be far away in the north, in Galilee. The error may have occurred because the town of Gath-Hepher (the home of the prophet Jonah) is also mentioned as being in the tribal territory of Zebulun, but the name is similar to the Philistine city of Gath, which lies just about due west from our more familiar town of Bethlehem Ephrathah.
Just as these people were witnesses to what they saw and could not deny, we, too are witnesses to what the Holy Spirit has shown us in God’s Word and proven in our hearts: Jesus Christ, the descendant of Ruth and King of kings, has paid for our sins. We are witnesses!
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota