GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
RUTH 4:16-17
16 Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, “Naomi has a son.” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Sometimes there is confusion about the relationship of a child born in a levirate marriage and the parents who are involved. Did baby Obed become Naomi’s baby to raise? Did Ruth just give up her son because that’s what was expected of her? Was laying the baby in her lap her way of showing that she had adopted him?
No. Ruth’s baby belonged to Ruth. But Naomi was going to take an active role in helping to raise the baby—as any grandmother would in their culture. Naomi could not nurse the baby, but she could help a great deal, carrying him and caring for him, the way Moses describes himself acting like a nurse for all Israel, carrying them in his arms to the Promised Land (Numbers 11:12).
Although the King James Version has “she nursed him” at the end of verse 16, the NIV and other translations more properly say “she cared for him.” In Exodus 2:9, Moses’ mother is given the baby to breastfeed, and there we are told “she nursed him.” The Hebrew term for breastfeeding is nuk, from which I suppose we get our present term ‘nuk’ for a baby’s pacifier. Naomi’s task, on the other hand, was to aman or “support, make strong” the baby. This is more in line with the role of a grandma in a household like that of Ruth and Boaz.
It’s interesting that the neighbor ladies get involved to such a degree that they actually named the baby. Another scene like this in Scripture is in the naming of John the Baptist, when the neighbors came for his circumcision and naming, and are surprised by the parents’ choice: “There is no one among your relatives who has that name” (Luke 1:61). In that case, Elizabeth and Zechariah held their ground (at the command of an angel! Luke 1:13). Here, however, Ruth and Boaz are fine with letting the boy be named Obed (which means ‘servant’).
Obed’s entrance into the people of Israel is passed over with little comment. His naming took place, and normally this was done in connection with his circumcision (as was the case with Jesus, Luke 2:21). For us, circumcision is no longer the entry point into the church, since the law of circumcision is no longer binding. “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). The entry into the church for us is faith in Christ, and baptism which creates faith: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27). It is baptism that now saves you (1 Peter 3:21), not because it is a law to be kept, but because it brings the forgiveness of sins through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Cherish your baptism, and the faith that it brought to you as a gift. Through it you were born again and brought from spiritual death to spiritual life, and this life means confidence and certainty in the resurrection on the Last Day, and our place with Jesus forever in heaven.
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