GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
RUTH 3:14-16a
14 She lay at his feet until the morning, but then got up before anyone could recognize anybody else. He said, “Don’t let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.”
The inspired writer does not tell us that the couple slept together in the marital sense nor in the being exhausted sense. This was a couple that had just become a couple, just expressed feelings for one another, and was making serious plans for marriage. They had a lot to talk about; a lot to laugh about. They had a lot of getting to know each other to accomplish. When my wife and I were dating and newly engaged, we did a lot of driving to my dad’s house and to her parents’ house, and we did a lot of our getting-to-know-you talking on those long drives. Ruth and Boaz probably did a lot of it there in hushed happy whispers on that threshing floor. I suppose they remembered that night and reminisced about it whenever they threshed the Lord’s bounty there in the many happy and prosperous years that followed.
The night was growing old, and the next day was another threshing day. At around four in the morning, the middle of the last watch of the night, the constellation Boaz would have called Kesil “the fool” (Orion, Amos 5:8) would have just been rising in the east. Another sprawling constellation known as “the whale” filled the southern sky. The sun would follow. It was time for Ruth to go. He cared about her reputation, and of course about his, too. So before “anyone could recognize anybody else” in the dark of the Bethlehem countryside, Ruth got up to go.
15 Then he said, “Bring the shawl you’re wearing and hold it out.” She held it out while he poured six measures of barley into it. He placed in on her, and then he went into the village.
As she was getting ready to go, Boaz scooped six measures of barley into her shawl. The text doesn’t say what the measures were, and maybe in the dark it wouldn’t have been possible for Boaz to be sure. The Hebrew text says “six barleys.” But however large, scoop, scoop, scoop, and then another three scoops, and she had quite a lot to carry. Then they went their separate ways. She, back to Naomi. He, straight to the village. He wanted to meet with the elders the moment they arrived at the gate. Every plan they had made depended on the legality of this levirate marriage, so it had to be the very first order of business.
God has placed marriage into the hands of governments to regulate. The rules are generally not oppressive. The couple must prove that they are not otherwise married and not too closely related. They must declare that they are entering the marriage willingly. They pay a modest fee (here in Minnesota, that fee is reduced considerably if the couple shows that they took a certain number of hours of pre-marriage counseling). The marriage must be performed by an officiant (pastor, judge or other) approved of by the state and registered with the county. All of this falls under the fourth commandment. There are other minor regulations which most couples never even know about (in many states, the license must be signed by two witnesses over the age of sixteen, signed in black ballpoint pen, filed within a few days of the ceremony, etc.). But since God has placed the administration of marriage into the hands of the state, there is no such thing as “married in the eyes of God” as opposed to married in the eyes of the state. Anything else is illegal. It’s the same as imagining that a man could be forgiven all his sins apart from Christ. Forgiven in the eyes of God means being forgiven through Christ. There is no other path to heaven (John 14:6). A man cannot be saved by any other means “but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:15). Salvation was accomplished by God’s agent, Christ the Lamb of God. And so marriage is performed through God’s agencies, the church and the state, as well.
16 When she came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “Who are you, my daughter?”
Naomi’s question is paraphrased in most translations, but it was really a point blank “Who are you?” What is your status? Do you have Boaz’ name today, or are you still Mahlon’s widow?
Boaz had gone straight to the village to find out what their status would be. Ruth could only wait. Here she willingly obeyed the fourth and sixth commandments, leaving the settlement to be handled the way that it was handled in their culture. Today a woman usually takes a much more active role in planning her wedding, and this is not a violation of anything, although it’s usually carried to a costly extreme no matter who plans it. I have seen too many weddings that cost more than $10,000, and a few that approached four or five times that much. It doesn’t need to be so. Some of the most successful marriages hardly spend any money at all on the wedding and focus more on the marriage that follows This is really what pleases God. “Cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you” (Psalm 55:22), “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). The Lord truly is your Helper (Hosea 13:9), even when no one else can do anything (Lam. 4:17). He is the one who has made a place ready for us (John 14:2), and we keep trusting in him until he returns to bring us home. Who are you? You belong to Christ, and his name is the one you bear.
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