GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
RUTH 3:5-8
5 Ruth answered, “I will do everything you say.” 6 She went down to the threshing floor, and did everything that her mother-in-law told her to do.
7 After Boaz finished eating and drinking, and he was in good spirits, he went to lie down at the end of the pile of barley. Ruth came over quietly, uncovered his feet, and lay down. 8 Then sometime in the middle of the night the man was startled and turned over, and found a woman lying at his feet.
In these verses, we see Ruth keeping the fourth, sixth and eighth commandments. First, she is completely obedient to her mother-in-law Naomi under the fourth commandment (Honor your father and mother), but her loyalty will (she hopes) soon shift from mother-in-law to husband. This was God’s plan in the creation of marriage: “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
We have already seen that there was no intention with either Ruth or Naomi that Ruth and Boaz should violate either any local custom or the sixth commandment (Do not commit adultery). Here we see that this was not just their intention, but also what happened in fact. Ruth did not climb into bed to seduce Boaz; she uncovered his feet (as we have seen, this simply means that she uncovered his feet) and she lay down while he slept.
She also did this at night “after Boaz finished eating and drinking” (verse 7). Rather than throw herself at him in front of his friends (to force a commitment?) she very quietly offered her hand in marriage in a way that was traditional for them, so as to allow herself the possibility of leaving under cover of darkness and secrecy in case he might reject her. She was concerned about her own reputation, and his as well. This was how she kept the eighth commandment, “Do not give false testimony against your neighbor.” Part of Luther’s classic explanation of this commandment somewhat connects it to human modesty (and therefore the sixth) when he says:
“No one covers his face, eyes, nose, and mouth, for they, being in themselves the most honorable members which we have, do not require it. But the most infirm members, of which we are ashamed, we cover with all diligence; hands, eyes, and the whole body must help to cover and conceal them.
Thus also among ourselves should we adorn whatever blemishes and infirmities we find in our neighbor, and serve and help him to promote his honor to the best of our ability, and, on the other hand, prevent whatever may be discreditable to him.” (Large Catechism, Eighth Commandment, par. 287-288)
So Boaz went to bed on the edge of his barley pile, to protect it against thieves and more especially thieving animals (Song of Solomon 2:15), but when he rolled over in the dark of the night something was different; something had changed. Were his feet cold? Were his feet touching something? Someone? There were no nightlights in those days, and there was no reason to have any torch, fire or flame going since dawn would wake him. So either in the faint moonlight or in the pitch dark, the man (notice that our author doesn’t use their names in verse 8) discovered that there was a woman there!
We don’t know why Boaz was not married. He was a wealthy, mature farmer, and by all respects quite a catch for an Israelite girl. Was he a widower? If so, he does not seem to have had any heirs. Or had he tried to marry before, only to have everything fall apart, like Samson’s marriage to the girl from Timnah (Judges 14:5-20)? Or had there been no one for Boaz at all? Was he growing older, a hard working, God-fearing, lonely man? We are not told about any of Boaz’ prayers, or about his feelings in any way. But here, in the dark of the night during the barley harvest, God answered the prayers we know he must have prayed, even if he couldn’t find the right words (Romans 8:26; Lamentations 1:22). Here was the answer, sleeping gently at his uncovered feet at the edge of the barley pile.
If he didn’t want her, he could simply get up and quietly walk away. They could pretend later that he hadn’t seen her; she would find another husband. No hard feelings. Or, he could fulfill all righteousness, and do everything in his power to be sure that not only would they be married, but that their marriage could not be contested, and that the matter of her late husband’s estate (and Naomi’s fortune) was protected and restored. He could be what she was asking him to be: Her kinsman-redeemer. All he had to do right now was open his mouth. Or as Taylor Swift says in “Love Story”:
He knelt to the ground
and pulled out a ring and said…
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