It Takes a Village

The transaction Mr. So & So wouldn’t risk is the transaction Boaz can’t wait to perform.   

The Elders Blessing

Everyone is watching, and the now elders add their blessing.  They use names that may not mean much to us at first but they matter.  So pay attention. 

“We are witnesses.  May the Lord make the woman coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, two who built the house of Israel.  May you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.  May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring the Lord will give you because of this woman.” 

Paying attention? 

We may be tempted to “check out” when it comes to lists like this.  But these names are in the Hall of Fame of Israel.  This blessing goes well beyond social platitudes. 

It looks to the future. 

It is superlative. 

"The book of Ruth is not the first time in Scripture

where it is the women who take reproductive initiative

in order to preserve a family line."

The witnesses pronounce a blessing that the covenant Lord will make this Ruth, a Gentile of a country Israel has often gone to war against, like Rachel and Leah, two mothers of Israel.  They invoke the name of the Lord for her prosperity. 

They ask that Ruth will give birth to another Perez, the son of another ethnic outsider, Tamar, who herself took the initiative to ensure an offspring.  In Genesis 38, after Judah refused to fulfill his kinsman-redeemer responsibility to Tamar, she role-played a prostitute – quite literally – in order to trick Judah into preserving the family line.  Your Sunday School class might have skipped that one too.  The book of Ruth is not the first time in Scripture where it is the women who take reproductive initiative in order to preserve a family line. 

You see, blessings can come true.  This blessing is fulfilled, and in an extraordinary way that even the ones who announce it will never see.  To you and me these may just be names, but to Israel, these names were the essence of her history.  By invoking these names from Israel’s history, the town elders pray a similar future for Naomi’s offspring that shares in God’s plan for humanity. 

And they would stagger at the fulfillment of their words. 

Boaz takes Ruth as his wife. They consummate the marriage and “the Lord makes her conceive, and she bears a son.”[i] 

The Women’s Blessing

Now it is women’s turn to bring the blessing.  And though the author doesn't say so, I bet these are the same small-town women who were there when Naomi first returned, asking, "Can this be Naomi?"

The women add their blessing to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a redeemer – may his name be famous in Israel.  And may he restore your soul and provide for you in your old age, since your daughter-in-law who loves you – who is better to you than seven sons – has borne him.” 

Another dream come true. 

Naomi takes the child and sets him on her lap, and becomes a nanny to him. 

Could she have envisioned this outcome even months earlier? 

Could Naomi have dreamt of such an outcome to small, courageous acts of faithfulness?  In what way is God giving you an opportunity to show perhaps small, but nevertheless courageous faith? 

---

[i] Once again, we see the hand of God working quietly, but no less certainly, in the everyday affairs of life.