Ruth Chapter 3 (for real this time)

Last week I flubbed and said I was going to examine Ruth chapter three.  It was really chapter two.

Let’s try this dance again.

To recap: Naomi’s husband and sons have died, leaving her and her daughter-in-law, Ruth, widows.  Ruth sticks by her, and they move close to a relative who takes up responsibility of them.  Ruth works hard under the care of Boaz (the aforementioned relative).  This attracts the attention of Boaz.

The narrative: Naomi tells Ruth that she needs to step-up Ruth and Boaz’s relationship.  She tells her to get all nice and pretty and sleep at Boaz’s feet when he goes to sleep that night (this was understood to be a marriage proposal in those times).  Boaz stumbles into the barn, knocks out, and Ruth lies down at his feet.  When big brother Boaz wakes up, he sees a woman sleeping at his feet, and is a little confused (understandably). He is a bit peeved that he might be associated with drunk-sleeping around (understandly), and demands to know who it is.  Ruth identifies herself, pleads with Boaz to be more involved with her care, and Boaz agrees— but first he’s got to convince someone who is more closely related to them to marry her.  Boaz then sends her away with a large gift of grain, to help seal his promise, and the chapter ends.

Hookay, let’s break apart some of the more important parts:

First, Naomi tells Ruth to clean herself up, put on some perfume and nice clothes.  Now let’s be honest here, a guy will have a harder time saying “no” to a well-dressed, well-groomed, pretty lady.  We could say that Naomi was appealing to Boaz’s carnal nature, but people washed, perfumed, and put on their “Sunday best” when they visited God’s temple as well.  Looking and smelling nice isn’t just to engender physical appeal, but a symbolic gesture of respect— like going to a job interview (and in effect, this was what Ruth was going to do).

Second, when Boaz wakes up he’s kinda freaked out that there is some random lady sleeping at his feet.  His reaction of surprise and indignation is pretty indicative of his character: he doesn’t go around taking random women (including his servants) to bed with him, even while drunk.  Waking up with a woman at his feet could spawn a lot of bad rumors about his character, something that he’d want to avoid, and you could guess at his anger and confusion at the event.

Third, Ruth and Naomi trust that Boaz won’t take sexual advantage of Ruth while she sleeps at his feet.  He’s got the power to make her stay with him and coerce sexual favors from her if he so chooses, but he doesn’t.  They know Boaz wouldn’t do it, and I suspect that even if he did, Naomi and Ruth had no choice in the matter.

Fourth, Boaz agrees to the proposal.  Ruth puts her reputation and her body (read: physical safety), on the line when she sleeps at his feet.  Boaz knows they are in a desperate situation, and is probably deeply moved by the trust these two women have placed on him.  He has mercy on them, and probably remembers that the Israelites were foreigners long ago, and they needed help in a foreign land. He decides he should help them too.

Fifth, Naomi had a closer relative who could’ve taken care of them (as Boaz notes), but for some reason they didn’t go to that other relative.  This could be for several reasons: they knew Boaz was more righteous than the other relative, Boaz was in a better financial position to take care of them, or the other relative didn’t have that much incentive to take care of them.  Whether this was from clever planning of Naomi (which I suspect), or from God’s providence, I’m not too sure, but I’m going to trust God that he had a reason for the events to unfold the way they did.

Not much moving stuff this week (that I noticed), but good stuff nonetheless.  Next week we’ll be closing up the study of Ruth with chapter four.

See you there.