In Proverbs 31 the author asks the rhetorical question “a wife/woman of worth who can find?”, and the question begins a 22 verse poem about the “woman of worth” – one verse for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in which the author sketches out many different ways a wife in particular could show “worth” in that society. The very phrase “woman of worth” is a difficult one to translate. Used of a man it often means “warrior” because the Hebrew word can be translated “strength”, or “army” or “wealth”, depending on the context it is used.
In some versions of the Hebrew Bible the next book after Proverbs 31 is Ruth. Ruth is the only other book in the bible that uses this phrase “a woman of worth” – and in Ruth, it is Boaz – himself described as “a man of worth” – who describes Ruth as a “woman of worth”. We’ve already seen that Boaz isn’t a warrior – but he is certainly a strong man of proven character. And the way the story unfolds shows what true worth looks like in a man (see previous post on Boaz).
So we read the story, seeking to see what it means for Ruth to be described as a woman of worth. For Ruth is also described as “the Moabitess”. She is a native of Moab, a nation whose origins are described in the story of Lot’s daughters taking advantage of their father’s drunkenness to sleep with him and have children, whose descendants became the Moabites and the Ammonites. The Moabites then oppose the Israelites on their journey to the land, and Deuteronomy says that no Moabite down to the 10th generation can become part of God’s people.
Ruth’s designation as a “Moabitess” reminds us of that story, but her story in the book of Ruth is a contrasting story that tells us that true worth can be found even in someone whose origins seem so unlikley. Ruth’s story shows us that a “woman of worth” has both a loyal love to God and his people, and an enterprising ability to take the initiative. In the first chapter of Ruth we see a loyalty to Naomi that reveals a new loyalty to Naomi’s God. Even a Moabite can show loyalty to Yahweh. We see this in chapter 1 of Ruth.
6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”
Ruth 1:6-13
Here we see the brutal realities of the situation laid out. Naomi’s husband has died. Naomi’s sons have both died. These Moabite widows at least have a chance of going back to their own families. There is some possibility of shelter there. But Naomi is going back to Bethlehem. She doesn’t know which of her family are still alive, but there is little hope for foreign widows in her hometown – and as we’ve seen before Judges 19 gives a brutal picture of the kind of treatment women can expect in Israel at this time.
Her daughters in law both declare their intention to stay loyal to Naomi, but Naomi explains afresh the reality. And then Ruth makes this choice:
14 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely,if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Ruth 1:14-18
We don’t know the inner workings of Ruth’s mind at this point. What we see is her determination to follow through on what she has said. She is going to go with Naomi, she is going to be part of Naomi’s people, and she is going to follow Naomi’s God – invoking Yahweh’s name (“the LORD”) in support of her determination.
As we read on in the narrative of chapter 2 it becomes clear that Ruth’s declaration is not merely words. She follows Naomi’s instructions and by her gleaning provides for them in Bethlehem. Ruth’s devotion leads Boaz to look on her with favour. Naomi spots the chance. Perhaps Boaz’s kindness can extend to providing a home for Ruth. So she begins a plan:
3 One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for. 2 Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. 3 Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. 4 When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”
Ruth 3:1-5
This plan raises a lot of questions. Ruth is to place herself in a very vulnerable position. She is to make herself as attractive as possible, and then place herself in the bed of a man who, while he is known to be honourable, has also been eating and drinking at the end of harvest time. Ruth will be completely available to Boaz, and Boaz will be unstoppable by Ruth.
Naomi knows this. As a reader of this story we wonder what Naomi hopes for? Is she simply hoping that Ruth will be too seductive for Boaz to resist, and that she, as Lot’s daughters did before, will secure a family from a man too drunk to know what he is doing? We should note in passing that “uncover his feet” may be a euphemism for more private parts of the male anatomy…
It certainly isn’t a biblically recommended way of finding a husband, that is certain – once more we need to remember that Scripture shows us much without explanation. We need to read and ponder in the light of the whole biblical story. Then we see what Ruth does.
5 “I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered. 6 So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.
7 When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down. 8 In the middle of the night something startled the man; he turned—and there was a woman lying at his feet!
Ruth 3:5-7
Ruth obeys and does as she is told. The plan works so far. Ruth is in Boaz’s bed – and then Ruth is discovered – and discovered as something of a surprise. This is already a slight divergence from Naomi’s script. Ruth has not been discovered immediately on uncovering Boaz’s feet, as Naomi’s instructions to Ruth seem to suggest is expected.
Instead Ruth has done it quietly, so as not to be discovered, until something makes Boaz stir. This is where the script diverges from one possible result of Naomi’s plan. If Boaz acts according to the way in which many male characters in Scripture act there is one very obvious next move – but things begin to diverge from the anticipated script.
9 “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.”
Ruth 3:9
Instead of forcing himself on Ruth, or ordering her into his bed, Boaz asks who she is – he opens the conversation. And Ruth does not wait to be told what to do. Instead she pleads with Boaz to extend his protection over her. At the crucial point in the narrative Ruth moves away from the instructions of her mother in law – and away from what might be expected of a Moabitess. And then Boaz responds:
10 “The Lord bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11 And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character. 12 Although it is true that I am a guardian-redeemer of our family, there is another who is more closely related than I. 13 Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to do his duty as your guardian-redeemer, good; let him redeem you. But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives I will do it. Lie here until morning.”
14 So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized; and he said, “No one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor.”
15 He also said, “Bring me the shawl you are wearing and hold it out.” When she did so, he poured into it six measures of barley and placed the bundle on her. Then he[c] went back to town.
Ruth 3:10-15
Now Ruth’s boldness is rewarded. Boaz acknowledges her claim, and explains that there is a nearer relative (information we don’t know up until this point). Boaz though is ready and willing to redeem if the other won’t. And so he asks her to lie until morning, but before dawn comes and she can be recognised she leaves, with a shawl full of barley. Boaz’s desire here is to protect Ruth – he doesn’t send her away into the night, and he doesn’t let anyone else see to make assumptions about what this “Moabitess” is up to. I think it is pretty clear from this text that nothing happens between Boaz and Ruth.
Ruth has left the path of a “Moabitess” and instead is appealing to Israelite marriage laws. Boaz is an honourable man, who rather than take advantage of a vulnerable woman is willing to wait for the matter to be formally established. His concern for no one to know protects his own reputation, but it also protects Ruth’s. No one will see and jump to conclusions.
So we see that this woman of worth is both utterly loyal to Yahweh, and to Yahweh’s people, and also is willing to take the initiative and to take risks to secure her future, and the future of those she is loyal to. Ruth has Naomi’s interests at heart, in this story – following Naomi’s plans, even as she improvises her own improvements. Both Ruth and Boaz show their worth by acting in ways that break the expected pattern of behaviour.
It is at this point that I want to pause and reflect on my own interaction with this story. I was at a conference earlier in the year and heard two papers given on Ruth – one which gave a similar interpretation to the one I have sketched above, and another which had a much more “suspicious” reading of the narrative – a reading in which Ruth and Boaz did engage in sexual activity that night on the threshing room floor.
I’m not convinced by that second more suspicious reading – but I have to recognise that it wouldn’t be impossible to read Ruth like that – plenty of Bible characters act in ethically dubious ways, and God’s story weaves all sorts of events into his plans. And yet, not only am I not convinced by reading Ruth in that way, I also really, really don’t want to.
And as I’ve reflected on Ruth I’ve also started to ask myself the question. Why don’t I want the story to be that sort of story? Why instead do I so much want Boaz and Ruth to be obedient? Why do I want them to conform to the ethics God gives his people? As I’ve thought about it, I think it is because I am tired. Tired of the last few years of seeming never ending abuse scandals within the church. I want to believe that godliness is possible. I want to see examples of masculinity and femininity used within God’s people in a way that honours God and does not squash people. And I want to see masculinity and femininity lived out in way that does not give way to fear.
For fear has been a part of my journey as a Christian in many and various ways. In the last few months we’ve been across to Durham twice, the city where I went to university. As I’ve wandered with my family around familiar streets, as I’ve seen students walking around I’ve reflected back on my own university experience. There is too much to disentangle of my life there for one blog post (and I’ve tried to do some of it before), but in the last few years it has become apparent that much of my discipleship there was guided by people who themselves looked up to those who were either involved in an appalling cover up of a terrible example of abuse, or who were involved in subtle (and not so subtle) misuse of power and privilege – including misuse of rules around sexuality.
Much of our discipleship was built upon rules for behaviour, especially in the area of sexuality – yet somehow, the rules, while intended to promote holiness, somehow missed the mark. I remember the deeply ironic moment where one wonderful older missionary speaker was explaining to us how many Muslim men would not believe that men and women could be in a prayer meeting together because the men would surely be thinking about the women’s bodies – this speakers point was that we, as Christians, were different to that – we could pray together as men and women. The irony was that much else of the teaching I received reflected more of the view he ascribed to those Muslim men. In many ways the rules intended to make us stand out as different still meant that men treated women as objects – objects of danger, to be guarded against – objects of desire to be placed on pedestals. And this is where, I think, many things I have read go wrong in this area.
It somehow feels to me that Boaz and Ruth gives us a way forward to a real godliness that treats people as people. I remember vividly the moment it dawned on me that one of the biggest problems with so much teaching on “purity” is that it fails to see people as people, made in God’s image. Our culture objectifies women – and in fighting against the sin this provokes we fight against objects – the battle is fought by thinking about what we might be looking at, and the technology we might be using to do it. Some of those things have their place – but unless we have a deeper transformation they won’t work. The deeper transformation required is to see people as people, made in God’s image. To realise that the “object” on a screen is a person in God’s image.
The deeper transformation is to see that the person who could be an “object” of desire is actually an individual with thoughts and feelings whose flourishing should be sought after. The route to freedom from lust and disordered sexual desire is unlikely to be to flee to the desert – it is much more likely to be living in the midst of real community where we are daily meeting people who we see as God’s image bearers and where we are seeking their good. Of course how we behave towards someone to show that we see them as one made in God’s image and precious to him will look different depending on our relationship with that person – but we should aim for the eyes that see the person, and the beauty of the individual who reflects Christ to us. We are fallen people, so all our relationships at points will be tainted by sin – but if we are trusting in Jesus we are people who are being redeemed – and our relationships need to show that too.
Ruth and Boaz show the way to behaviour that stands out from the rest of society. Behaviour that protects the other, that gives the other space to be who they truly are. Behaviour that resists the labels others have placed around our necks, behaviour that risks showing who we are, and that helps others be who they truly are. More than ever before perhaps, if we have eyes to truly see, we can see that rules of fear will never lead us to the life God intends for his people.
If my reading of Ruth and Boaz is correct, they were in a moment that could have been one of intense temptation, and a going astray – and yet they pulled back from that moment, and went the way God wanted them to. They did it not because they were following some particular rules – but because they had the character to demonstrate their worth in their treatment of the other. That perception of worth of the other happened to lead them to live out a life that did reflect God’s standards – but the character that looks for the good of the other comes first, even as that character also has the humility to recognise that God might understand more then we do about how that good should be worked out.
It is a character rooted and grounded in love – it is love that seeks the good of others. Fear seeks my protection. Fear is curved inwards. Love extends outwards. Boaz and Ruth exemplify lives of love that extend outwards to others, and their greatest descendant of all lived that life of love to the fullest extent. No one who came to Jesus needed to fear – and those who came in fear and trembling were sent away whole. As his disciples we need to search out and live out lives marked by love, and as we interact with others and seek to help their discipleship we need to be marked by love. People should not be afraid of our dominance, but should see our love.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 