A broken tulip

If you’re new to the series, start here with part 1.

Here’s a question. Answer with the first thing that comes to your mind. Who is the redeemer in the book of Ruth?

If you’ve been raised in church, you said Boaz.

Yet if we look closer, we find a small book bursting with redeemers, three of whom are named thus. It is true that Naomi herself says that Boaz is their kinsman redeemer. But are we meant to believe that Naomi sees clearly? Boaz, it turns out, is not the kinsman redeemer by law—he must bypass someone else. This unnamed person is called, tellingly “the redeemer” by some translations. And while Boaz does play a redeemer role for the land, the chorus of women in the town name someone else as the redeemer of Naomi. They name her son, her third son, as Naomi’s redeemer.

“Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be Adonai, who has not left you without a redeemer! May his name be renowned in Israel. He will restore your life and provide for your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.”

At the end of Naomi’s story we find intriguing echoes with Job: both are restored by God to fullness, both have children given to them again, both have daughters who are named and praised in all the land, and the restoration of both is announced and recognized by their community.

Unlike Job, God doesn’t appear to Naomi. So what shifts her fortune, moves her from emptiness to fullness, and from bitter to sweet? Who is the unnamed redeemer, hidden in plain sight?

Let’s go back to the road outside of Moab. Naomi has told her daughters-in-law to go back, and Orpah does so. But Ruth clings to her.

In the surrounding stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, this clinging is used of man and woman becoming one flesh, of tribes holding to their inheritance, of leprosy binding to a body, of the relationship of God’s people to God.

If Ruth’s action speaks strongly, her words are stronger yet.

Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Go back, follow your sister-in-law.”

But Ruth said,

“Don’t press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you;
for where you go, I will go;
where you stay, I will stay.
Your people will be my people
and your God will be my God.
Where you die, I will die;
and there I will be buried.
May Adonai bring terrible curses on me,
and worse ones as well,
if anything but death
separates you and me.”

Today these words are most often used at weddings. But Ruth was not making a romantic vow. She was not moved by anything that she hoped to gain. She begins by saying, “don’t force me to abandon you.” She knows that if she turns back, Naomi is completely alone, even more vulnerable. Ruth says she will be buried with Naomi; even after death she will not abandon her. It is shocking language. And then Ruth calls curses upon herself.

The book of Ruth is full of blessings. If we divide the story into acts, as of a play, there would be a blessing in each:

Act 1 – Naomi’s emptying

Naomi says to her daughters-in-law; “Return to your mother’s homes, find security each in the home of her new husband! May Adonai show you chesed as you have shown the dead and me!”

Act 2: Naomi Provided For

Boaz speaks to Ruth in the fields. Ruth falls to her face, prostrating herself. “Why do you show such kindness to me, a foreigner? Boaz: “I have heard your whole story, and everything you have done. May you be blessed by Adonai!”

Later, Ruth returns to Naomi with the barley and leftovers from lunch. Naomi: “Where did you glean?? May he be blessed of Adonai who showed you favour!” Ruth: “It was Boaz.” Naomi: “May Adonai be blessed who has shown his kindness to the living and the dead!”

Act 3 – Naomi’s Redeemer

Ruth goes to the threshing floor at night, uncovers the feet of Boaz, and lies down. Boaz: “Who is it??” Ruth: “Ruth, your handmaid. Spread your robe over your handmaid, because you are a kinsman redeemer.” Boaz: “Blessed are you, daughter! This is an even greater act of chesed than your first (to Naomi)!”

Act 4 – Naomi’s Filling

At the gates, the elders and all the people: “Blessed be that woman, may she be as Rachel and Leah, and as Tamar who bore Perez!”

Boaz takes Ruth as his wife, and Adonai gives her conception. She has a son. The women say to Naomi: “Blessed be Adonai! May this boy’s name be renowned! He will restore your life because Ruth, your daughter who loves you and is worth more than seven sons, has given birth to him!”

Do you see? There are many redeemers and even more blessings. But there is only one curse. It is the curse that Ruth calls down upon herself.

Back on the road to Bethlehem, when Naomi saw Ruth’s steadfast determination to go with her, Naomi stayed silent. So the two of them continued until they came to Bethlehem.

I can’t but think of Jesus “setting his face towards Jerusalem” and rebuking Peter for getting in his way. Ruth, too, sets her face: towards poverty, towards exile from her own land and people, and towards widowhood. She does not flinch and she does not turn back.

And here we find the first, surprising story that Ruth stacks on. Remember that, many years ago, Abraham was called by God, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” God promised Abraham that he would become a great nation. So Abraham went, and he took with him his nephew Lot. But when the land grew too small for all their flocks, Abraham took Lot up a hill and said, choose where you would live and I will go the other way. Lot chose based on what he saw, he chose a green valley, he chose to live next to and then inside sinful cities. He chose ease. Abraham continued wandering.

Now we meet Ruth, a Moabitess, a descendant of Lot. But when we meet her, we are startled to find that when she is given the choice of Lot, she is instead an Abraham*. Both Ruth and Abraham start their stories as non-Israelites. Both are associated strongly with acts of kindness. And when Boaz says to her, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before,” we hear a clear echo of Genesis 12—leaving family and land for what is unknown.

I chose to story the book of Ruth for an Old Testament class with a Rabbi who would ask of every passage, “How does this move the canon?”

Ruth being a latter day Abraham is incredibly important. It moves the canon—the entire story—in a specific, essential way. But that comes at the end of the story, and first you need to see something else.

Hold on to what you have gleaned: the name of Shaddai, the bitterness of Naomi, the curse of Ruth, the carrying out of Abraham’s journey. Come, put your ear to the ground. There are more echoes to be gathered.

*This stacking is thanks to Rabbi Fohrman.

Photo by Berlian Khatulistiwa.