Feb 18 (Ruth 2)

Ruth 2

Ruth and Boaz are to meet, and it may seem a coincidence, but we believers know that God doesn't work in coincidences...He directs our paths!

Boaz was probably in his forties and was the land owner of the fields of Bethlehem. It is believed that these were the very fields the where the angel told the shepherds that the Christ child was born, many years later!

Boaz is the son of Hagar, who was a Gentile who helped the two spies at Jericho. We will see that God had Gentile women in His purposes, and ultimately, in the royal kingly line of Judah. Boaz is an ancestor of King David, and thus, of Jesus Himself!

The gleaning of the crops was ordained in Leviticus 19:9, 23:12 in order to provide for the poor and for strangers in the land with no family to provide for them. We must remember that God had everything figured out, and we would have a better society today if we followed His guidelines. This makes me think of the fact that Israel didn't have prisons...that was because of the penalties for theft and murder, that was a huge deterrent. When people are godly and have God's laws on their minds, they are much less likely to break the law...look how far we've strayed from that in our country!

So here was Boaz, a 40-ish bachelor land owner, who probably had many women that wanted to marry him, but he was looking for someone special. Here comes Ruth, a "desirable" young woman (probably in her twenties) gleaning in his field. We see that Boaz is enamored with Ruth, and he instructs his workers to treat Ruth like one of his other workers, and not like a foreigner who is taking the scraps from the field.

Boaz must have found Ruth to be beautiful, but he also loved her heart, for he had already known of Ruth's love and devotion to his kin, Naomi. This is a wonderful love story, but as we'll see, it's much more than that!