Empty, she says. They arrive just as the barley harvest starts.
The book of Ruth
@bookofruth · 13 posts
Four chapters. One family. A harvest.
Telling the story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, from a famine to a baby. Nobody knows for sure who wrote it down. Jewish tradition says the prophet Samuel, but that’s tradition, not something the book says. It happens back when the judges led Israel, and it ends with a name everyone would know.
Israel, in the time of the judgesFirst seen Ruth 1:1
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Ruth goes out to glean, picking up what the harvesters leave. And, as it happens, the field belongs to Boaz. One of Elimelech's relatives. As it happens.
Boaz quietly tells his men: pull some stalks out of the bundles on purpose and leave them for her.
Replying to @naomi
Redeemer: the close relative who can buy back the family's land and keep its name alive. Remember that word.
Naomi has a plan. Boaz is winnowing barley on the threshing floor tonight. Wash, put on perfume and your best clothes, she tells Ruth. Go down, but don't let him see you until he's finished eating and drinking. Then lie down at his feet. He'll tell you what to do. Ruth says she'll do all of it.
Midnight. Boaz wakes with a start and turns over. There's a woman lying at his feet.
Replying to @bookofruth
It's Ruth. She asks him to spread the corner of his cloak over her. He's a redeemer.
Replying to @bookofruth
Boaz calls it even kinder than what she did before. She could have gone after the younger men, rich or poor, and she didn't. The whole town knows she's a good woman. But there's a relative closer than him. If that man won't redeem her, Boaz will. He swears it by the LORD.
She lies at his feet until morning and gets up before it's light enough for anyone to recognise anyone. Boaz doesn't want it known that a woman came to the threshing floor.
Ruth gets home with six measures of barley tied up in her shawl, and tells Naomi everything. He said: don't go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.
NaomiBoaz marries Ruth. The LORD gives her a son.
Obed is the father of Jesse. Jesse is the father of David. David's great-grandmother was from Moab.