Table of Contents
Ruth
Ruth is four quiet chapters set “in the days when the judges ruled” — the one bright, unhurried story in the darkest stretch of Israel’s history. A famine drives a family to Moab; the men all die; and a widowed Israelite comes home with a Moabite daughter-in-law who has refused to leave her. In Bethlehem the foreigner gleans in a field, meets a kinsman named Boaz, and is redeemed, married, and folded into the covenant people.
The last word of the book is a name: David. Ruth the Moabitess is his great-grandmother, which puts her in the family tree of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). And the machinery of the story — a redeemer near of kin, willing and able, who pays the price and takes a Gentile bride — is one the New Testament picks up for Christ and His Church. These studies go through Ruth in order and then draw that comparison out.
List Of Articles
Whither Thou Goest, I Will Go
a famine, three graves in Moab, and two widows at a crossroads — one who kisses her mother-in-law goodbye, and one who will not let go: <em>thy God my God</em>
Ruth 1Under Whose Wings Thou Art Come To Trust
a penniless foreign widow goes out to glean, and “her hap” lands her in the field of a kinsman who tells his men to leave handfuls on purpose
Ruth 2Spread Thy Skirt Over Thine Handmaid
a midnight errand to the threshing floor, a request for covering and marriage, and a kinsman who blesses her boldness — but there is one nearer than he
Ruth 3I Cannot Redeem It
the gate, the elders, and a nearer kinsman who wants the land but not the widow — so he pulls off his shoe, and Boaz buys back the whole inheritance, bride and all
Ruth 4A Kinsman-Redeemer
the pattern under the story: a redeemer near of kin, willing and able, who pays the price and takes a foreign bride — Boaz as a figure of Christ, Ruth of the Church He buys
Ruth 1-4