Esther 2:

1. Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side from the clan Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.

2. And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour.” 

Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.”

3. So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

4. Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”

“The Lord bless you!” they called back

Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side. This is a concept much argued against by modern believers in God through the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a married man, you are supposed to be cut off from where you sprang from; a complete disowning of your family. The wife could disown her own family, too. But, the brunt is always on the man to have less and less to do with his family members. In both the new and old testaments, when family idea is in focus, it’s a household, not the Westerner’s idea of nuclear family.

Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side. The thought here is that Naomi had a relative (not as the mentality of the husband having his family as distinct from the family of the wife) that was from the family of her late husband. In other words, this is a throw back to Ruth’s “Your people will be my people; your God will be my God”! The concept of nuclear family may have its good sides but it’s not the mind of God. In Him, everything cohere, everything is in relation, interwoven.

Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side. That is, the members of the family of Naomi’s husband were her family members too and those of Naomi’s were Elimelech’s. His name was Boaz. We’ll come to this man soon.

Ruth, the Moabitess, and the first fruit of Elimelech-Naomi missionary thrust, is a fast learner. She is aware of the extant law of harvest in Israel: “When thou cuttest down thine harvest in the field, and hast forgotten a sheaf…thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow….” (Deuteronomy 24:19). This is God’s kingdom living or lifestyle. And this is not a show off; it’s like the voluntary act of breathing. Ruth suggests to her teacher, Naomi, that she will have to go to some field to pick up left over sheaves that the family might have something to eat. She receives the teacher’s blessing.

She’s is to go to a field, any field. As a stranger she doesn’t know who is who in the community. Naomi doesn’t instruct her what field to go, e. Therefore, God’s divine thrust of hand is so glaring here; it’s God’s hand that makes her walk into Boaz’s, her relation on her husband’s side. It looks like a happen chance; but the Lord is behind it. I’m wont to believe that every step of the day, every decision and every job done each day…has been ordained by the Lord; there’s is no compartmentalization into secular and spiritual, sacred or mundane. A believer has been consecrated to Him in so much so that even the soil he, the believer, treads upon, is holy. The believer comes into more of this as he has his mind renewed constantly (Romans 12:1-2).

Ruth is busy picking barley forgotten by the harvesters in the field of Boaz. Upon this arrives the man. He calls out to the workers, The Lord be with you! The workers shout back to him, The Lord bless you! Here is the common life in the Lord! No one is breathing out air of superiority and no one is drawing in the air of inferiority. This is the Community of the Lord. He is the one that makes rich; He is the one that makes poor. What matters here in this Community is Christ. There’s is a condescending into men of low estate. “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited” (Romans 12:16). This is the perfect atmosphere for entrepreneurship, the realm great thinkers cannot assay.

Lord, Yours is the guiding hand behind all history and human existence. Your thrusting hand is always redirecting our wondering self back home. Lord, to become one with Your Spirit, I need more of the hand shaping all things from behind the scene. It’s You that guided Ruth to Boaz. Oh, that we know that where we are, where we go and what we do now all have eternal significance.

Lord, may I truly walk worthy of you unto all pleasing.

Thank You Lord

Lord