Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Ruth ; Samuel 1-3 -- Part 1 : Dr. Gaye Strathearn

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

How have women’s choices affected nations? Dr. Gaye Strathearn explores what it means to be family, the power of covenants, and the value of expressing gratitude to the Lord, even when long-awaited blessings have yet to come in the story of Naomi and Ruth.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive ProducersDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing & SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsKrystal Roberts: French TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith and I'm John by the way. We love to learn, we love to laugh, we want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith, I'm your host, I am here with, okay? Listen to this, everybody. My grandpa, John, by the way, co-host John, as the haphans were visiting a couple of weeks ago,

they said they introduced a new product line in great grandchildren. So I think they inspired you because you introduced a new product line. Tell us what happened. So I think they inspired you because you introduced a new product line. Tell us what happened. Yes. My oldest daughter, she served her mission in France and she met a young man in the MTC who was going to a different mission in France. But they came acquainted in the MTC. They wrote their whole missions, came home dated and got married.

Now I have my first grandson. So there's kind of a grandfatherly look, which I've always had. But now it's official. Congratulations, John. That is exciting. John, we are continuing our discussion in the Old Testament. And I have been looking forward to this for a long time. Tell everybody who is with us today. I'm really excited because I am very familiar with Gay Stratherns voice. I've watched so many over

the years of those BYU roundtable discussions. And she's one of my favorite guests because everything sounds more true with an Australian accent to it. The scripture sound better. Everything sounds more eloquent and wiser. It does. Gay Stratherns is with us. She's a professor in ancient scripture and ancient Near Eastern studies. She's taught at BYU since 1995, including a year at the Jerusalem Center. She received her Bachelor of Physiotherapy from the University of Queensland in Australia. And a bachelor's and master's in Near Eastern studies from BYU and a PhD in religion, focusing on New Testament from Claremont Graduate University. And this wasn't mentioned in her bio,

but she's the author of the book, Covenant of Compassion, published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU and Deseret Book, and has a chapter in there about Naomi Ruth and Boaz, which we will be talking about today. And her research centers primarily on New testament topics, especially those of interest to Latter-day Saints, I was curious when I saw her bio that one of her areas of research was

the bridal chamber ritual in Nosticism and the life and teachings of Paul and the gospel of Matthew, but she also knows her old testament and that's what we're looking at today. And we're delighted to have you and delighted for our audience to hear though. It was to an insight you have on these chapters today. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, John. It's good to be here. John Gay is the associate dean. She is on so many committees. I'm sure it's over a dozen committees. She is so busy. I was delighted when she agreed to come on a wax personal here for men. I've been at BYU since 2010 and there is no one as kind and as brilliant

as gay straighter. She has been my friend. I'm really excited to have her on for this chapter, which as I read, spoke to me of loyalty and if you had to describe gay, it would be kind, brilliant, and loyal. She is just everything you'd hope for in a disciple of Christ. So, gay, this is a treat to have you here. I've heard you say before that the book of Ruth is a nice contrast against what we've just discussed in the book of judges, because it seems that as we read through judges, things got a little more depressing and a little more depressing and a little more dark. And they're going to continue as Israel chooses to have monarchs. But here's this book of Ruth, this kind of jewel that sits right in the middle of this story. Is that how you see it?

Is that how we kind of approach this? Yeah, certainly. The scholars kind of see the contrast between judges and Ruth and say, Ruth really doesn't kind of fit in the timetable of judges, even though chapter one says it came to pass in the days that the judges ruled. So in some respects, we could look at this as the difficulties that were

happening in judges with all of their wars and things like that. And this may be the contrast in terms of at least one city or one part of Israel at that time was having something more positive. Other scholars are going to suggest that this book perhaps fits better a little bit later in time during the Vidic monarchy. This book also seems to be working towards setting up David and his kingship. Others see it as fitting more in terms of the Persian period where we have Ezra coming back and having these discussions about whether you should have mixed marriages or not and this seems to be a reaction to some of that. The other thing to consider is that although in our English versions of the Bible Ruth

follows judges, in the Hebrew scriptures it doesn't. It's in a totally different place. It's in part of the writings where we have other books like Sam, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, those kinds of things. But you can certainly see why in the English, we're making this connection because of verse one. Yes, when the Judges ruled. Okay, I'm going to rate this down. It's a different place in the Hebrew Bible. I didn't know that before I start Ruth here. I noticed the last verse in judges 21. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did that, which was right in his own eyes to also kind of set up what's coming. you said, to hang this gem after judges.

As we look into Ruth and then we're going to move into first Samuel, it's a short book in terms of what we've read so far. It's kind of just a little blip, you know, just for chapters. But I think we can get a lot out of this. Right, it's a very, very powerful book. You're right, it has a lot in it that I think is worth reading and even in preparation for today. I was kind of going through it and I'm going, oh, and seeing some things that I hadn't seen before.

Maybe I could set it up this way and kind of bring in at least as an introduction both Ruth and those early chapters of First Samuel. These are really, really important introducing David and Samuel, who are going to be major players in the Old Testament. And I think it's very interesting that in both cases, their story is introduced by some very, very ordinary women who are going to have a tremendous impact in preparing the narrative for David and for Samuel. And so, even though the book of Ruth is named after Ruth,

I think there's an argument that could be made that this story is really focused on Naomi, primarily rather than Ruth. It starts off, chapter one very quickly, we get into Naomi and her story, and that's kind of setting up the things that are happening in the rest of the book. And then kind of in chapter two,

she takes a little bit of a backstage presence where Ruth and Boaz come to the fore, but they're there really to address still the issues that Naomi is facing. And then as we get to the end of Ruth, Naomi kind of resurfaces again because everything that has been happening here is being ways of showing Naomi

that God has not abandoned her. And I think that that's really important. When we go to first Samuel, then we have the story of Hannah sets things up. And it's her story and her theme that is very important not just in chapters one through three but also at the end of second Samuel when David is going to give his song it really is a reflection back on Hannah's song in chapter two of her Samuel. Even though we read these often to think about David

and to think about Samuel, these women play a really, really important role. And I think they deserve us thinking about them and their lives and their experiences and their faith and their testimony in preparation for that. Awesome. I think there may be a tendency from those who read scripture to read about the men and say everyone needs to learn from this. And then we read about the women. And

sometimes we think, Oh, women can learn from this. We need to be in the mindset that all men and women can learn from all men and women in the scriptures. I don't want to default to, Oh, look, here's a story about a woman. I bet women can learn a lot from her when I could say, no, here's a story about a woman I, as a man, can learn a lot from her. Absolutely. Women are expected to learn from Moses and Nephi and these major male figures in the scriptures, and certainly we have more of them, but one of the things that I love about the Bible is that the Bible is the place to go really in terms of the number of women who participate

in and are a part of the storyline, but there is much to be learned for both men and women from these, because I see each of them as being examples of disciples, covenant, making, covenant, keeping people, and all of us can learn from that. Gays given us a great big picture. I really liked from the church's manual the first paragraph. I love to talk to teenagers about this because they have an expectation of how their lives will turn out and I love to, when I'm with a group of teenagers, say, I can ask the adults in the room a question,

I want you teenage to look around, everybody raise your hand if your life turned out exactly the way you expected. And none of the adults raise their hands. This is what the opening paragraph of the manual says, sometimes we imagine that our lives should follow a clear path from beginning to end. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line after all. And yet life is often full of delays and detours that take us in unexpected directions. We may find that our lives are quite different from what we have thought they should be. Ruth and Hannah surely understood this. And then it goes on from there, but I think it's a good, big picture way to look at what an interesting place they came from and how things unfolded here is probably not what any of them expected.

Gay, this is awesome. Walk us through the book of Ruth. I like what you said there. We're going to show Naomi that God has not abandoned her. How many of our listeners need to hear that same message? If I'm driving in my car or I'm folding laundry and I'm listening to this and you can help me feel that God is not abandon me and help me learn about the Bible and get you're the right person for it. When my life isn't unfolding the way I expected, that doesn't mean that God has abandoned

you. So, Gaye, walk us through the book of Ruth. I'm excited. Okay. So, as we said at the beginning, Ruth is a very, very rich book and there's lots of avenues that I think that we could take to talk about it. And so let me kind of set up some of these. We're not going to, I don't think we're going to talk about all of them, but I think that these are some of the important ones. Number one is evidence that the Abrahamic covenant

was meant to bless all of the families of the earth. And I think that that's important here because we have this intersection between Israelites and moabites. Frankly, they didn't have a very positive relationship at this time. We're seeing questions about refugees. We've got both Naomi and her family, as well as Ruth Ruth experiencing what it's like to leave your homeland and to come into another country. We're seeing that I think Ruth is a great example of refugees adding positively to a community and I think that that's really nice to see. But in terms of the Abrahamic covenant, we're seeing that Tehran's ancestors, who have been

divided, are now coming together, as in the descendants of Abraham and the descendants of Haran in this story. Remind our listeners who Tehran and Haran are. Okay, so Tehran is Abraham's father, and Haran is his brother. That's kind of introduced to us back in Genesis, but since this story is particularly focusing on Abraham's lineage, sometimes we forget about their other families as well. Right, so from Haran came these moabbites. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, and Ruth is one of those. Yeah. Yep. We would say Ruth was not an Israelite. No, she's always considered a Moabite. She's a foreigner that is emphasized here. She's never considered to be an Israelite in the book of Ruth. She's always this outsider. And of course, this is going to also set up the story of David

who is going to spend time in Moab and he's going to be criticized for that in some respects. But he sees Moab, it's a place of shelter for him and for his family in difficult times. So that also helps to prepare us for that story that's going to come later on. I would also throw in for our listeners who may be joining us next year, John. I don't know if anybody would listen to us that long.

This story of Ruth and Boaz, as well as the story of Hannah, are going to come up in the Gospels, both in Matthew and Luke. So put those in the back of your mind for next year. All right, let's keep going here. So let's start just in chapter one again. There's this idea that there's a famine in the land. I think that that's a really important thing. It's not something that we should skip over. Why is there a famine? Well, if it is a continuation of judges, that could be because of all of the wars that are going on,

all of the crops that are being co-opted by foreign armies, being destroyed and things like that. But it also can be representative of a lack of rain. And I want to emphasize that one for a minute because I think it has covenantal implications in the ancient world and in Israel, that was a rain-based economy. Four things to grow, they needed nine inches of rain a year for the crops to survive. And so if you had eight and a half inches, then that wasn't enough, and the crops would fail. So why is that important?

I think the answer to that is because back to Deuteronomy 11, which I'm sure you've talked about, but this covenantal experience that the Lord says is he's taking Israel out of Egypt and taking them to a very, very different land than what they knew in Egypt, where you had the flow of the Nile and then things like that.

And so this is Deuteronomy 11 and let me kind of set this up with a couple of places. Verse 10. The Lord is telling Israel, the land wither thou goers to possess it is not like the land of Egypt from whence he came out where thou soedseed and waterstead with thy foot as a garden of herbs. But the land wither ye go to possess, it is a land of hills and valleys and drinketh water of the reign of heaven. So it's a reign agriculture. Verse 13, and it shall come to pass if ye shall hark indiligently unto my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God and serve him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, that I will give you the reign of your land in his due season, the first reign and the latter reign. And thou mayest gather, King James says corn, but it means grain, and thy wine, and thy oil.

Take heed to yourselves, verse 16, that your heart be not deceived and you turn aside and serve other guides and worship them. If you are living this covenant, if you are a bank, my commandments, if you are loyal to me as your God, then I will give you the reign that you need. So you'll have bounteous crops. So that word I think has covenantal implications that we might easily just skip over. But because of this famine in the land, we have this family who is going to Elimalic and Naomi, and their two sons are going to leave, or the city of Bethlehem, the town of Bethlehem, and they're going to go over to Moab. Now, this often happens. We see this all of the time happening in ancient Israel and we see it with Abraham and Jacob where people, there's a famine and so they travel because they're trying

to find places where there's food for them and pasture for their cattle. So this fits very nicely into that nomadic lifestyle which we see in this area. But they go to Moab, a place that is traditionally at odds with the Israelites, but we see no evidence of them being treated poorly. They seem to have been welcomed by the Moabites and they live there for up to 10 years. I grew up in St. George where we dealt with droughts. I remember praying for rain, fasting for rain, praying for rain. I had a great bishop. His name was Bob Cope, and I was in a young married word.

I was the Elder Schorn president, and we fasted for rain, and then we were all gonna go over to the bishop's house and have a meal. And we got there. We had set up tables and chairs all outside, and he looked at me, he looked at all the tables and chairs, and he said, I don't think we're having a lot of faith.

And I said, what do you mean? He said, shouldn't we be setting up inside if we really believed that our fasting would work, right? Shouldn't we bring umbrellas and ponchos? I've always remembered that moment of, do you really expect God? We'll bless you with rain. And correct me if I'm wrong here, Gabe, but don't they celebrate water every year in the feast of tabernacles?

Isn't that? Yeah. Yeah. A celebration of water. Asking for the reins to come that they will be sent. And because that Deuteronymy 11 says, I will send you your reins and the first reins and the second reins. They don't just reign, but they come at the times of planting and the times for the growth of the crops. So they're really important. Yeah. A rain-based economy. I like that. So this family, Naomi and Elimelek, we're gonna have two immigrant stories, aren't we? Where they go into Moab and then, and then some of the families gonna come back.

Right, yeah. So we have immigrants going into Moab and then some of the Moabites are gonna come back with Ruth particularly from Moab back into Israel. So that becomes important because although initially, Moab is seen as a place of plenty for them, it becomes eventually a place of barrenness for Naomi. There might be plenty of food there,

but she loses first her husband and then her two children. And this then is setting up everything that's happening in Ruth, because Naomi, I think, becomes vulnerable then. In the ancient world, your husband looked after the wife, and once the husband died, the sons would step up and look after her, but now they're gone as well. So she's in a very vulnerable position. And she recognizes that, and I don't know how long

after her sons died, And she recognizes that. And I don't know how long after her son's died that she hears that the famine has abated in Bethlehem, but she does. And she decides to return there probably because she knows that they're still extended family there. And of course, Bowas is going to be one of those. So if we could kind of look at verses eight and 9, this is where she's about to return and her two daughters-in-law have every intention of following her. And I love the language here. And Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, go return each to her mother's house and

the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant you that you may find rest and the word there can mean security, not necessarily an absence of work, but security, and sometimes it's even meant for the dwelling place of God, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them and they lifted up their voice and wept. The thing that I want to kind of emphasize here is what Naomi is doing. She's invoking God on behalf of these two Moabite women. The word here is the Lord deal kindly with you.

Now, the word in Hebrew here is a word chassad. You've got to get the ch- in there. But chessed, it's translated a number of different ways in the Old Testament. So sometimes I don't think we see the continuity of what's going through. So sometimes it can mean kindness or loving kindness or sometimes it's translated as mercy or things like that, but it's all the same

word, chessed. And I want to stop and talk about that a little bit here because in the book of Ruth, we don't see God very much. There's only really two places where he shows up. And so you could kind of look at this and go, oh God doesn't isn't important in this story. But this word chessed shows that he is intimately a part of this story because it's God's chessed. And although the King James translates this word in a number of ways, most of those translations don't convey the

covenantal part of this word. So, for example, in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 12, I think we see the importance of covenant with this word. There it says, Wherefore it shall come to pass. If you harken to these judgments and keep them and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy chastred, which he swear unto his fathers. So this idea of covenant brings out God's chastred. What's interesting to me here is that Naomi is conveying or invoking God's hazard on two mower bites. You may be thinking about, oh, this should be Israel.

So this is for me is one of those first places here where we see that this Abrahamic covenant is to bless all of the families of the world. And we see that, but it doesn't come out very nicely here or cleanly in the english translation i think that that's an important lead on kind of things. But Ruth decides that, no, she is going to stay with Naomi. And it's this decision that brings us to the verse, probably if we know one verse in Ruth, it's this verse, right? In verse 16, yeah. Ruth said, in treat me not to leave the Naomi or return from following after thee, for wither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people shall be my people and thy God, my God. Right?

That's a powerful, powerful verse of, you mentioned loyalty here to Naomi. There's something though that I want us to kind of think about with this. A lot of people read this verse and say, oh this is evidence that Ruth converted to the Israelite religion. And honestly, our earliest interpreters, the Jewish Targum, do talk about this in terms of a conversion. The difficulty of this is that we really don't know what conversion looks like this early on. I mean, Latter-day Saints have a very different, a very definite idea of what conversion means, but I'm not sure that we can take our idea of conversion and just immediately place it on here, especially for a woman. Men, there was kind of circumcision,

you've got a ritual that you can go through, but we have no evidence of that for women until much, much later. And honestly, it was assumed that women would assume the gods of their husbands when they married. And so that may have happened when she married my clone, but we don't know it. And if we look carefully at what Ruth is saying here, the first commitment, the loyalty primarily here is to Naomi. Right? It's only secondarily to Naomi's God. So this verse is about, I am going to be with you. I am committing to you and to look

after you as a daughter would look after her mother, since you have no sons to do that. What you just described here reminds me of what we studied last year with Emma Smith and Lucy Mack Smith. After Joseph Smith dies and the church goes west, we don't really hear much about Emma and Lucy Mack, but Emma stays with Lucy and takes care of her until she dies. Yeah. I do want to talk a little bit about how these imagery of bounty and contrasting it with famine has both physical and spiritual implications in the story that we should be seeing. So for example Eli Malek and his family go to Moab because of the famine in Bethlehem,

but it soon becomes a place of barrenness for Naomi. We've said that with the loss of her sons, but that's going to continue on and we're going to see that interchange throughout the book. Gai, I wanted to say one thing that I want to make sure listeners didn't miss. Maybe the Lord isn't mentioned often, but he is throughout. He's in the story. He is. He is in this story. It reminds me of two talks. Other bednars, the tender mercies of the Lord, he talks about coincidences being the the Lord's hand. And Elder Rasmann gave a talk called by divine design. I would ask our listeners to go back if you if you have a

moment this week and look at those talks because I think the book of Ruth gay is saying here is he may not be mentioned by a name often but he is definitely there and gay I don't know if you know this but the family that started our podcast right when we started, the man who started the whole thing passed away suddenly, unexpectedly. His name is Steve Sornson, absolutely incredible guy. And the family feels like this podcast was something he was meant to do before he died. Go to verse 19 through 21. Naomi and Ruth come back to Bethlehem.

I think these verses are really important and it's not enough in my mind just to read them. These verses we have to feel. So verse 19, so they too went until they came to Bethlehem which in Hebrew means the house of bread. And it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem that all of the city was moved about and they said, is this Naomi? And notice Naomi's response, well this is what we need to feel.

And she said unto them, call me not Naomi because that word means pleasing, but call me instead Mara, which means bitterness. And it's a word that's going to come up in the story of Hannah as well. For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out from Bethlehem full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me nay o' me? Seeing that the Lord hath testified against me me and the Almighty hath afflicted me. Can you feel the kind of the anguish in what Naomi is saying here? Beginning of chapter one, we see her as a fairly strong woman, but the loss of her husband and her

children has taken a tremendous toll upon her. And this is kind of Job-like seeing this window in Tane'a-Omi. Why has God done this to me? What have I done wrong that I would be and she's saying he punished by God? Why is he doing this to me? And I think that that's really important because the rest of the book is kind of saying that God has not abandoned you, Naomi, and the book and what happens here is to show her, even though we don't see the name of God there very often, but everything that is

happening here is to say God is aware of you and of your needs. And he is responding to you. And that's where this idea of chesset is becomes really, really important, I think. I noticed something too that when the children of Israel, led by Moses, had the bitter water, they were called the waters of Meris. That's the same word. Same word. There's a talk from President Iring 10 years ago, April of 2012, called Mountains to Climb. He says something similar to what we're reading.

He said, many of you are now passing through physical, mental, and emotional trials that could cause you to cry out as did one great and faithful servant of God I knew well. His nurse heard him exclaim from his bed of pain when I have tried all my life to be good. Why has this happened to me?" And then President Eiring goes on and talks about the tragedies, these mountains that we face in life. I like what you said here, Gae. We've got to feel these moments. Call me Naomi, call me Mara. If we don't stop and say, oh, we're all going to have Ruth chapter one tragedies

in our life and maybe think that God has abandoned us. As you told us in the beginning, Naomi, God has not abandoned you. And to our listeners, God has not abandoned you. The end of chapter one kind of gives us this idea and another important theme. So Naomi returned and Ruth the Moabet ice, her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the Bali harvest. So again notice this contrast right between famine and harvest. So again notice this contrast right between famine and harvest and Naomi come left Bethlehem

because of famine but has come back at a time of harvest, the time of plenty, but she and Ruth don't have access to that plenty. And so it seems to me that there are two things, even though in chapter 2 Naomi is going to take a bit of a step back, she's still going to orchestrate some events because there are two pressing needs for her and for Ruth. Number one, she's got to find a way to put food on the table. And that's pressing, right?

That's immediate. And so chapter two is going to deal with her and how Ruth is going to be loyal to Naomi and help her. And then the second one that's going to come more to the four in chapters 3 and 4 is how can we have not just immediate food and immediate help, but she starts looking to the long-term security for herself and for Ruth. So that's what the rest of these chapters are looking at. And so, again, even though Naomi is taking a back seat, she's orchestrating the events that take place. There's one other thing I'd like to say before we get into chapter two is that this relationship

between Naomi and Ruth is a really, really important one, and frankly, it's fairly unique in scriptural text. In most other places where we have two women, we see those women in competition with each other. We've got Sarah and Hager. We've got Leah and Rachel. In first Samuel, we're going to have Hannah and Panoniah. They're in competition with each other. This is one of the... Well, I think the only story in Scripture, except maybe for Mary and Elizabeth, where we see two women working together in a common cause.

Now that doesn't mean that I think that Naomi and Ruth are equals. I do still think that Ruth is a servant and she sees herself as a servant, repeatedly in chapter two, but they're still going to work together to help each other survive in this new land. I haven't read the entire covenant of compassion book, gay,

but did this come up? Yes, I wrote an article on this with one of my students. Yeah. Let's talk about the book. It's called Naomi Ruthenboa's Borders Relationships Law and Hesse It by a gay, straight, and as an Angela Cothron. Yes.

In chapter two, Naomi recognizes that they need immediate help of food. And this is one of those places where we see the law of Moses coming through in very, very practical ways. And I think it's really important for us to see how at least some people, not just what the law said, but here we see people who are living and interpreting the law. In the Vitticus chapter 19, we're all familiar with the Savior talking about the second great commandment. Well, that second great commandment is in the Law of Moses and it comes from the Vitticus chapter 19 to love our neighbor as ourselves. In the broader context of that chapter though, it gives some examples of how we look after people and how the law of Moses

expected covenant-making and covenant-keeping people to live that second great commandment. And one of the ways it was is that when the harvest went on, they were specifically told that they were not to cut the corners of the field, that they were to leave that unharvested so that those who were poor and needy would have access and could come in and glean from that and harvest and get food to support themselves. That's a fantastic provision. The second part of that is that once the harvesters have gone through, there was often grain that was left behind and the law of Moses said,

you're not to go back and reharvest. You're to leave that grain on the ground again for those in need who could come through and get food to live by. So one of the things I like to see this as we think about the Law of Moses in an agrarian society doing this was going to impact the bottom line right of the harvest. This would be a real sacrifice that they're making to fulfill the law of Moses. And one of the things I like to say is that this sacrifice was just as important as them taking an animal to the temple if we're going to understand the law of Moses and what it was trying to do for its people. I love that you've talked about this because I think if we were to ask most folks how you would characterize the law of Moses, some things that sound strange, you don't see one that talks about make a provision for the poor, like this one does so well.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Can I just mention that for those looking at paper scriptures, Leviticus 19.9 is foot noted there. It's footnote 2a on Routh 2. And let me just read Leviticus 19.9. And when you reap the harvest of your land, they'll not holy reap the corners of thy field. Neither shall thou gather thy gleanings of thy harvest. And if you look further on in that same chapter, you're going to see the love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, that's in verse 34, but the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto

you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. For you are strangers in the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God. That's a great verse, Leviticus 1934. Yeah, or even 18. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear the grudge against the children of those people, but Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. There it is again, so it's twice in there. Yeah. We see that happening in chapter two. So Ruth here is not willing to just kind of sit back and say to other people, you need to look after me. She's willing to go out and to work hard to support herself and Naomi. And so she goes out and it just so happens that she starts harvesting or gleaning in the fields owned by one Boaz. And so he's introduced here. Naomi in verse 1 has said that

he's a Kinsman, and this is going back to your discussion about family members. So the word here is just Moda, which just means a Kinsman or relatives of some signs. And notice how he's described, I'm going to come back to this in verse 1 of chapter 2. Naomi had a kinsman of her husbands, a mighty man of wealth of the family of L.I. Malik and his name was Boez. I'm going to come back to that. Ruth is out there and she is gleaning, but when Boez comes and he's asking, who is this woman? and he's asking, you know, who is this woman? He's told who she is. He's specifically kind of is really, really impressed of who Ruth is and her commitment to Naomi

and that she's been willing to leave behind her home and her family because of that commitment. And he's really impressed by that. And so he is going then to give her some extra opportunities. So I love this because we see in Boaz, and this is the first opportunity, Boaz doesn't just live the letter of the law. He is very generous in his interpretation of the law.

So while he says, okay, so we're harvesting, we're leaving the corners. What he tells Ruth, you know what, you don't have to just harvest from the corners. Why don't you go along with my servants who are doing the harvest and harvest with them? So she now has access to all of the grain in the field. He says, don't go back there. So she hasn't got a worry about coming behind them and just picking what is left over. Boaz is giving her the opportunity to be right up front and harvesting. The other thing that he says is, don't worry about trying to go to other fields. So you just stay here and you work in my fields. So that means she's not losing time, traveling from field to field.

She can spend all of her time where it's really, really necessary to gather the food that she needs. And then the other thing he does is he says to the young men in language is really kind of interesting, don't you touch her. And one of these words has kind of some sexual overtones. And that highlights for me of how that being a glina can be a dangerous thing for a foreign woman in a field, Boaz is not just looking after her, he's making sure that his people respect her as well.

Absolutely. So here I'm seeing this generosity from Bowas is easing the pain of the tragedy they've been through in chapter one. And he can see I love what he says in verse 12. He says, the Lord recompense thy work, a full reward be given the of the Lord God of Israel under whose wings our art come to trust. That's really important verse. This is Bowab invoking. Like Naomi had earlier invoking the blessings of the God of Israel upon this Moabite woman. And the language here is really important because the Hebrew, I think, has some connotations that are really important here. So when it says the Lord recompense they work and a full reward be given to thee by the Lord, under whose wings the Hebrew word for wings here is canaf. It's the word used to describe the wings of the cherubim in the temple who surround the

covering of the mercy seat. The place where God sits in judgment on Israel, these cherubim are really important because they're reflective of God's mercy in his judgment. And so when we look at this under whose wings or the mercy that God has, in whom thou hast come to trust, and the word here is hasa means to seek refuge. Wings is also important because in Ezekiel, the same word canof is used in terms of God's covenant kindness and loving. So he's invoking that God's chessed, he doesn't use that word here, but his chessed is going to be bestowed upon this foreigner as well. Bowaz isn't just going to say, God, you need to do this. He's going to follow it up by the way that he treats her. So Bowas becomes God's arm representing how God loves even this foreign

woman who is destitute. He's going to then invite her to come and sit with everybody else, not just on the periphery, but to sit with the people, have a meal with them. And then he's going to say, okay, you've collected all of this grain, I'm going to give you some more grain to take home. And so, Ruth is going to go home with about an ephar of grain, which is about anywhere, depending depending how you determine an EFA, is between 20 and 50 pounds of grain, which is more than enough to feed these two women for an extended period of time. Last week, we looked at Samson, and Boaz seems to be almost the exact opposite, where Samson looks out for himself. Boaz is really generous in looking out for others.

Look at verse 20, when Ruth comes home, look how Naomi responds. Oh, let's start verse 19. And her mother-in-law said unto her, where has thou gleaned today? Where rotus thou? Blessed be he that did not take knowledge of thee thee and she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought and said, the man's name with whom I wrought today is Bowas. And they only said unto her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord. So Bowas is representing God. She recognizes that who has not left off his kindness.

Notice that word there, his hazard to the living and the dead. And Naomi said unto her, the man is a near kin of us, one of our next kinsmen. There's a shift here in the Hebrew that's not reflected in the English translation. You recall in verse chapter 2 verse 1, Naomi said that that was talking about a kinsman and we mentioned that the word is moda, which are relative. But in 20, the word kinsman is a different word.

Hear the word is goel. And goel, as the footnote's going to tell us, means a redeemer. That bow-as is a redeemer. Now, in the ancient word, this was kind of a technical term. A redeemer was somebody who is responsible for family members in an extended family, and if they get into trouble, then he's there to redeem them. And the word redeems means to buy them out or to pay for them. So that if they're captured in war, and they become slaves, a go-al would go and pay the price to free the slaves. If they get into debt into and so they lose their land, then the the redeemer or the go-al would be the person who would go and help them to

reclaim that land, which is going to be a very, very important part of chapter 4. And I think it would be hard for us to not see the connection that Sam's talking about that God is our redeemer. He is our goel. And we see Bowas in terms of acting and doing the things that God would do if he was there, but he's using him as the agent of his chessed. And Naomi recognizes that. So this is her first kind of beginning evidence that God has not abandoned her because he understands her need and he sent someone, Bawaz, to help her and to redeem her and Ruth. I love how the writer leaves it up to the reader to see the Lord's hand. She just happened in verse 3 to be part of the field of Bawaz, and here we find out

it wasn't just a good luck. It was a divine design. Yes, very nice. So if we move them to chapter three, we're getting a little bit of a shift again. So now Naomi is saying, okay, God has responded to this immediate need. Is he also going to respond to the long term need for security for Naomi and Ruth. And so Naomi, again, she's going to be in the background, but she's orchestrating things. And so she tells Ruth that you need to go up to the threshing floor. It is a harvest time. She knows that Bowas is going to be there working to take care of the grain that has been harvested. Naomi says, go and wait for a while until he's eaten and he's had his drink and he's ready to go to sleep, but then go and lie at his feet, right?

Which is a strategy. There's no doubt about it. She's wanting to be a matchmaker here in important ways. So look at chapter 3 verse 8. And it came to pass at midnight that the man was afraid and turned himself. Now the word afraid here can mean he shivered or he shuddered. So does that mean he's cold because the blankets aren't on his feet or something like that, but something happens and he wakes up and sees Ruth at his feet. And he said unto her, who are they? And she answered and said, I am Ruth, thine handmade. And the hand-made

here means servant or slave. And then she says, she are spread therefore, they skirt over the hand-made for thou art a near kinsman, thou art a goel. Now, the word here, again, this is interesting in the Hebrew, the word skirt here is the Hebrew word, canaugh. It's the same word that is used back in chapter two, translated as wings.

And so in effect, what Ruth is saying, okay, you have invoked God to look after us, to be a place of refuge for us, to be a place of mercy. Will you be the instrument in God's hands to do that? Because you're a goel. And then notice how Boaz responds to her and he said, Blessed art thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness, guess what the word is here? Hasid. This is Hasid.

In the latter end, then at the beginning. So what he's saying here is, so she's got an early Hasid and a later Hasid. So the early Hasid is the way that she has looked after her mother-in-law, after the death of her husband and children. And now, because your chessed is, that you, he's saying, for there has not followed the young men whether poor or rich. Now there's a change in language here as well. Right? Earlier we've had young men and they've all been referred to the word is the Nuh-A-Rim.

But when he uses it here, the young man, he's using Baha-Rim or the chosen people, chosen ones. What I think he's saying is there are plenty of people you could have married. Choice young men, some of them even wealthy. So why are you coming after me, right? men, some of them even wealthy. So why are you coming after me, right? But this is because of your chastity, the chastity that you, Ruth, have, that you are wanting to think long term, not just in terms of what's important for you as an individual, but what's important for Naomi, because of the oath that you have made to her. I think that's really important. And then verse 11. He's impressed by her commitment to Naomi. Yes, yep.

And how she doesn't put her own situation above that of Naomi's or in front of Naomi's. Right. But again, it's this chastity here, right? Is that she becomes the example of God's loving kindness as well. So it's Boaz is an example of God's chastity, but Ruth is also an important way that God is showing Naomi that he has not abandoned her. God has abandoned me, but Ruth swithered the whole time. Yeah. And that's kind of a symbol that God has been with through the whole time. But you have to have eyes to see sometimes, the hand of God in our lives, right?

And then we go to verse 11, where Bowie's is going to kind of shift things a little bit and says, and now my daughter fear not. I will do to thee all that thou requires. I will be your go-al, he's saying. For all of the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. Now I want to kind of stop here and pick up something that I introduced before. The word that is translated as virtuous here is HELL.

HELL, you've got to get that same CHECK, HELL. And it's exactly the same word that is used back in chapter 2 verse 1 where Bower's described as a mighty man of wealth, but it's the word HELL. So at least in some level here, the person telling us the story is trying to show that even though there are lots of differences between Bowers and Ruth, there's wealth, there's position, there's prestige, all of those kind of things. But the narrator here is saying, but both of these people have exhibit this, this, this pile, which is virtuous. We say that when we're talking about a woman, we say virtue, when we're talking about a man, we're talking about wealth, right? But they're the same things. So that these two are equally yoked, even though they

come from very, very different social and economic backgrounds. So this looks like something else that's lost in the English because you're saying Ruth chapter 2, verse 1, Boaz is described as a mighty man of wealth, same word as chapter 3, verse 11, all the people that know that that are a virtuous woman, same word. And so they're matched. I love that, but you lose it in the English completely. I think we use virtue usually for a comment on, you know, chastity or something.

And think about Jesus when he said, I perceive that virtue has gone out of me when the woman touched his garment. And that, it's bigger than just chastity, it's power. and that it's bigger than just chastity, it's power. And in fact, in the New Testament, the word is RAT for virtue, oftentimes. And RAT is a military term, which talks about somebody who's willing to go to battle

and is willing to keep going to battle, even though everybody around them is falling off or running away, because the person believes in the cause for which they're fighting. That's what virtue means from a great perspective. So a part of it might be chastity, but you're right, it is a much, much broader umbrella of terms. I'm interested in this word because in section 88 of the doctrine of covenants, the Lord mentions section 88 verse 40, intelligence, cleavoth unto intelligence, wisdom, receiveth wisdom, truth, and braces, truth, virtue, loves virtue.

And we see that playing out between Ruth and Boas that they're being drawn together because they're alike. And it reinforces again there are plenty of other people you could have married, but you've chosen here, right? And again Naomi I think recognizes that and thus she's kind of matchmaking this situation going through. I think I've said that same thing to my wife, but I am not a mighty man of wealth. same thing to my wife, but I am not a mighty man of wealth. But you can be well. The word they hire means that it hasn't got to be wealth, right? There's other things than just wealth. Okay, the rest of chapter three then is going to be an example again of how Boaz becomes an instrument in the hands of God, living the law of Moses, but doing it in a much expanded way. So he comes back to this idea of Goel. Ruth

is interesting here because it's going to connect aspects of the law of Moses that we don't see connected anywhere else, right? So he's going to be a goel, but he's also going to redeem the land of Naomi and he's going to be willing to enter into something called a leveraged marriage with Ruth. So a leverit marriage meant that if a couple of married and the husband dies and there's no children, then one of the sons is obligated to marry his brother's wife to raise up seed unto the brother who had died. Now, that's again an agrarian kind of thing where it's important for names to live on, posterity to live on. It's also dealing with land inheritance, which usually went through the male son with some

exceptions. Some women had to fight for that, the daughters of Zaloffa then. I think I said that right. That's the responsibility. And it usually kind of when it's talked about in the Law of Moses, it's a brother who's kind of living on the same farm or the same land or whatever. So, but Boa says here, you know, I am a Kinsman, but there's somebody closer who has more of an obligation to do this than me. And so Boa goes and says, I want to give him the right, the first opportunity to do that. And this Kinsman, when he's thinking, oh, I get Naomi's land, he's thinking, oh, I like

this idea. But when it's now tied to marrying Ruth, he says, yeah, I don't think I want to do that because that's going to impact my inheritance for my children. So I'm not going to do it. Thanks for no thanks. And he takes off his shoe, which was one of the symbol ways of saying that I'm not going to do that.

And it's then that Bow As steps up and says, okay, I'm not worried about inheritance, I'm not worried about the financial implications. I will do for you what the law says to look after you and the posterity. And this is looking after Naomi. I'm going to marry Ruth so that Naomi can be looked after, which I think is a really, really powerful, wonderful idea that's going on. But this same kind of marriage tradition

comes up in the New Testament, doesn't it, when the Sadducees approached Jesus and say there were among us a man who had, and the husband died and then she married the brother. So that's the same thing. Yeah, that's what's happening. Yeah, that's what he's referring to. Is the idea that someone turns that down the obligation?

Is that gonna cause you some social repercussions? If you turn down your obligation? Yeah, it is saying something about the person, yeah. Well, Bo has a said to Naomi and to Ruth, I'm willing to step up and do this, but I need to check with this person first. Kind of demonstrates Boaz's integrity. I'm trying to do the right thing here, trying to follow the law. Trying to follow the law. But again, not just follow the letter of the law. He is being very, very generous is in his interpretation of how the law

is being used here, which again I think is really important to understanding Boaz. It's almost so far. I'm seeing that loyalty and generosity are a major part of God's economy, the way he wants us to behave, to be loyal and generous. So this guy, whoever he is, the next Kinsman declines and sounds like that. Hopefully is what Boaz wanted to have happened. Then we get where it now into the concluding parts of Book of Ruth in chapter 4. So Boaz is going to step up and he is going to marry Ruth and Ruth is going to have a child. She's going to become pregnant and have a child and then I just want to pick it up in verses 13, just to set it up. So Boaz took Ruth and she was his wife and when

he went in unto her, the Lord gave her conception. So this is the second place where we see God in action and she bear a sun and the women said unto Naomi blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, without a goel that his name may be famous in Israel. that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restoreer of their life. Notice the contrast of when she first comes to Bethlehem and the bitterness and things that she's feeling there. A restoreer of their life, and I think that that life could be physical life, but also lifestyle kind of thing, and a nourisher of their old age. For they daughter in law, which loveeth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him. And Naomi took the child and laid it on her bosom and became nurse to it. And

the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, this is a son born to Naomi. That's really, really interesting, right? Because the son is born to Ruth. But again, this is evidence that God has not abandoned Naomi. And this is God's way of answering her plea and her business that she was feeling in chapter 1, because now Naomi and Ilomalyx, name or lineage or family would continue on. It was not destroyed. And then the really important part, so Naomi, is the great, great grandmother of David, which is the way that this all concludes, showing that this story is about pointing to and the greatness that David would eventually have as king. And also it's going to play into Matthew

chapter one. Absolutely. Those are the footnotes there when it goes into that. I was looking at that before we started today and it spells Boaz Boos B-O-O-Z in Matthew I for some reason. Well, that's just a reflection of the Greek transliteration of Greek, whereas this is Hebrew, so that's the difference. It's nice to know this is talking about Boaz and Ruth. I hope as it's through our discussion here, we've kind of got a feel for the richness of this wonderful, wonderful book of Scripture. This book of Scripture is so much more than just chapter one, 16. I hope that all of us are seeing a little bit of Naomi, a little bit of Ruth, and even a little bit of bowas in each of us. These three are working together in concert to bring

about God's blessings for his people. No one of them does it alone, but they have to work together. This is a great story of man and women working together. This is a great story of women standing shoulder to shoulder to bring about the purposes of God. This is about people, real people, like you and I, who aren't perfect people. They don't have an idyllic life, but they live their life and in spite of the difficulties they have, they're trying to do the things of God. And are there times when they're thinking God's abandon me? Absolutely. I've experienced that. I think we all have experienced that. But this reminds us again that God is always in the details. And if we can have faith in Him, not just in the moment, but in the long term,

that we will see the hand of God in our lives if we have eyes to see. But sometimes it's something that we really have to look for just as we can't just read the book of Ruth casually. We've got to kind of ask questions and say, why is this happening? And why is it being said this way? Why is the book being set up in this manner? Because it's moving us as readers to see how powerful God is and His great chesset for His people that is most often made known to people through the lives and actions of other covenant-making

and covenant-keeping people. Gay, you and Elder Uktor, think a lot alike. He said, this is from the March 2019, Leahona. On a future day, you will look back on this cherished and exciting adventure of mortality, and you will understand. You will see that the dots really did connect into a beautiful pattern, more sublime than you ever could have imagined. With unspeakable gratitude, you will see that God Himself in His abounding love, grace

and compassion, was always there watching over you, blessing you, and guiding your steps as you walked toward him. I think this is absolutely inspiring, John. This reminds me of last year, one of my became, because of our podcast, one of my favorite verses, is section 58, verse 3, you cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which will come here after. And that kind of coincides with that gay said or what Elder Oakdorf said that, I've got this and you won't see it right now, but I'm taking care of you. We all have questions and I have a gazillion questions and I don't have the answers to all of them, but I know that God does, but he's got to prepare me to be able to get to a place

where I can understand and see as he sees and understand what he sees. And I really do think that that's what faith is all about. That's where you hang on it. If you have faith, doesn't mean you don't have questions. It just means that you're gonna keep going with your questions until the time where God can reveal Himself to us in powerful ways.

Please join us for part two of this podcast. you