followHIM - Ruth ; Samuel 1-3 -- Part 1 : Dr. Gaye Strathearn

Episode Date: June 3, 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 Hafens 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.

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 became 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 Strathern's 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 scriptures sound better. Everything sounds more eloquent and wiser. It does. Gay Strathern 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 Gnosticism 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 the wisdom and 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.

I'll wax personal here for a minute. I've been at BYU since 2010, and there is no one as kind and as brilliant as Gay Strathern. 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 just 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 Davidic 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 Psalms, 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 write 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, like you said, Hank, this gem after Judges. As we look into Ruth, and then we're going to move into 1 Samuel, it's a short book in terms of what we've read so far. It's kind of just a little blip, just four 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 1 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 has been ways of showing Naomi that God has not abandoned her. And I think that that's really important. When we go to 1 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 2 Samuel, when David is going to give his song, it really is a reflection back on Hannah's song in chapter two of 1 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. Gay's given us a great big picture. And 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'm going to ask the adults in the room a question. I want you teenagers to look around.

Everybody raise your hand if your life turned out exactly the way you expected. And none of the adults raised 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 that'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. Jay, 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 has not abandoned me and help me learn about the Bible. And, Gay, 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, Gay, 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, I think, that we could take to talk about it. And so let me kind of set up some of these. 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 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 Terah'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 Terah and Haran are. Okay, so Terah 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 there are other

families as well. Right. So from Haran came these Moabites? 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. For 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 as 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 goest to possess it is not like the land of Egypt from whence ye came out, where thou sowed seed and waterest it with thy foot as a garden of herbs. But the land whither ye go to possess, it is a land of hills and valleys and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. So it's a rain agriculture. Verse 13, And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently 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 rain of your land in his due season,

the first rain and the latter rain. And thou mayest gather, King James says corn, but it means grain, and thy wine and thine oil. Take heed to yourselves, verse 16, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. If you are living this covenant, if you are obeying my commandments, if you are loyal to me as your God, then I will give you the rain that you'll 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 Elimelech and Naomi, and their two sons are going to leave 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 lived 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 is Bob Cope. And I was in a young married ward. I was the elders quorum president and we fasted for rain. And then we were all going to 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 will 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 a celebration of water? Asking for the rains to come that they'll be sent. And because that Deuteronomy 11 says, I will send you your rains and the first rains and the second rains, they don't just rain, but they come at the times of planting and the times for the growth of the crops. So they're really important. Yeah.

Rain-based economy. I like that. So this family, Naomi and Elimelech, we're going to have two immigrant stories, aren't we? Where they go into Moab and then some of the family's going to come back. Right. Yeah. So we have immigrants going into Moab and then some of the Moabites are going to 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 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 there's still extended family there. And of

course, Boaz is going to be one of those. So if we could kind of look at verses eight and nine, 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 ye have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant you that ye 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. And the word here is the Lord deal kindly with you. Now, the word in Hebrew here is a word, chesed. You've got to get the ch in there.

But chesed, it's got to get the ch in there. But chesed, 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, chesed. 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 isn't important in this story. But this word chesed shows that he is intimately a part of this story because it's God's chesed. 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 ye hearken to these judgments and keep them and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy, chesed, which he swear unto his fathers. So this idea of covenant brings out God's chesed. What's interesting to me here is that Naomi is conveying or invoking God's chesed onto Moabites. You'd maybe think 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. Now, most of us know the rest of the story, right? Orpah wants to stay with Naomi, but Naomi's going, no, go home. You've got better chances staying with your people, your family. You've got people to look after you, those 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? Verse 16. In verse 16, yeah.

Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, Naomi, or return from following after thee for whither 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 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 Mahlon, 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. 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 Malik 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. Jay, I wanted to say one thing that I want to make sure our listeners didn't miss. Maybe the Lord isn't mentioned often, but he is throughout. Yeah. He's in the story. He is in this story.

It reminds me of two talks, Elder Bednar's, The Tender Mercies of the Lord. He talks about coincidences being the Lord's hand. And also Elder Rasband gave a talk called By Divine Design. I would ask our listeners to go back 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 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 it, the man who started the whole thing passed away suddenly, unexpectedly. His name is Steve Sorensen, 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 Naomi, seeing that the Lord hath testified against 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've seen 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 into Naomi. Why has God done this to me? What have I done wrong that I would be, and she's thinking, 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 chesed 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 Merah. Is that the same word? Yep, same word. Yep. There's a talk from President Eyring 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 Eyring goes on and talks about the tragedies, these mountains that we face in life. I like what you said here, Gabe. 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 Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest. So again, notice this contrast, right, between famine and harvest. So again, notice this contrast between famine and harvest. And Naomi left Bethlehem because of famine, but has come back at a time of harvest, a 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 two, 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 2 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 fore in chapters three and four

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's 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 Hagar. We've got Leah and Rachel. In 1 Samuel, we're going to have Hannah and Penaniah.

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, Ruth, and Boaz, Borders, Relationships, Law, and Hesed by Gay Strathairn and Angela Cothran. 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 Leviticus 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 Leviticus 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 re-harvest. 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 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. And can I just mention that for those looking at paper scriptures, Leviticus 19.9 is footnoted there. It's footnote 2a on Ruth 2. And let me just read Leviticus 19.9. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt 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 ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. That's a great verse, Leviticus 19, 34. Yeah, or even 18. Thou shalt not avenge nor bear the grudge against the children of thy 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 2. 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 one 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 kind. 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 husband's, a mighty man of wealth of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. Right? I'm going to come back to that. So Ruth is out there and she is gleaning. But when Boaz comes and he's asking, you know, who is this woman?

He's told who she is. He 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 to 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 gleaner 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 Boaz is easing the pain of the tragedy they've been through in chapter one. And he comes to you, I love what he says in verse 12. He says, the Lord recompense thy work, a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. That's a really important verse.

This is Boab 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 thy work and a full reward be given thee by the Lord under whose wings, the Hebrew word for wings here is kanaf. 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 hasar, means to seek refuge. Wings is also important because in Ezekiel, the same word, kanaf, is used in terms of God's covenant kindness and loving. So he's invoking that God's chesed, he doesn't use that word here, but his chesed is going to be bestowed upon this foreigner as well. Boaz 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 Boaz 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 ephah of grain, which is about anywhere, depending how you determine an ephah, 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. Let's start in verse 19. And her mother-in-law said unto her, Where hast thou gleaned today? Where wroughtest thou? Blessed be he that did not take knowledge of 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 Boaz. And Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord. So Boaz is representing God. She recognizes that. Who hath not left off his kindness, notice that word there, his chesed, 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 chapter 2, verse 1, Naomi said that that was talking about a kinsman, and we mentioned that the word is modah, which is a relative. But in 20, the word kinsman is a different word. Here the word is goel.

And goel, as the footnote's going to tell us, means a redeemer, that Boaz is a redeemer. Now, in the ancient world, 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 goel would go and pay the price to free the slaves. If they get into debt and so they lose their land, then the redeemer or the goel 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

four. And I think it would be hard for us to not see the connection that Psalm's talking about that God is our redeemer. He is our goel. And we see Boaz 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 chesed. 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, Boaz, 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 Boaz. And here we find out it wasn't just a good luck. It was divine design. Yes. Very nice. So if we move then 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 Boaz is going to be there working to take care of the grain that has been harvested. And 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 stratagem. 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 he sees Ruth at his feet. And he said unto her, Who art thou? And she answered and said, I am Ruth, thine handmaid. And the handmaid here means servant or slave. And then she says, she asks, spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid, 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 kanaph. 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? Chesed. This is chesed. In the latter end than at the beginning.

So what he's saying here is, so she's got an early chesed and a later chesed. So the early chesed is the way that she has looked after her mother-in-law after the death of her husband and children. And now, because your chesed is that you, he's saying, for thou hast 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 Na'arim. But when he uses it here, the young men, he's using Baharim 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? But this is because of your chesed, the chesed 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 chesed here, right? Is that she becomes the example of God's loving Right. But again, it's this chesed 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 chesed, but Ruth is also an important way that God is showing Naomi that he has not abandoned her.

God has abandoned me, but Ruth's with her the whole time. And that's kind of a symbol that God has been with her the whole time. But you have to have eyes to see sometimes the hand of God in our lives. And then we go to verse 11, where Boaz 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 requirest. I will be your goel, 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 chayil. Chayil.

You've got to get that same chet. Chayil. You've got to get that same chet, chayil. And it's exactly the same word that is used back in chapter 2, verse 1, where Boaz described as a mighty man of wealth. But it's the word chayil. 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 Boaz 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 chayil,

which is virtuous. We say that when we're talking aboutayil, 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, so 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 doth know that thou art 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 chastity or something and thinking about Jesus when he said, I perceive that virtue has gone out of me when the woman touched his garment.

And it's bigger than just chastity. It's power. And in fact, in the New Testament, the word is arete. And it's bigger than just chastity. It's power. And in fact, in the New Testament, the word is arete for virtue, oftentimes. And arete 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 Greek 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 and Covenants, the Lord mentions section 88 verse 40, intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence,

wisdom receiveth wisdom, truth embraces truth, virtue loves virtue. And we see that playing out between Ruth and Boaz, 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 so 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. But you can be, well, the word theichael 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 leveret marriage with Ruth. So a leveret marriage meant that if a couple are 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 Zelophodad, 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. But Boaz 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 Boaz 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, is 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 simple ways of saying that I'm not going to do that. And it's then that Boaz 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 approach 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 going to cause you some social repercussions if you turn down your obligation?

Yeah, it is saying something about the person. Yeah. Well, Boaz has 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, what would you say, integrity and trying to do the right thing here, trying to. Trying to follow the law. Trying to follow the law, yeah. But again, not just follow the letter of the law. He is being very, very generous generous 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 happen. And Ruth. Then we get, we're now into the concluding parts of Book of Ruth in chapter four. 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 conception so this is the second place where

we see god in action and she bear a son 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. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life. Notice the contrast of when she first comes to Bethlehem and the bitterness and things that she's feeling there. A restorer of thy life. And I think that that life could be physical life, but also lifestyle kind of thing. And a nourisher of thine old age. life, but also lifestyle kind of thing. 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 bitterness that she was feeling in chapter one, because now Naomi and Eli Malik's name or lineage or family would continue on. It was not destroyed. And then the really important part, so Naomi then 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 1.

Absolutely. Those are the footnotes there when it goes into that. And I was looking at that before we started today, and it spells Boaz, B-O-O-Z in Matthew 1 for some reason. Well, that's just a reflection of the Greek, transliteration of Greek, whereas this is Hebrew. So that's the difference. Nice to know. This is talking about Boaz and Ruth. I hope as 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 1, 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 Boaz 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 men 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 abandoned 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 chesed 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 Uchtdorf think a lot alike. He said, this is from the March 2019 Liahona, 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. You know what this reminds me of? Last year, one of my, became, because of our podcast, one of my favorite verses is section 58, verse 3, ye cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time the design of your God concerning those things which will come hereafter. And that kind of coincides with what Gay said or what Elder Uchtdorf 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 why you hang on. If you have faith, it doesn't mean you don't have questions. It just means that you're going to 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.