(Audio and Text Available)
Title: What’s the Catch?
Intro:
I got a call from Marriott vacation rentals the other day…(two hour presentation…)
“…you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess…”
Though there is no direct O.T. law detailing that the man must also marry Ruth, the fact that the man does not argue with Boaz suggests one of two possibilities:
- It had become custom, born of the Levitical Law, that when redeeming property, you must redeem all relatives associated with that property, and make them part of your household.
- Ruth and Naomi had insisted that their protection become part of the transaction. (Which they would have the legal right to do.)
PB’s Thought: I’m led to believe it’s more the first option because the text says nothing of Ruth insisting up this condition, and the assumption is the relative understood the custom and once he found out the land came with two widows, he backed out without any argument.
“I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance.”
So why is the man so quick to change his mind once he realizes the conditions? Any thoughts or ideas?
I must admit, I wondered about this as well and I found an interesting passage from Matthew Henry on the matter. I will warn you before reading it, that Henry’s language is a bit confusing, so after I put his thoughts up on the wall, I’ll clarify with some bullet points of my own.
Matthew Henry’s Thoughts on the Matter:
The land, he thought, would be an improvement of his inheritance, but not the land with the woman; that would mar it.
Perhaps he thought it would be a disparagement to him to marry such a poor widow that had come from a strange country, and almost lived upon alms. He fancied it would be a blemish to his family, it would mar his blood, and disgrace his posterity. Her eminent virtues were not sufficient in his eye to counterbalance this.
The Chaldee paraphrase makes his reason for this refusal to be that he had another wife, and, if he should take Ruth, it might occasion strife and contention in his family, which would mar the comfort of his inheritance.
Or he thought she might bring him a great many children, and they would all expect shares out of his estate, which would scatter it into too many hands, so that the family would make the less figure.
Pastor Ben’s Clarification of Matthew Henry:
- Perhaps the man didn’t want to marry a Moabitess widow because that would be “beneath” his family name and reputation.
- Perhaps he had another wife and did not want to bring this strife into his home.
- Perhaps he was afraid that he would have many children with Ruth and did not want his estate to be divided amongst many children.
Don’t Miss the Huge Point:
All of these ideas are very plausible, and maybe all three of them applied, but I want to be sure we don’t miss the big point here in terms of comparison…does anybody know where I’m going with this?
All of this man’s (potential) reasons are selfish, and NONE of these objections scares away Boaz.
- Despite Ruth’s situation, Boaz commends her character and maturity and does not think she would be a dark spot on his family’s name, but rather a great addition to the family.
- We do not know for certain if Boaz has another wife, but that would be HIGHLY unlikely, due to the fact that Naomi hatches the plot for Ruth to speak with him at night on the threshing floor. (Even if he does, he is still willing to take both women into his household.)
- He was not at all afraid of having children, and we should be glad they did, because their son becomes part of the line to Christ.
Conclusion: Once again, what we see is that Boaz is a man of extremely high character, selfless, generous, and honorable.
Close:
(read v. 7)
The final thing we read in today’s passage is the “sealing” of the public agreement, made by exchanging sandals. Written contracts were very rare in this culture so having another man’s sandal demonstrated that neither party just “made up” the contract…the sandal provided some degree of proof.
As we talked about last week, Boaz made every provision for this to be a public contract, placing his proposal before 10 elders of the city and then sealing it by exchanging sandals with the man.
We will get into all that a bit more next week, for now, let’s pray.
Pray/QA