THE BOOK OF RUTH ENDS FULL. Naomi, who opened the story by declaring her emptiness, holds a child. Ruth, who gleaned at the margins, is the wife of the most honorable man in Bethlehem. The land that was in famine produces harvest. The family line that seemed to end with three graves continues-beyond anyone's ability to calculate-into the lineage of David and, through David, to Jesus of Nazareth.
This third volume of our devotional journey through Ruth takes you into the harvest-into the final movement of the story, where everything that was set in motion in the first two volumes reaches its extraordinary conclusion. We move from the threshing floor to the city gate, from the gate to the wedding, from the wedding to the birth, and from the birth to the genealogy that closes the book with its astonishing revelation: this small, ordinary story of two women and a field and a kindhearted landowner is part of the story of salvation.
By the time we reach Ruth 3, something has shifted in the narrative. Naomi, who had been passive in her grief, who had arrived in Bethlehem resigned to emptiness, is now strategic. She has a plan. She tells Ruth to wash, to anoint herself, to dress well, and to go to the threshing floor where Boaz will be winnowing grain. She says: "He will tell you what to do." In this instruction, scholars have noted, Naomi reveals both her knowledge of Boaz's character and her trust in the providential logic of the story-a logic she has been observing for some time now, even if she has not yet named it as such.1
Ruth obeys. And then-in what is certainly the most audacious act of the entire narrative-Ruth does not wait to be told what to do. She goes to the sleeping Boaz, uncovers his feet, lies down, and when he wakes and asks who she is, says: "I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer."
This is a woman who has learned to ask for what she needs. This is a woman who has moved from gleaning at the margins to lying at the feet of the redeemer and making her request directly. The arc of her courage in the narrative is one of its great unnoticed movements: from the woman who asked permission to glean in a stranger's field to the woman who goes to the threshing floor at night and asks for covering. She has grown. She has been changed by belonging.
Boaz responds with characteristic integrity. He is moved. He honors her. He deals with the legal complication-the nearer kinsman-publicly and properly. And then he marries her. And the LORD, in one of only two moments in the book where He acts directly rather than through others, gives Ruth conception-and she bears a son.
This final volume explores the four themes that emerge from this harvest conclusion. The ninth theme is Courage and Initiative-the particular kind of holy boldness that Ruth embodies at the threshing floor. The tenth theme is Honor and Integrity-the character of Boaz, who goes to the gate with the same faithfulness with which he has done everything else, and who models for every generation what it means to be a man of his word. The eleventh theme is Restoration and Fullness-the reversal that the Book of Ruth has been building toward, the return of Naomi from empty to full, from bitter to blessed. The twelfth theme is Legacy and Purpose-the genealogy at the end of the book, which places the small story of Ruth and Boaz in the great story of God, and which tells every woman reading that her story, too, is part of something larger than she can see from where she stands.
We have walked from Moab to Bethlehem. We have gleaned in the fields. We have asked for covering at the threshing floor. Now we come to the harvest.
There is something waiting for you here-in the fullness of what God prepared before you knew you needed it. Come and receive it.
The table is set. The grain is full. The child has been born.
This is what faithfulness looks like on the other side of the road.
