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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 258. By the Threshing-Floor
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By the Threshing-Floor
Among the Hebrews the family relationship was a very close one; blood was always felt to be thicker than water. Did an Israelite become poor, and was he forced to sell his field, the duty of the next-of-kin was to buy it back again; was he sold as a slave, his kinsman's duty was to redeem him. Was he accidentally slain, the next-of-kin became the avenger of his blood, and pursued his slayer to the very gate of the city of refuge. He had still another and more delicate duty, altogether alien to our modern and Western notions. Did an Israelite die without children, leaving a widow behind him, it became the duty of the next-of-kin to marry the widow, so that children, as nearly related as possible in blood, might receive the inheritance of him who had passed away. It was to this law that Naomi now thought of appealing. Ruth indeed was a stranger and a foreigner, and her claim upon Israelite law might easily have been evaded; it was the kindness shown her by Boaz during the harvest season that inspired Naomi to make the attempt.
2. Naomi's plot was a bold one. She sent Ruth to claim Boaz as the kinsman whose duty it was to marry her and become her protector. Ruth was to go to the threshing-floor on the night of the harvest festival, wait until Boaz lay down to sleep beside the mass of winnowed grain, and place herself at his feet, so reminding him that, if no other would, it was his part to be a husband to her for the sake of Elimelech and his sons. The plan was daring and appears to us to be at least indelicate. It is impossible to say whether any custom of the time sanctioned it; but even in that case we cannot acquit Naomi of resorting to a stratagem with the view of bringing about what seemed most desirable for Ruth and herself.
The relations between Naomi and Ruth are to be remembered at this point. Ruth was a stranger in Bethlehem, and in the ways and manners of the land she knew not her right hand from her left. But Naomi was an old inhabitant; she knew about everything, and had such guidance of Ruth that whenever she said “Do this,” we may be sure that Ruth did it. Not only so, but, under the awe of her recently espoused religion, the strangest law and rite of the country would have a sacredness in Ruth's eyes; and never would she be less inclined to hesitate and question than when some holy mystery was flung around Naomi's directions. This view of the half-alluring, half-entangling power of religion in her case seems to be both indicated and verified by the instant way in which she replied, when Naomi, with just an insinuation of the Divine sanction, bade her do very strange things: “All that thou sayest unto me I will do.”
3. Perhaps Naomi knew, or suspected, that Boaz looked with kindness, with respect and admiration, on Ruth. Perhaps, too, she was aware of the two considerations which held him back from seeking a wife in Ruth. These considerations were, as we learn from the third chapter, first, that there was a nearer kinsman than himself, who had a prior legal claim on Ruth; and secondly, that he was very much older than Ruth, and hesitated to place himself in the way of a more suitable and equal match.
Nor did Ruth suffer loss through the blundering of Naomi, for this interview with Boaz straightened out the difficulty which otherwise would still have caused him to refrain from interfering with their concerns. How differently things might have turned out if he had not been wiser than Naomi and more jealous for his own reputation as well as Ruth's. He saved the situation for both, and to him all the credit is due, not to the woman who devised this plan of bringing them together.
4. Ruth's claim, once made, put Boaz in a different position; he would now see her righted or would right her himself In his heart he was overjoyed. In his view she had shown “more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning.” Then she had been willing for the sake of Naomi to leave her father, her mother, her country and her religion. Now she wished to obey the law of Israel, and to show kindness unto the family of Elimelech. But Boaz did not simply laud her fidelity and piety. He promised that, should the nearer kinsman refuse the duty and honour, he himself would redeem her dead husband's name and inheritance. Probably Boaz found it hard to utter the words, “There is a nearer goel than I”; for obviously by this time, as his allusion to “the young men” indicates, he was deeply attached to his young kinswoman. And it illustrates the nobility of his character, his honour and integrity, that he should propose to give this “nearer kinsman” his legal due, although to give it might cost him no small sacrifice.
When in the morning Ruth returned with her six measures of barley, Naomi felt that the battle was won, and that all that was now necessary was to possess their souls in patience for a little and they would see the end.
Shakespeare says-
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.
And that Divine One will shape everything towards the end He has planned, if He may have our consent. This is the working basis of the whole problem of guidance. It simplifies it much. It is not coaxing a friendly God to keep us along a path we have marked out for ourselves. It is finding and fitting into the plan lovingly thought out for us, and doing the service assigned to us in the great world-plan. Guidance is a matter of finding God's plan and following it faithfully step by step. A man should aim to have a keen understanding of what God's plan for him is. The likeness of God imprinted upon him puts him under obligation to find out the plan of God intended for him.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Personal Problems, 157.]