by Tessa Afshar
Solomon grabbed the parchment. “I know how.” He sat down again and unrolled the parchment to its beginning, his fingers stiff with reluctance. David hid his smile and waved away the serving boy who came in bearing a tray loaded with wine and fruit. He wanted no interruptions. Solomon was about to come face-to-face with a few interesting facts about his heritage. David needed to know how his son would respond.
Time trickled by as Solomon read. Then with an abrupt move, he let the scroll close. “A young boy with a sling, facing a giant? That sounds familiar,” he said.
“Ruth is the one who taught me to use a sling, though she was quite old by then.”
“An old woman taught you to use a sling so well that you felled a giant?”
“It was her sling I used on Goliath; she gave it to me as a gift on my tenth birthday. She was surprisingly adept at the use of it. I loved that old woman dearly.”
“You met her?”
“She was still alive when I was a boy. My parents had little interest in me. They had seven older boys to see to and were too tired to take much note of the runt of the litter. Ruth took me under her wing. The year Ruth died, Goliath challenged Israel’s army. Mind you, he was truly a giant, not merely tall and broad-shouldered. I remembered Ruth’s story, of course. And I knew that with the help of the Lord I could do as well as that young man. Better. I could rid Israel of a great enemy. I could show our people that with the Lord, everything is possible.”
Solomon ran a hand through his short beard. “So the Lord used you. Made you His champion for Israel.”
“What was it Ruth liked to say? The Lord uses odd instruments to fulfill His will. The weaker the vessel, the better He likes it. It only proves His strength. I want you to understand. I wasn’t the hero in that story. God was.”
Solomon gave a puzzled frown and returned to his reading. Hours passed. David ordered food, which Solomon was too distracted to eat. At one point he murmured under his breath, “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth. That’s poetic. I like that. Must remember it.”
Later, he slapped a hand against a muscular thigh and laughed. “That’s true, for certain. Without oxen your stable remains clean. Your great-grandfather was a discerning man, my lord. He saw wisdom at work in the ordinary things of life.”
Still more time passed. “What a poet she is!” he said with enthusiasm. “I am my beloved’s and he is mine. I could not have expressed it better myself.”
When Solomon finally set the scroll away, David took a deep breath. “What did you think?”
Solomon ran agitated fingers through his curled hair. “She was loyal. Hardworking. Admirable even. That doesn’t change the fact that she was a Moabite.”
David took a deep breath, trying to stamp out the ire that rose in his gut, threatening to overwhelm his patience. “You said I was a success even before I reached your age. I was never as great a success as Ruth. Or Boaz. Because true success doesn’t come from what you accomplish. It doesn’t come from my riches, my crown, or the people I rule. True success only means one thing: obedience to the Great Shepherd. Loving Him. Following Him. Abiding with Him.
“If I did anything right in my life, it was this. I trusted the Lord to deliver me. Even in this, I sometimes failed. But at least I tried to remain close to my God.”
“But your wealth, your fame, your numberless talents …”
“Were all from God. They were His gifts. Sometimes I used them to His glory. Sometimes I squandered them. No, I don’t measure my success by these things. There is only one measure of true success, child. How close you remain by His side. Does the dust of His feet get on your cloak because you follow so close? Does the sound of His whisper reverberate in your ear because you have drawn so near? Are you obedient to that voice, day after day, hour after hour? That’s how I measure success. Do you understand?”
His son looked at him with blank eyes. David swallowed his sigh. Perhaps it was too much to expect that what he himself had learned so late in life would become accessible to a young prince in the course of a few hours. What he wished to impart to Solomon stood in bitter opposition to the counsel of the world. His greatest advisors would brand him an idiot. Why should Solomon be any different?
“Go home, son. I will send for you another day.” David found himself unable to keep the disappointment from his voice.
Abishag had built up the fire in the king’s chamber. In his absence, she busied herself with cleaning the room, making certain every corner remained spotless. She jumped when the door burst open without an announcement. The king’s son Adonijah lingered at the threshold for a few moments.
“Aren’t you a beauty,” he drawled. “And which of his wives are you?”
“Not his wife, my lord. I am Abishag, his servant.”
“Ah. The one who keeps him warm at night. I only get a hot brick in my bed.”
Abishag pressed her lips and said nothing.
“Where is he?”
“The king is in royal counsel.”
Adonijah threw himself on a purple couch and stretched his feet with careless ease over the low, cedar table. “I’ll wait here.”
Abishag hesitated. She had no authority over a prince of Judah. She could not order him out or reprimand him for his rudeness. With a stiff bow, she returned to her duties. From the corner of her eye, she saw the prince pick up the parchment that had so completely
preoccupied the king of late. With a careless flick of his wrist, he opened the scroll and began to read, his face a mask of boredom. In a few moments, he sat up straighter, his eyebrows knit in the middle as he became engrossed in the text. He did not even hear Abishag ask him to move his feet in order to clean the tabletop.
After about an hour of reading, Adonijah hissed out an expletive. “What is this seditious rubbish? This kind of false propaganda could ruin our family and destroy the royal line of David.” Without hesitation, he walked to the fire, which burned with raging enthusiasm thanks to Abishag’s earlier efforts, and with a flick of his wrist flung the scroll into the flames. Immediately it caught fire. Abishag watched in dismay as the parchment began to burn, the black words turning to cinder within moments.
“Tell my father I did him a favor,” Adonijah declared before leaving.
“I tried to save it, my lord. But it was too late.” David looked at the charred remains of Ruth’s story and his heart sank. It was gone. His great-grandmother’s history and life-changing wisdom, gone forever. He should have known that his sons would want to destroy Ruth’s account. All they cared about was that she hailed from Moab. They could not get past that reality. They feared it would pull them off the throne.
“Bring me my writing materials,” David told Abishag, determined to repair Adonijah’s damage. He would not be able to remember all the details of the story. But he could put down enough of Ruth’s account to capture her extraordinary faith. Faith that might yet save his progeny from walking away from the destiny God wished to give them.
“Adonijah burned the book,” David told Solomon the following week. Solomon did not blink once; he registered no shock or regret on his impassive features.
“Do you approve of his actions?” David pressed.
The long curling eyelashes, so much like his mother’s, lowered. “I considered doing so myself.”
“But you did not destroy it. Why?”
“You seemed convinced of its importance. I thought I had best wait and consider the matter.”
“At least you are honest.”
Solomon shrugged. “I know I am young and I have much to learn. Adonijah is older. More determined.”
“Adonijah practically declared himself king not three months since. He did not have the decency to wait for me to die. Or even to ask. He just thought to take the throne while I still lived. If not for me, you would be dead, boy. You still might be, when I’m gone.”
Solomon fisted his hands. “I’ll be sure and watch my back.”
“That’s the third son now who has be
trayed me. My greatest failure, staring me in the face. I should have learned better from Boaz.”
Solomon leaned forward, his hands tented between his knees. “What failure, my lord? You are a legend among our people, great beyond dispute. No one compares with you.”
“You call it greatness when a son rises up against his own father? When one brother kills another? When a house is turned against itself and ambition rather than godliness rules the new generation?”
“Every nation has suffered through the same struggles. It’s the way of royalty.”
“It’s the way of fools. No, don’t be offended. I count myself as one of them. I should have learned from Boaz. I should have married one woman and stayed faithful to her. Instead I went the way of kings. I married every woman who pleased me. I sired half brothers who hate each other and plot to kill one another for the sake of rule. I love every one of them. When they bleed, I bleed. When they hurt, I weep. But I have not disciplined them. I have not taught them the ways of the Lord.
“That is my failure. How can my kingdom last? The Lord has promised an everlasting covenant with me. But I think it will take a miracle for that covenant to come to pass. It will take a move of heaven to bring forth a kingdom of righteousness and peace out of the fruit of my loins.”
A dark flush stained Solomon’s face. His square jaw clenched. David remembered that in spite of his youth, Solomon already had three wives and more than one concubine. “Marrying numerous wives is expedient for a king,” he said, his voice defensive. “It eases political tensions within the nation and without. Who wants to attack his own son-in-law? Besides, having many sons secures the throne and makes sure it does not remain empty.”
“Empty? It seems a little overpopulated from where I stand. Your brothers aren’t desperate to support you. That is not what I call security. How will you hold this nation together? How will your sons? How will you protect it from larger powers rising up, hungry for land and slaves? You will not, without the Lord. That is what I want you to understand. That is the legacy Ruth and Boaz left you. It doesn’t matter what other people think about you. It doesn’t matter how hard times become. Don’t lean on your own understanding. Trust in the Lord and He will make your paths straight.”
“I do trust the Lord, Father. You needn’t worry. You have brought stability and prosperity to our nation. I will guard all you have done.”
“All the Lord has done, Solomon.”
“Yes, Father.”
David sighed. “I have written Ruth’s story to the best of my recollection. I haven’t the time or strength to add many details. But eyes wise enough shall see that the Moabs of life need not remain your home. We all have a choice to move toward the Lord or away from Him. The past need not be the measure of our future.”
“I wrote some of the words down, myself. They were worth remembering.”
“Yes. I used them in my psalms as well.” David fetched the new scroll from its hiding place. “I am going to entrust it to you, Solomon. I am going to rely on you to keep it safe. Protect it from destruction. Let the world see this book. Understand it. Who knows? Perhaps there is another Ruth somewhere who needs to be encouraged. Another Naomi who needs to turn back to God. Another Boaz who shall become a kinsman redeemer.”
Solomon reached his hand for the scroll. For a moment David hesitated. “Will you promise not to destroy it? Promise to share it with the people?”
Solomon hesitated before nodding gravely. “I promise.”
David knew with an inexplicable certainty that the account of Ruth’s life would survive. What he could not ascertain was whether his throne would also survive throughout the coming ages. Would his sons be able to keep Israel unified? Would they manage to protect the nation from rising powers? Would the Lord send another David in time of need? The king realized that these were questions only God could answer. For all his experience, the future remained a mystery to the king.
Though my dreams be crushed, though my throne be plundered, yet shall I trust You, he promised. And with a sigh gave up his fears into the hands of the Lord one final time.
THE FOREBEARS OF BOAZ:
“Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab …
“The descendants of Boaz and Ruth:
“And Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
“David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam (during whose reign the nation of Israel was torn into two, resulting in Rehoboam ruling over the southern kingdom of Judah, only) …
“Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
“After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Sheltiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, …
“And Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” (Based on Matthew 1:2–16.)
Author’s
Notes
Using a deceptively simple story, the book of Ruth reveals the power of God at work in the daily life and toil of human beings. To me, this is one of the Old Testament’s most moving stories, demonstrating the sovereignty of God in the midst of sorrow and loss. The first word in my novel is death. The last word is Christ. God has the last word—even over death. That says it all, as far as I am concerned.
Choosing the right language for biblical fiction has something in common with the conundrum of the Bible translator. A linguist’s main grammatical choice revolves around one central decision: What is more important—sounding closest to the original language, or trying to convey an accurate sense of the words to today’s reader? You might present modern readers with a very close approximation of a Hebrew text, using word-for-word interpretation, but they may not necessarily understand it, whereas a more contemporary translation might grab the reader’s heart and mind more powerfully.
As a biblical novelist, I must contend with a similar choice. Ultimately, I want to create a world that feels like the biblical era and yet connects emotionally to my reader. There is no point in being literal if my readers come away feeling unmoved; untouched, because the world is too alien and the words too foreign. You might say my language resembles more of a New Living Translation vibe than the literal accuracy of a translation such as the English Standard Version. It’s a balancing act and one that I don’t always get right. I have tried to walk this tightrope in the story of Ruth as best I can. Just as some readers resonate more deeply with the KJV and others with NIV, readers of a biblical novel will experience the linguistic choices of the author through their own personal preference of biblical language.
Some notes more specific to this novel are in order. The author of Ruth is unknown. The story thread dealing with the authorship presented in In the Field of Grace is a product of my imagination and has no basis in historical facts. The concept that some of David’s and Solomon’s writings were inspired by Ruth and Boaz is also due to literary license. However, as we are aware that some of the material in the Bible was preserved in oral fashion for long years before being written down, the idea that David and Solomon might have been quoting their great-grandparent
s is not entirely unthinkable.
Most readers familiar with the story of Ruth remember that according to the genealogy in the final chapter of Ruth, Salmon fathered Boaz. There is a practical challenge with interpreting the genealogy in this way. If you count the years in the book of Judges, during which era the story of Ruth takes place, you will find that there is almost three hundred years between the time of the conquest when Salmon lived and the period in history occupied by Boaz and Ruth. This would make Boaz’s age quite advanced, especially when you take into consideration that the age of extraordinarily long life spans is now over. According to David, only two generations later, the average age of a man is around 70, not 250.
As readers, we must recall that the original Hebrew for the word father used in Ruth is flexible. It need not mean that Salmon and Rahab gave birth directly to Boaz. It could just as easily mean that they were his great-great grandparents, because the word father works more elastically in Hebrew than it does in English. For example, Jesus warns the Pharisees and Sadducees about saying, “We have Abraham as our father” (Matthew 3:9). Obviously He does not mean this literally; He is exchanging the word father for forefather. (For a more detailed account, please refer to John Reed’s commentary on Ruth in the Bible Knowledge Commentary, edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy Zuck.) It is possible that the generations in between the names mentioned in the genealogy were not considered worth preserving in Scripture because historically or theologically they made little difference to the kingdom of God. In any case, I have tried to write this aspect of the story with vague enough language that the reader can make his or her own decision on the matter.
According to some sources, ancient wedding rituals in Israel contained the phrase the government shall be on his shoulders. Clearly,
this is a quote from Isaiah, who lived several hundred years after the story of Ruth took place. However, it is possible that an oral tradition may have already existed, using this proclamation in the marriage ceremony, prompting Isaiah to use it in his prophecy of the coming Messiah, indicating that He would be as a Bridegroom to His people. Since that imagery occurs in the Bible already, I felt that the possibility of an older-existing oral tradition was not unreasonable, and chose to use the quote in Boaz and Ruth’s wedding ceremony.
