She straightened and noticed the other women had carried their baskets to the shade of a large oak. They took turns drinking from the dipper used to scoop water from a number of large jars set in the ground near the area where the workers took their meal.
She stood at the end of the line, feeling the eyes of several of the male workers on her. She kept her head down, refusing eye contact, and wondered not for the first time if life would have been better if she had stayed in Moab. Was it hostility she sensed in the air between her and the workers—or interest?
She took her turn and drank from the dipper, wiping a remaining drop of water from her mouth. Straightening, she glanced toward the women. She had no food with her, for there was barely enough left for Naomi to eat today. Somehow she’d believed she could endure the hard work without food. But the rumble in her stomach and the weakness in her knees told her she was wrong.
“Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” The voice was one she could not easily forget. She glanced up to see Boaz standing near the table where the reapers were already seated on the ground around it. His welcoming smile warmed her. This was a kind man.
She breathed a sigh and walked slowly toward them and sat where he pointed. She startled when he sat opposite her, so close that their hands could touch if he reached out to her. And that seemed to be his exact intention as he passed her roasted grain and bread and wine for dipping.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said when the meal was nearly finished and she had food left over. Enough to take to Naomi for the evening meal. A small smile touched her lips. Perhaps Naomi’s God really did care for the widow and orphan and alien among His people.
She rose with the rest of the young women and again nodded her thanks to Boaz, then hurried to gather her basket and return to the fields. She tucked the roasted grain into a pocket of her robe, her heart almost light enough to sing.
Boaz watched Ruth follow his girls, a lightness to her step that had not been there when he saw her earlier that day. Had she eaten nothing until now? The thought troubled him. He should have known that Melek’s “provisions” to Naomi would not be enough to sustain them for more than a few days. But as he glanced at the reapers still finishing the last dregs of water and wine, another troublesome thought pushed all others aside.
“None of you are to do anything to cause Ruth to feel fearful or ashamed,” he said, drawing each man’s attention. He paused, making sure they understood his full intent.
“Yes, my lord,” one said, followed by the others.
“Good.” He cleared his throat. “Furthermore, let her glean even among the sheaves. And also pull out some barley from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”
A quizzical brow rose among one or two of the men, but most simply nodded. They stood to return to work, and Boaz walked with Ezra to watch them all before he would head back to check on his other fields.
“She is a comely young woman,” Ezra said, giving Boaz a sidelong glance. “And a widow.”
“Yes, I am aware. Is there a point to your comment?” He returned Ezra’s glance, taken aback by the sudden wistful feeling that came over him.
“No point . . . just an observation.” Ezra offered Boaz a wide grin.
“Let’s just watch over her and protect her while she is here, shall we?”
Boaz waited for Ezra’s nod of acceptance, then turned and headed back toward his donkey. He had no time to worry about the plight of one young foreign woman. But he was concerned about Naomi’s well-being. And he could not concern himself with one and not the other.
The sun had nearly set by the time Ruth finished gleaning and beat out the barley, which filled the basket—nearly an ephah of grain. Such great bounty for only one day!
She hefted the basket onto her back and walked toward the city, grateful to see a few other women walking in the same direction. There was safety in numbers, and after the warnings she had received, she realized that even in the land where Naomi’s God ruled, men could still be cruel and she could be in danger from them. If not for Boaz’s kindness . . . She did not let that thought linger.
She strode through the gate and hurried down the darkening streets, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the familiar house of her mother-in-law come into view.
“Mother Naomi!” she called from the courtyard. She rushed into the house and set the basket on the ground. “Come and see!”
Naomi entered the room from the cooking area, though Ruth could smell no aroma of cooking food. Perhaps her mother-in-law had prepared the place in order to roast what she hoped Ruth would bring.
“All this?” Naomi bent and looked at the basket, holding a small lamp close enough to see, as the sun had fully set now.
“Yes,” Ruth said as she pulled out the roasted grain she had left over from the noon meal. “And this!” She handed the parched grain to Naomi. “Eat, Mother. Taste and see how good your God has been to us.”
Naomi’s hand shook as she brought the grain to her mouth. “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” She took another bite and met Ruth’s gaze. “Tell me.”
“The man with whom I worked today is Boaz. Is he the same man you spoke about with Neta, the one whose wife recently passed on?” Ruth flushed at the question, for to mention him reminded her of the strength of his presence.
“Yes, yes. There is only one Boaz in Bethlehem. It is the same man. And may he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi said, taking Ruth’s hand. “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”
Ruth tilted her head, not fully understanding. “Redeemer? You mean like the kind of buying back of the chosen ones in Moab so they would not suffer the fate of sacrifice?”
Naomi looked at her with a lifted brow, but a moment later she shook her head as though a light had dawned. “No, no. Our kinsman redeemer is nothing at all like Moab’s ‘redeemer’ of the chosen sacrifices. Your redeemers pay corrupt priests in order to save their own lives or the lives of their children. Our kinsman redeemer marries the widow of a childless man in order to raise up offspring for the man, so that his heritage is not lost in Israel.”
Ruth stared at Naomi, her cheeks heating again. “Boaz is a man who could raise up a son for Mahlon? I still don’t quite understand.” How would the child not be Boaz’s son? And wouldn’t that mean Boaz would have to marry her to accomplish such a thing? She shivered at the thought.
“Our law allows protection for our people in many ways, my daughter. But it is too soon to think about such things. The fact that Boaz took notice of you and offered you his protection is enough.”
“He did say to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” Ruth felt again the awe and embarrassment of that moment when he had spoken to her. “Of course, he did tell me to follow after his young women as we follow his reapers,” she added. The men would not harm the women, and it was fitting that she would stay with women rather than men.
“It is good, my daughter,” Naomi said, intruding on her thoughts, “that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” Her look matched the concern Ruth had seen in Boaz’s eyes.
“I will do as you say,” she said. But suddenly her heart wondered if her desire to obey was strictly for her safety.
29
Had we come home sooner,” Naomi said one evening as she and Ruth ate parched grain, their daily staple, and drank a little wine from one of the flasks Boaz had brought to Naomi, “we would have been here to celebrate the Passover.”
Ruth looked up from sipping from her cup and set it beside her as they sat inside the still broken-down house—another thing Boaz had promised to repair for Naomi when he could spare servants now working in his fields. “Passover is your feast of remembering.” Ruth sought to recall what Naomi had taught her during their years t
ogether. “It is to commemorate the time your God brought the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Naomi nodded. “Yes. And the reason it is called Passover?” Naomi loved the role of teacher, Ruth had long realized, and she enjoyed playing along for the joy it brought to her mother-in-law.
“Because the Lord passed over the firstborn of Israel to spare them, but not the firstborn of Egypt.” Ruth returned Naomi’s ready smile, then took another bite of the parched grain. She pondered the answer she had given a moment earlier, troubled by the questions it raised in her heart. She had never voiced them in their home in Moab, but now she needed answers. Needed to understand.
“Why was Egypt punished in that way, Mother? Does your God love only Israel? Did He not care for the Egyptians too?” She folded her hands in her lap, realizing that she asked for her own sake. Did the God of Israel accept a Moabite who wanted Him?
Naomi set her food aside as though she was no longer hungry and moved closer to Ruth, taking her hand. “My dear girl, I know how hard this must be for you to understand. It is not that our God loves only Israel, it is that everyone turned away from Him the moment sin entered the world through Adam. God saw the hearts of men, that they were only evil continually, so he destroyed the earth, saving Noah and his family. But even then, sin would not be eradicated. Noah’s son Ham, by his actions, caused Noah to call down curses on him and his children. One of those children was Egypt.”
“Why would a man curse his own son?” Ruth couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. Orpah’s infant, stolen so quickly from their home, flashed in her mind’s eye. Offered on Chemosh’s altar because of the vengeance of greedy men and the “wish” of their god.
“Noah cursed his son because he witnessed his father’s nakedness and did nothing to protect him, to shield others from seeing him in such a state. He did not honor his father, but by his actions disdained him.” Naomi stood, drawing Ruth up to walk outside into the courtyard. “Noah’s son left the family and took his wife and children to the land of the Nile. If Ham had repented and worshiped Yahweh, Egypt would have been much different than it became, but Ham and his sons created their own gods, or perhaps resurrected gods destroyed in the flood, and soon Egypt was flourishing with gods named for nearly every creature. From the sun to the Pharaoh to the river Adonai had made, the descendants of Ham worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, blessed be He.” Naomi pointed to the stars, and Ruth looked up, watching as the darkness began to fill with thousands of blinking lights.
“How clear it is tonight.” Ruth loved the night sky when the clouds did not hide its brilliance.
“As I hope my explanations are clear to you, my daughter.”
“I am trying to understand.” Ruth looked at Naomi and slipped a hand around her thin shoulders. “Israel went to Egypt to escape a famine, but they stayed too long and became slaves to its people. So your God brought them out and gave them this land.” She moved her free hand in an arc.
“But he punished the Egyptians,” Naomi said, “including the death of the firstborn, not only because they treated His people with cruelty but because they would not acknowledge Elohim as God alone. He showed through many miracles that His power is greater than the might of Egypt, and yet the people still did not repent.” Naomi touched Ruth’s cheek in a gentle gesture. “My daughter, the Passover does not tell us we are better than the Egyptians. It reminds us that God’s discipline, even punishment, is also a warning and a measure of grace. He wanted the plagues to bring the Egyptians to Him, but they refused. Our God does not force people, even His own people, to trust or obey Him.”
“Yet your God commands obedience, not unlike Chemosh.”
“Chemosh is not a god, dear girl. He is an object of men’s creation, something they can see and touch. Our God is a Spirit. He cannot be held by human hands.” Naomi waved a hand overhead toward the stars once more. “Could Chemosh make those?”
“My people worship the moon as well. But no, we do not acknowledge one great creator.” Ruth thought back to the festivals to the gods of her people, the wild dancing, the orgies, the sacrifices that always left someone in mourning.
“Our God will have no other gods before Him,” Naomi said softly, her tone one of awe. “Passover reminds us of that. For if our people had not obeyed Moses, if they had not covered the doors and lintels with blood, their rebellion would have been the same as those who worshiped other gods. Whenever we follow our own way instead of His, we are acting as though He doesn’t exist. He won’t force our obedience, my daughter. But He won’t let us go our own way without wooing us back.”
“Did He woo you back when you left this place?” Ruth suddenly wondered if her mother-in-law spoke more from experience than simply of tales of her heritage long past.
Naomi released Ruth’s hand and walked to the edge of the court. Ruth strode with her, and the two looked down the street.
“I believe Elimelech’s death was a warning to me, to my sons, that we should have heeded. I never wanted to leave Bethlehem, but I could not allow my family to go on without me.” She turned, faced Ruth. “If I could go back and see then what I know now, I would have tried harder to change things, to convince my sons to leave the moment their father died. But what is done is done.”
Naomi turned and walked back into the house. Ruth’s stomach twisted. She should be more understanding. After all, the woman had lost everyone she loved. Never mind that Ruth had given up all to accompany Naomi to this place, to embrace her God, to show her love.
But in that moment, with Naomi’s admission, she wondered whether Naomi was even glad of her presence. She undoubtedly would have been much happier living here with her two sons married to Israelite women than stuck with a foreigner who struggled to understand Israel’s ways.
Boaz sat at his table alone, eating the food his cook had prepared for him. The food was tasty, though it could never compare to what Adi had made. Her food carried the sweetness of honey, as though it dripped from her fingers to his tongue.
Adi. His appetite left at the thought of her. Again. He closed his eyes but opened them at the sound of footsteps. Reuven entered the room.
“My lord, there is trouble.” The old man’s face was flushed as though he had run from the courtyard to the house.
Boaz stood. “Take a moment to catch your breath and then tell me.”
Reuven accepted a cup of water from Boaz’s hand and drank, then set it down and started walking with Boaz to the court. “It appears one of the young maidens was waylaid in the fields.”
The news cut to his heart. Boaz’s stomach churned, and he clenched both fists as he walked. Not Ruth. Please, Adonai, not her. He stopped abruptly. How could he possibly think of Ruth when Adi had just brushed his thoughts? How fickle he was!
Still, Ruth had worked his fields for the past month with no incident. And he could not bear the thought of her—of any of his young women—being harmed.
He hurried into the outer court where several of the elders stood with a weeping young girl, barely a woman, who knelt among the stones. He looked from one man to the other, then knelt beside the girl and briefly lifted her chin in his hand.
“Who did this to you, and how did it happen?” Her clothes were clearly torn, and Boaz recognized her father standing behind her.
The girl choked on a sob, and in the dim light of the torches Boaz could see that she had tossed ashes on her head. “I was in the field gleaning,” she said so softly Boaz had to lean closer to hear her.
“My fields?” The thought sickened him.
“No, my lord,” her father said from behind. “A field neighboring yours. Melek’s field.”
Boaz felt his face heat. His cousin had always been more lax with his workers, less concerned with their welfare. He turned to the girl again. “Go on,” he gently coaxed.
She swallowed a sob and spoke again. “The other girls had headed to the area where we beat out the grain, but I was behind them a little ways, for I had not gathered as mu
ch as I needed.” She could not meet Boaz’s gaze.
Boaz released a breath, held his impatience in check. “Then what happened?”
She swallowed, then glanced at her father’s stricken face. “I had picked up a few more gleanings and walked over to join the others when a man came from the grain that was still standing and grabbed me.” She stopped, choking on the words once more. “He pulled me behind the standing grain and dragged me far from where the other girls were beating their sheaves. His hand was over my mouth so that I couldn’t cry out.”
Boaz felt the pulse in his neck pound and heat pour into his veins. He forced out one more question. “Did you know this man?”
She nodded but did not speak.
Boaz looked at her father, whose eyes held a glint of fear, as though he too dare not say the name.
“Is your daughter betrothed?” The law differed concerning a virgin versus one who was betrothed, and Boaz needed all of the facts before he could make a judgment.
The man shook his head. “No, my lord.”
“You know who did this, don’t you?” Boaz addressed the father now, for the girl had begun weeping again.
The man glanced at his friends, who by their nods urged him to speak. The man cleared his throat, looked quickly around him, and lowered his voice. “Your cousin’s son, Hamul, did this, my lord. Melek’s only son.”
Boaz felt like someone had dealt a deep blow to his gut. Melek’s son. This was not good. He would not take kindly to what the law required for his only son.
But obedience to the law, to Adonai Elohim, mattered more than pleasing a stubborn man.
Boaz rose, glanced at Reuven. “I don’t know when I will return.”
Reuven nodded as though he’d expected as much.
“Come,” Boaz said to the men and the girl. “I will summon Melek and Hamul to the city gate. Gather the rest of the elders on your way and meet me there.”
Redeeming Grace: Ruth's Story Page 17
