The men seemed to breathe easier as Boaz walked with them, the father half dragging his broken daughter. But Boaz knew this was by no means going to be an easy night.
Boaz grabbed his walking stick and marched through Bethlehem’s gates, past curious guards and elders who had begun to gather, and called two guards to follow him across the narrow valley to Melek’s house.
“Summon your master Melek and his son, Hamul, at once,” Boaz said to the servant standing guard, his voice smooth yet unyielding.
“He will surely be in the middle of his meal, my lord.” The protest was weak.
Boaz brushed it off with a wave of his hand. “He can finish it later. Get him now.”
He paced in front of the gate as the servant hurried off. How could this boy, the cousin who was barely a man, do such a thing? He’d clearly shown little respect for women the last time Boaz had met with him in his home, but later when he had given the young man a tour of his fields and explained the work involved, even teaching him how to wield the sickle in just the right place among the sheaves, Hamul had seemed interested, as though he wanted to learn. He had not even seemed to notice the women working the fields.
How naive Boaz had been. He should have seen something, been able to stop this atrocity, warned Melek . . . something.
Footsteps drew his attention to the court beyond the gate, and it occurred to Boaz that the servant had not even invited him to enter Melek’s residence. Had Melek known Boaz would come?
“Boaz.” His cousin walked toward him. No sign of his son. “What brings you out at such an hour? Are you hungry? We have plenty.” He motioned with his hand. “Come. Dine with me.”
Boaz stood his ground and glanced at the two guards with Melek. Would Melek fight justice and refuse him? Perhaps the truth should wait until they were assembled with the elders at the city gates.
“I’m afraid a matter has come to my attention that needs your counsel and that of your son.” Boaz spoke as though having Hamul at a council meeting was a common occurrence, but Melek’s narrowed gaze told him his cousin found the request suspicious.
“What matter is so important it cannot wait until morning?” Melek kept his distance several paces from Boaz and crossed his arms.
“It would be best if we let the elders explain it to all of us.” Melek need not know that Boaz would be leading the elders in this. “Please, Melek, just get Hamul and join me. We cannot start without you.” He knew he was appealing to the man’s ego, but so be it. Melek was not an easy man to convince of anything.
“You have no idea what is so important?” Melek still had not moved, but he raised a brow as though in scrutiny of whatever Boaz might say next.
“Something has happened that needs our immediate attention,” Boaz said, weighing his words. “It is a serious matter and cannot wait.” He raised a hand in supplication. “Will you come?”
His cousin stared at him for a lengthy breath but at last gave a curt nod.
“And you will bring Hamul.” He did not ask lest Melek think he had a choice.
Melek turned toward the house to gather whatever he needed. “I will bring Hamul.”
Boaz waited for the two to join him, praying Melek would not make this more difficult than it already was.
30
Boaz followed Melek and a quiet Hamul up the steps into the inner room of Bethlehem’s city gate. Elders already took up most of the benches. The young girl, Hava, stood against the wall, arms wrapped about her, silent tears falling.
Melek sat in his normal place, but Hamul stood behind his father, unwilling to sit even when his father pointed to a seat next to him. Boaz stood as well in the center of the gathering.
“It has come to my attention,” Boaz said, turning his gaze from one man to another, “that this young woman in our midst was taken advantage of in the fields belonging to my cousin Melek.” He faced Melek, whose eyes narrowed, but he did not speak.
Boaz paused. “The girl, Hava, knows her attacker.” He tried to make eye contact with Hamul, but the young man would not meet his gaze. He again looked to Melek, whose hands were clenched tight around the edge of the bench. Did he know? Or simply suspect?
“Hava and her father and uncles and friends came to me tonight to explain what happened.” Boaz related the details as he had been given them, not wanting to put the girl to any more shame. He called Hava’s father forward. “Does your daughter have any reason not to tell the truth?”
“No, my lord,” the man said, his voice nearly choking with the emotion he clearly tried to restrain. “My Hava has always been good and honest and kind.” He glanced at his daughter. “She has never given us a reason to doubt her word.”
Boaz swallowed, hating the very question he needed to ask. “And has your daughter been examined by a woman who is above reproach? Has the woman confirmed Hava’s words?”
The man nodded. “Yes, my lord. My daughter is no longer a virgin. The man who took her violated her.”
A deep sigh lifted Boaz’s chest. If only the men of the land would follow the Law of Moses. Where was the respect for another’s life?
He asked the man again if the girl was betrothed, receiving the same answer of no. He looked slowly at each elder, then faced the girl’s father once more. “Tell me who did this to your daughter.”
The man seemed to hesitate for the slightest moment as his gaze turned toward Melek. Boaz’s cousin, being older, held more power than Boaz cared to admit, and he had a way of intimidating merchants and fellow farmers.
“Who violated your daughter?” Boaz asked again, drawing the man’s attention back to him.
“Hamul, son of Melek,” the man said at last. He sank onto a bench as though a heavy weight had pressed him there.
Boaz faced his cousin. “You have heard the charges against your son. Do you have anything to say?” A part of him wanted Melek to admit everything, while a warring part wanted to hear that Hamul had been far from that field the whole day. Some other explanation. Another man had done this. Not his naive young cousin.
Melek slowly released his grip on the bench and swiveled around to meet his son’s gaze. “Did you do this?” His shoulders sagged, brought low by the same heavy, invisible weight that seemed to fall over the entire group, especially the two fathers.
Boaz watched Hamul, saw the glint of rebellion in his gaze, but a moment later, under his father’s hard gaze, he bowed his head and nodded.
“Let me hear you say it,” Melek demanded.
“Yes,” Hamul said just loud enough for the men to hear.
Boaz saw the pride slip from Melek’s eyes, pride for this son he had waited for so long.
“The law requires that you pay Hava’s father fifty shekels of silver,” Boaz told Melek when the man finally turned and met his gaze again. “And Hamul must wed Hava. She will be his wife, and he can never divorce her as long as he lives. He must treat her fairly and with kindness as well.” Though Boaz knew what a man did in his own home was hard to know or to control.
Melek did not respond for the longest moment, nor did Hava’s father move from where he sat. The elders murmured one by one that this was the law and it was right and good. All of them must obey it if they were to receive Adonai’s blessing. They would not allow disobedience and risk another famine.
Boaz listened to the comments, watching his cousin, waiting for acknowledgment. Melek would be the one to enforce this with his son. He would be taking Hava into his home and providing for her. It was protection for the girl, for no one else would marry a violated virgin, but Boaz wondered what kind of life she could possibly have when the marriage had started out so violently.
I don’t understand Your laws, Adonai. Not when the hearts of men clearly go against them. They are so easily twisted by the arrogant and rebellious.
Boaz’s heart thumped, and he wished to be alone, to walk in the night air and the fields and cry out at the injustice of it all. Part of him could not believe this had happened. And what if it had been Ruth? Hadn�
��t he warned his men not to touch her? He knew the hearts of men, where their thoughts led.
He glanced at Hava and held out a hand. She still cowered in the corner, but then she came slowly forward to stand in the center of the group of men. Boaz extended his other hand to Hamul. He waited too long for the young man to step out from behind his father, but at last he did. With halting steps he came to stand before Boaz.
Boaz looked hard at his cousin. “This is not the way I would have imagined your marriage, Hamul. And I am deeply disappointed in your actions toward this innocent girl.” He looked at Hava, whose shaking hand clung to his like a child’s. Though the words were not part of the law, he spoke a command he hadn’t intended to. “So I am warning you now, I had better never hear that you have mistreated her again. You will love her and cherish her as a wife should be cherished.” He paused at the swift memory of Adi that flashed in his mind. He drew a breath and grasped Hamul’s wrist, then placed Hava’s hand in his. “Here is your wife. You will remain faithful to her all of your days. Do you understand?”
Hamul nodded, eyes wide as a doe’s. Perhaps he’d thought he would be stoned, but this act did not require that. Pray God this law would provide security and peace to them both.
He looked to Melek. “Do you have the silver with you?” Melek often carried silver or gold on his person as though he alone could protect his assets.
Melek shook his head.
“Send a guard to get it for you then. We will not leave until Hava’s father has been rightly compensated. Then you may take your son and daughter-in-law home.”
Melek simply nodded. He stood and walked to the stairs, spoke to a guard, and waited at the parapet.
Naomi woke with the first pinks of dawn and a hint of determination. It was time she paid a visit to some of the women of the town. She had remained in her broken-down home for too long while Ruth worked the fields all day. And with the harvest nearly finished and the Feast of Weeks coming soon, she needed to find a way to show Ruth how Israel honored Yahweh, how they celebrated His goodness.
His goodness. Naomi rose from her bed and bit her trembling lip. She had not thought of God as good in a very long time. Not since Elimelech had taken them to Moab because God had shut up the heavens. If God was good, why did He withhold the rain? If God was good, why did He take her family and leave her with a foreign daughter-in-law, nice as the girl might be?
She splashed tepid water, leftover in a small clay bowl she had used the night before, over her face. Was that an errant tear? Her eyes welled, and she blinked hard, angry with herself. There had been too many tears. Enough!
She dressed quickly and slipped past the chamber where Ruth slept, but one glance told her the girl had already risen. To draw water, no doubt. Adonai, that girl works too hard. She leaves me nothing to do, and I feel useless. There, she had admitted it. She ought to be joining Ruth in the gleaning each day. Was she so old that she couldn’t put in at least part of a day’s work?
Determined to do just that, she went to the courtyard to grind the morning’s grain as she waited for Ruth to return with the water. Moments later she saw her walking toward the house, the sun’s rays illuminating her like an angel of the Lord. Not that Naomi had ever seen one, but there were tales.
“Good morning, Mother Naomi.” Ruth’s smile added to the glow about her. She set the water jug in its niche in the stones and took the sieve to help Naomi with the flour. “Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough.” Naomi winced at the edge in her tone. She had slept fine and awakened with purpose for the first time in months, and now she was suddenly crabby with the one person who had been most kind to her? A foolish woman you are, Naomi.
“I actually had something I wanted to tell you,” Naomi said, changing her tone.
“Oh?” Ruth shook the sieve, looking for stones, but glanced into Naomi’s eyes before continuing the process.
“I am going with you to glean today.” She straightened her back to show determination, strength.
Ruth looked at her for a long moment. “That would be wonderful, Mother, but . . .”
“But what? I am still young enough and strong enough to do the work.” Though the very thought of it made her weary.
“Of course you are!” Ruth smiled. “It is just that we only have one basket, so how would you carry the sheaves?”
She hadn’t thought of that. She had been meaning to make another basket for Ruth, a better one to hold the grain, for the patched one was growing thinner by the day.
“That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?” Naomi looked beyond Ruth, unwilling to admit that the problem gave her a sense of relief. Perhaps she truly was too old for that kind of work.
“I heard news at the well,” Ruth offered, pulling Naomi’s thoughts from herself.
“What news? Tell me quickly.” Naomi realized again how starved she was for the company of the village women, to hear how they were doing, to know who was getting married, who was expecting a child.
“There was an incident at the city gate last night. Apparently your relative’s son, the one who had us over to share the evening meal when we first arrived, compromised a virgin in the fields. They say Boaz gathered the elders together and they forced the boy to marry the girl.”
Naomi leaned against the wall of the court, the news taking her by complete surprise. “Melek’s son? Hamul?”
Ruth nodded. “That’s what they say.”
Naomi drew in a sharp breath. “Where? When?”
“I didn’t hear all the details,” Ruth admitted. “They say Melek was so humiliated he could not speak. But I have learned that the gossips often add details to any story, true or not.” She poured flour into a bowl and added oil. A fire burned low in the middle of the court, and Ruth quickly made flatbread on a pronged griddle.
“I must visit Boaz’s sisters this very day. Gilah and Liora will know more than anyone. Even if Boaz told them nothing, they will have heard.”
“And I will go to the fields to glean.” Ruth smiled. “One basketful will be enough,” she added, patting Naomi’s arm. “I would rather have you here, Mother, taking care of our needs as only you can.”
Naomi met Ruth’s gaze, her heart filling with a feeling she had not had in a long time. Love. For a foreign girl.
Perhaps God was good after all.
31
Naomi watched Ruth walk with sure strides over Bethlehem’s dusty streets, the patched flaxen basket strapped to her back. Such a faithful girl she had been these past months, even years.
A sigh lifted Naomi’s chest. Barley harvest was nearing its end, with the wheat harvest to follow. Ruth should not be forced to glean and live in poverty the rest of her days. Naomi should do something, do right by the girl, find a home, a husband. She banished the thought. She would lose her as surely as she had lost everything and everyone else in her life. She could not bear it.
Please don’t ask it of me, Lord.
When had prayer returned like breath? She had always prayed thus, but of late she had purposely tried to avoid speaking from her heart to the Almighty. She had no guarantee He even heard her prayers, and even if He did, He did not answer them, so why should she pray?
She huffed, disgusted with herself. Her heart betrayed her even when she told it not to. Prayer felt like a war within her. But hadn’t she felt at war with the Almighty since Elimelech’s death? Even more since God had taken her sons. Prayer had not saved them.
She shook herself, pushing the thoughts aside once more, gathered her spindle and distaff, and closed the crooked door. She really should try to right the thing so that it closed properly, securely. Surely with Ruth’s help they could fix the house without waiting for Boaz or Melek to come to their aid.
Ruth. She would willingly do anything Naomi asked of her, but she was always so weary when she returned from the fields. Naomi did not have the heart to ask her to do more. She glanced at the door, pulling the leather latch closed. Perhaps Gilah’s husband wou
ld come.
She lifted her chin despite the ache in her heart and walked with purposeful strides toward the home of Gilah, Boaz’s older sister. She hated this begging for favors. Hated being on the other side of need. She who always took great pleasure in helping those less fortunate. How had it come to this?
The streets curved several times before Naomi reached Gilah’s larger home. Gilah lived with her husband’s family, as Liora lived with hers. But the two often met together, and since their homes were in proximity, they were able to remain close, as both sisters and friends.
Naomi stopped in the street, looking up at the impressive gate to the outer court of Gilah’s husband’s home. Should she have come? But she couldn’t very well invite the sisters to the dilapidated house she shared with Ruth. She had no food to offer them beyond the simple parched grains and flatbread Ruth baked over the fire. Soon, when the other harvests came in, there would be almonds and wine and grapes and more oil and dates and even pomegranates. And once the garden took hold, next season or two, they would have herbs and vegetables to offer guests.
But not now.
She sighed again, knowing the feelings were mostly self-pity. She had much to be thankful for if she chose to. But it seemed more comforting to live in the bitterness that had carved a place in her heart, in the spot where compassion once ruled.
Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. She straightened and entered the courtyard. A servant met her at the door.
“I am here to see Gilah,” Naomi said before the servant could speak.
“Yes, mistress,” the young woman said, smiling. “I will get her for you.” The girl hurried into the house, leaving Naomi to look about the court with its whitewashed stones and smooth benches. Fresh water stood in a large clay jar near the bench where servants would wash the feet of visitors. Not so different from the way her home had looked one long-ago day.
“Naomi!” Gilah rushed toward her, arms wide, startling her. So quick she was. So inviting. “I’m glad you came!” She embraced Naomi, and Naomi accepted her kiss of greeting on each cheek. “Please, come inside and take the morning meal with us.”
Redeeming Grace: Ruth's Story Page 18
