It looks like Ruth was trying to seduce Boaz as he was sleeping there on the threshing floor, but it is important to try to also understand the cultural context of what is happening so that we can best understand the story that is being told in the Bible.

First, Ruth, whose story is being told here in this book of the Bible, isn’t even a Jewish woman. She is a Moabite. She comes from one of the people groups that God had told the Israelites to wipe out as they entered the promised land so that they wouldn’t be distracted by, and turn to worship, their gods. Her husband was an Israelite who had come into the Moabite land because of a famine in the land of the Israelites at that time, and they hand intermingled and inter-married with two Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah.

Now, both of their Israelite husbands, along with their father-in-law Elimelek, had passed away. So Naomi, Ruth and Orpah’s mother-in-law, told these two wives that they should return home to their own people and to their own gods. So Orpah left, but Ruth would not leave Naomi. Instead, this Moabite woman decided that she would stay with Naomi. She would, in effect, become Jewish and follow Yahweh. She would not leave her family by marriage, not leave Naomi, come what may.

Back in the Israelite land, Ruth went out to work to support she and Naomi, but Naomi came up with a plan for Ruth to be married and their family name to be carried on. In the Jewish culture, there is a person for each family who, in the event of tragedy, would “redeem” the family. He was an extended family member who would make sure that the family name would continue on. He would avenge the death of a family member. He would make sure that land that they had lost in the midst of difficult times would eventually be bought and returned to them, and he would make sure that those who were left in the family would be cared for and that the family would continue on with children, carrying on the name of the original family.

This person was referred to as the “goel” and it was a right for the rest of the family, those that find themselves in the pain and difficulty of their loss, to go to the goel, the guardian-redeemer, to be rescued, to be made whole again as a family.

Naomi came up with a plan that would include their guardian-redeemer, their goel, to redeem their family. Ruth had seemingly stumbled into a relationship with Boaz, a man who would turn out to be their family’s guardian-redeemer, so after being allowed to glean grain in his fields, and even eventually harvest directly with the harvest workers, Naomi eventually tells Ruth to go to Boaz directly while he is sleeping on the threshing floor so as to humbly ask him to redeem her and her family. She will become his wife, yet he will also be carrying Elimelek’s family name.

Ruth asks Boaz to spread the corner of his garment over her, which in those cultures means that she is asking him to give her, and subsequently also along with her, Naomi, a covering:

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.”

Ruth 3:9

There are so many lessons that we can learn from this story of Ruth, but I want to focus on one in particular. Boaz does go on to redeem Elimelek’s family and Ruth, who, let’s remember, is a Moabitess. She is a foreigner. She is from one of the nations that were meant for destruction as the Israelites entered the promised land, and yet she will become an integral part of God’s story.

The primary purpose for God’s people, the people of Israel, is that they would glorify him before the nations, that the nations would know him, that the nations would receive the blessing that God had promised Abraham, the blessing of eventually also being God’s people.

In so many ways, including the same ways that we also fail at the purpose for which God has made us as his people, the people of Israel failed to fully follow God. They failed to glorify him, or even to recognize him as their God in many times, but despite their failings, God used them all the same for his plan, for his purposes.

It took one person, this guardian-redeemer Boaz, to decide that he would be faithful in the role that God had given to him. He didn’t even necessarily initiate and create the possibility that he would redeem Elimelek’s family. He was, instead, simply doing his normal work, farming and harvesting his grain, when this opportunity to be the person that God had made him to be, showed up in front him. By being faithful, by acting in the face of the possibility that he could be used to do that which would glorify God, he also made God known to the nations. In the first place, Boaz showed himself to be faithful to God to and through Ruth who was coming from the nation of Moab, but as it turns out, God used he and Ruth to make an even greater impact:

Boaz and Ruth’s child was Obed. Obed was Jesse’s father and Jesse was the father of king David. Their son would be David’s grandfather.

The line to the Messiah would travel through a man who was faithful such as Boaz along with Ruth, a Moabitess.

The nations would know God through faithfulness to God for the nations. We should be amazed and give glory to God for his plan and his work within us and through us! This is the same plan that God has for us even today, that we would live to glorify him before the nations, making him known to all nations. The same plan that God had for the nation of Israel, for his people, is the same plan that God has for each of us even today.

Within this story, then, is found a natural question: Will we be faithful as Boaz was faithful? Will we be the people that God has made us to be? Will we fulfill that which God has made us to be? Will we do that which Jesus has told us to do?