Ruth – Gentile Bride

Ruth chapter 4 – A Wedding

Boaz has­tens to the city gate. Tra­di­tion holds that the judges or elders of the city sat at the Gates. Proverbs 31 v 23 Her hus­band is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. Lot also sat at the gate of Sodom Gen 19 v 1.

Note it is Boaz now nego­ti­at­ing for Ruth. He ask the neared kins­man in the pres­ence of 10 elders (wit­nesses)  to redeem Naomi’s land.  The unknown kins­man agrees to redeem Naomi’s land which Elim­elech had sold (mort­gaged) before leav­ing for Moab. Boaz then advises him that not only must he buy the land back for a rel­a­tive but must marry Ruth to raise up and heir for Naomi and Eli­malech. Boaz  makes the point by men­tion­ing he is required to marry Ruth a Moabitess.

The Tar­gum states — The redeemer replied: “In that case, I can­not redeem it; because I have a wife, I am not per­mit­ted to take another one in addi­tion to her, lest the result be quar­rel in my home, and I will be destroy­ing my own pos­ses­sion. You redeem it, since you have no wife; for I am unable to do so.”

This is the way it used to be in Israel con­cern­ing buy­ing back prop­erty and exchang­ing goods: In order to make every mat­ter legal, a man would take off his san­dal and give it to the other man.

This was the way a con­tract was pub­licly approved in Israel. Two schools of thought –one was that the shoe rep­re­sented his only his author­ity to walk on that land – another school says the two shoes are unique to a per­son and the wear pat­tern iden­ti­fies the coun­ter­party to the sale.

So Boaz bought back (redeemed) the lands of Elim­elech and his sons – Chil­ion and Mahlon for Naomi and Ruth in Ruth 1v1.  With the redemp­tion of dead Elimelech’s land, Boaz is to marry Ruth and raise up an heir to Elim­elech. The elders wit­ness the transaction.

Mes­siah will also one day say “I bought all that belonged to the peo­ple of the earth, the land which they had aban­doned in their sin and which Adam had pledged in ser­vice to Satan”

The peo­ple said we are wit­nesses and then they say a strange bless­ing on the cou­ple.  May your house be like Rachel and Leah – the two wives of Jacob who raised up the 12 tribes. Then the ref­er­ence to the house of Pharez –mean­ing “breach.”   The plain mean­ing is Pharez — As hon­or­able and numer­ous as his fam­ily was; whom, though be also was born of a stranger, God so blessed, that his fam­ily was one of the five fam­i­lies to which all the tribe of Judah belonged, and the prog­en­i­tor of the inhab­i­tants of this city.

The prophetic word imply that this mar­riage will heal the breach.  As in the story of Samuels birth and in Rachel’s pregnancy, God grants Ruth con­cep­tion Gen 30 v 22 The women said that Naomi bore a son and called his named Obed the grand­fa­ther of David. The scrip­ture then traces the lin­eage back to Pharez and the 10 gen­er­a­tional curse Deut 23 v 2  is bro­ken with  birth of David the 10^th in line of the royal fam­ily of Judah. Gov­ern­ment no longer came by the judges but by the Kings.

As Christians we have to ask ourselves what does this mean to us.

CHRIST AND HIS BRIDE  – TYPOLOGIES IN RUTH

“I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.” (Hosea 12:10) As the Boreans did, check the following out for yourself. (Acts 17:11)

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Rom 15:4)