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Where has this year gone?! Can you believe next week we’ll have studied six different passages (including the entire book of Ruth)? I’m so grateful you’re checking in with me, and I hope your studies are going well, too!

This past week we were looking at cross-references and other translations of our focus verse(s). My focus verse is Ruth 4:6. Here’s what the Spirit revealed to me this week.

Last Week’s Work

CROSS-REFERENCES

For the first time since I began studying God’s Word this way, I found a verse with no direct cross-references! The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (my usual go-to cross-reference resource) contained only this:

I cannot – The Targum seems to give the proper sense of this passage: ‘I cannot redeem it, because I have a wife already; and it is not fit for me to bring another into my house, lest brawling and contention arise in it; and lest I hurt my own inheritance. Do thou redeem it, for thou has no wife; which hinders me from redeeming it.’ Based on this text’s attribution (The Targum, which is a version of the Hebrew Bible translated into Aramaic), it appears the primary redeemer could refuse to perform the duty if another relative was willing to step up, instead.

OTHER TRANSLATIONS

I compared the ESV, AMP, NIV, and Good News translations for Ruth 4:6 and discovered another couple of reasons why the redeemer might have refused to marry Ruth. The Amplified Bible says it’s “… because [by marrying a Moabitess] I would jeopardize my own inheritance.”

But the GNT indicates he said, “… I will give up my right to buy the field because it would mean that my own children would not inherit it.” In this study, I don’t feel the Spirit pulling me to understand why the man didn’t want the field after he learned he’d need to fulfill the levirate requirements. Instead, I think the Spirit is directing me to focus on the fact that Ruth, a non-Hebrew believer, became an important part of Matthew’s genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:1-16). And she’s not the only non-Hebrew woman in that lineage. Boaz’s mother, Rahab, was a Canaanite prostitute whose faith led her to trust the spies Joshua sent into Jericho when they promised to spare her family in return for her aid in escaping the men of the city (Joshua 2). Though the Israelites were (and are) God’s chosen people, He clearly intends His family to include all races, and both genders play an important role in bringing salvation to mankind.

Dig-In Challenges

Now let’s wrap up our study of Ruth and align with what we’ve discovered in Chapter 4. I hope you’ll join me as I

1. PRAY: Read the prayer we created in Step 1.
2. ALIGN: Review my study notes and other work, focusing specifically on what I’ve learned.
3. ALIGN: Then, considering those “lessons learned,” I’ll think about how the Spirit has convicted me through this study. In other words, where has He shown me misalignment between what I’ve discovered and how I practice my faith?
4. ALIGN: Next, I’ll look to God’s Word for guidance to correct that misalignment. This is often—but not always—a verse from the study text or from one of the cross-references.
5. ALIGN: And finally, I’ll reflect on how I can change my thoughts or actions to align more closely with what I’ve discovered here. To really make this work, I commit to changing something and do my best to act on that commitment every day for at least three weeks.

That may seem like a lot to consider in one week. If you’re working with the Spirit, remember you can do this at your own pace. Don’t worry about keeping up with me—just do what you can when you can. The Lord will bless any time you spend in His Word, I know it!