NEW TO THIS STUDY? START HERE.
Welcome back, my friend! As I write, I’m awed at how the Holy Spirit is using this study to bring together for me themes of famine (Genesis 41-47) from my current Bible reading plan, and humility (1 Peter 5:1-6) in a recent episode of the At This Table podcast with Athena Dean Holtz and Carol Tetzlaff. His timing is so perfect!
Last Week’s Work
REPETITION
I found two repeated terms. The first didn’t surprise me: gleaning is pretty much the whole story of this chapter. I felt called by the Spirit to do a little research with the Bible Dictionaries on BlueLetterBible.org, and discovered the origin of this custom in Mosaic law (Lev 19:9, 23:22, and Deu 24:21): field owners were directed to leave the edges unharvested so the poor and foreigners could come and collect something to eat. So Ruth being allowed to glean wasn’t special treatment: under God’s law, it was her right. Even so, verse 7 indicates she asked permission to glean. That takes humility.
The second concept was find favor. Verse 2:2 sounds like Ruth was hoping someone would let her glean his field, which Boaz’s servant apparently did (v7). But Boaz went beyond that: he told her not to go to anyone else’s field (v8), he instructed his young men to leave her alone and offered her water from the reaper’s vessels (v9). At mealtime, he was even more solicitous (vv14-16). In v13, Ruth said she found favor in his eyes, and she asked him why. Then she described being comforted and spoken kindly to, though she wasn’t even his servant.
SPECIAL STATEMENTS
I found:
- 12 Commands:
Naomi to Ruth: Go, my daughter (v2)
Boaz to Ruth:
(1) listen, my daughter;
(2) do not go to glean in another field;
(3) don’t leave this one;
(4) keep close to my young women. (v8)
(5) let your eyes be on the field they are reaping;
(6) go after them
(7) go to the vessels
(8) drink (v9)
(9) come here
(10) eat some bread
(11) dip your morsel in the wine (v14)
- 11 Blessings:
Boaz to reapers: The Lord be with you
Reapers to Boaz: The Lord bless you (v4)
Boaz to young men:
(1) let her glean even among the sheaves
(2) do not reproach her (v15)
(3) pull out some from the bundles for her
(4) leave it for her
(5) do not rebuke her (v16)
Boaz to Ruth:
The Lord repay you for what you have done,
A full reward be given to you by the Lord (v12)
Naomi to Boaz:
Blessed be the man who took notice of you (v19)
May he be blessed by the Lord (v20)
- 1 Promise by Boaz to Ruth: I charged the young men not to touch you (v9).
LISTS
Last, I identified three lists: (1) Boaz’s eleven commands to Ruth listed under the Commands section above, (2) four reasons Boaz gave Ruth for his kindness (v11):
- All she’d done for Naomi after her husband died
- She’d left her family and native land
- Came to people she didn’t know
- Took refuge under the wings of God.
And (3) Boaz’s five commands to his young men (vv15-16), also listed above.
Clearly, Boaz was a kind man of authority, who took special note of the young widow from Moab who accompanied Naomi home and was working hard to support them both.
Dig-In Challenges
Next week, we’ll be wrapping up Step 3 by looking for three more elements:
- PRAY: As always, start with the prayer we wrote for Step 1.
- MINE: Read through the passage again to see if the author uses any comparisons. The quickest way to locate these is to look for phrases containing the words like or as, as well as more than/ less than and better than/ worse than. Do you find any comparisons that connect directly with your personal focus area?
- MINE: Next, look for causes or motives in the text. The best way I’ve found to do this is to look for these key words or phrases:
because, for*, in order to, lest, since*, so*, so that, that*, to*, therefore.
Finding them almost always means you’ll find an action phrase (noun + verb) with the reason for that action, too. The *exceptions are for, since, so, that, and to—when these are used as other parts of speech (like prepositions or articles), you won’t find an action or a reason.
Next, look for the action (what’s being caused). With most of these words/phrases, you’ll find the action before the key word/phrase, and the reason will be after it.
For example, I went to the store because I was out of milk.
The action = I went to the store
because
The reason = I was out of milk.
Occasionally you may see the order of the statements reversed, but the reason will still follow the key word or phrase: Because I was out of milk, I went to the store.
However, with therefore and its synonyms so, so that, and hence, the action appears after these key words:
Here’s an example using the same reason and action as above, just changing the key word: I was out of milk; therefore, I went to the store.
Same reason = I was out of milk [but different location!]
therefore
Same action = I went to the store.
Try it, I think you’ll see it’s easier than all these words make it seem (and, of course, feel free to reach out to me at jen@jencason.com if you have questions)! - MINE: Finally, see if you can find any conditions/methods by asking: does the author condition the action you’re studying on something else happening—for example, if or when x condition is met, [then] y outcome will happen? Or does he describe a particular method by which something happens—for example, specific steps taken to achieve something, or more generally by or through attributes or actions (i.e., grace, faith)? Does he use any adverbs (-ly words) that describe how the action was accomplished?
These exercises are a little harder, but I know you can do this—give it a try and check back with me next week. I hope you’ll join me then!