A Woman of Noble Character

by: Michael Wilcock

Something startled Boaz into wakefulness, but once he realized who the unexpected visitor was, he was not startled by what she said. “Please marry me”? How bold, how impertinent, we might have thought. But instead of being scandalized, or even embarrassed, it seems he was (of all things) impressed.

What was it that impressed him? Her “kindness,” say the NIV and ESV, rather misleadingly, as though she had taken pity on a poor old man who wanted to get married but whom all the women avoided. True, Boaz was no doubt older than Ruth. True, she might have looked for a husband who, rich or poor, would at any rate be younger than Boaz.

But she was not being “kind” to Boaz in that sense. She was showing “loving loyalty” (a better translation of the Hebrew term) to the family. Unless Ruth could find someone from within Naomi and Elimelech’s clan to marry her, their family would die out. Her personal feelings took second place to that.

We have already seen it in this story. Naomi’s prayer for her daughters-in-law in chapter 1 was that the Lord would show that faithfulness to them. He did; and Ruth at any rate had learned to show the same kind of faithfulness to others.