How the Story Ends

by: Michael Wilcock

When the baby arrives, it is as if Naomi herself has been given another son after all. What she has lost is going to be made up to her in marvelous ways. And what Ruth has given up—her old home in Moab—has been replaced by something far better. She has been drawn into the family of God’s people.

But that isn’t the half of it, says the writer of the book. When little Obed grows up, he too will have a son, Ruth’s grandson, Naomi’s great-grandson, whom he will name Jesse. And Jesse in his turn will have sons, the youngest of whom will be called by God from being a shepherd boy, here on the hills of Bethlehem, to be a great king, greatest of all the kings of Bible times.

Except, that is, for yet another of Naomi’s “children,” whom none of these Old Testament people, we suppose, could imagine. A thousand years after David’s time he will come, “great David’s greater Son,” and “he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33). The ways of the Lord are truly wonderful—“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).