Fish the Right

Day 87 · Part 6: The Judges

Where You Go · The Redeemer

Ruth 1–4 · 85 verses

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In the Story

In context

Ruth’s story begins “In the days when the judges judged” (Ruth 1:1); the site dates it about 1100 BC. In a famine, Elimelech of Bethlehem took his wife Naomi and their two sons to Moab, east of the Dead Sea. The father and both sons died there, and Naomi came home with her Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth, “in the beginning of barley harvest” (1:1–22).

Moses’ law told farmers not to gather the leftovers of their harvest but to leave them “for the poor and for the foreigner” (Leviticus 19:9–10). Ruth, a foreigner, gleaned in the field of Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s husband (2:1–3, 10). A near kinsman could buy back land a poor relative had sold (Leviticus 25:25). Boaz did it at the town gate, before ten elders, and married Ruth (4:1–13).

Their son Obed was the father of Jesse, the father of David (4:17). Matthew names Boaz and Ruth in the family line of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).

A word of hope
The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has not left you today without a near kinsman. Let his name be famous in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and sustain you in your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.”

Ruth 4:14–15 · Naomi came home saying, “Yahweh has brought me home again empty”; at the end the women bless Yahweh for a grandson, “a restorer of life.”

For families

Ruth would not leave her mother-in-law: “where you go, I will go… Your people will be my people, and your God my God” (1:16). Naomi looked after Ruth in turn: “My daughter, shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?” (3:1). When Obed was born, Naomi laid him in her bosom and became his nurse, and the neighbor women said, “A son is born to Naomi” (4:16–17).

Naomi held her grandson close and helped care for him. What do grandparents and grandchildren give each other?

In the Bible

World English Bible, as published by eBible.org (public domain).

Ruth 1

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Ruth 2

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Ruth 3

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Ruth 4

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A hymn for today

How Firm a Foundation · words by “K” in John Rippon’s Selection of Hymns

Organ and orchestra: an introduction, then each of the 7 verses. Tap a verse’s number to start there.
  1. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!What more can He say than to you He hath said,You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
  2. In every condition, in sickness, in health,In poverty's vale, or abounding in wealth,At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,As thy days may demand shall thy strength ever be.
  3. Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
  4. When through the deep waters I call thee to go,The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
  5. When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;The flame shall not hurt thee; I only designThy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
  6. E'en down to old age all My people shall proveMy sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.
  7. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,I will not, I will not desert to his foes;That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,I'll never, no never, no never forsake.