Near the beginning of our Lord’s genealogy we read “And Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab; and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth...” After just studying the life of Rahab, we are beginning to see a pattern in the way God saves and redeems trophies of His grace. God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts! For the Lord Jesus to be willing to have such names mentioned in His family tree speaks loudly to sinners. Out of the five women listed or alluded to (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary), three were adul­teresses, three were Gentiles, and Mary was pregnant out of wedlock. Christ humbled Himself in so many ways and bears our shame. He is no stranger, but He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. It is this mercy we see in the life of Ruth, the Moabite stranger.

Naomi and Elimelech were Israelites who fled from Judah to Moab to escape a devastating famine. While in Moab, both their sons, Mahlon and Chilion, married Moabitish women, Ruth and Orpah. Within a short while, all three men of the family died, leaving behind three widows. Naomi heard that in Bethlehem the fam­ine was over, so she set out to return home after being gone for more than ten years. Both of her daughters-in-law went with her, but she pled with them to return to their own people and possibly remarry. Orpah returned, but Ruth clung to her mother-in-law and uttered these beautiful words, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me” (Ruth 1:16). Ruth was fully committed to her mother-in-law and in faith fully committed to Israel’s God. She turned her back on her pagan culture with its pagan worship and went forward with faith to a foreign land to live among people she did not know.

Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at the begin­ning of barley harvest. Because of the abject poverty of Naomi and Ruth with no one to provide for them, Ruth had to go out to the fields and glean grain to provide food for survival. In God’s providence, Ruth happened to glean in Boaz’s field who was a near kinsman of Naomi’s husband, a wealthy man. Ruth worked hard, gleaning from early morning until late at night.

This hard-worker did not go unnoticed; Boaz saw her and asked about her. He showed remarkable kindness to her and told her not to glean in any other field but to remain by his maidens. He counseled his men not to touch her and to draw water for her when she was thirsty. Ruth was overwhelmed with his kindness and bowed herself to the ground, confessing that she felt unworthy of the grace he showed her because she was a stranger. Boaz had heard how she had left her family and land and committed herself to caring for her mother-in-law. Then he blessed her with these words, “The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust” (Ruth 2:12). Boaz heaped further kindness on her by inviting her to eat with them as if she were a member of his household! He also told his men to let her glean among the sheaves and also to drop handfuls of grain on purpose for Ruth to gather.

When Naomi saw the amount of grain Ruth brought home, she knew someone had been extraordinarily kind to Ruth. Ruth told about Boaz, and Naomi praised the Lord for His kindness in providing not only this grain for them but also a near kinsman. Now there was hope that Ruth would remarry and be redeemed by Boaz! What a picture of our near kinsman and redeemer, Jesus Christ.

We all know the end of this love story: how Boaz redeemed all that belonged to Elimelech and his fam­ily, and then married this Moabitish woman. What joy to Naomi and Ruth after being widowed, childless, and destitute! God blessed Boaz and Ruth with a son named Obed who was David’s great-grandfather and from whom came the great Redeemer, the one born in Bethlehem’s manger. This great Redeemer deals kindly with the unworthy, foreigner, stranger, impoverished, hopeless, destitute, lonely, tried, afflicted, helpless ones. After initially dealing kindly with them He continues to lavish them with kindness and love and fills their cup to overflowing because of His work, because of His redeeming power. If there was mercy for this Moabitish woman whom the Israelites were forbidden to marry and with whom they could have no contact, then there is mercy for you and me.