Chapter 22 gentle and kind Ruth

The story of Ruth shows us the charm of early simple life in Palestine. Above we have described Israel under the rule of the Judges, and we have spoken of many wars, bloodshed, and terrible cruelty.Now let's talk about another side of Jewish life, a lovable side. The following is one such story. A man named Elimelech lived in Bethlehem, and his wife's name was Naomi. They had two sons, Machilian and Mahlon.Elimelech's family was doing well, but when the famine came, he was in trouble. He had a rich cousin named Boaz, but Elimelech refused to bow down to ask, so he had to move to Moab with his wife and children to rebuild the family business.

He worked hard, but suddenly he died.Abandoned his wife and two sons. The two sons were good, and they helped their mother in the fields, and when they were grown up, they married the daughters of the Moabites.They all want to spend their lives among friendly strangers.But Magillion and Marlon were as weak as their father, and they both fell ill, and both died soon after.The mother was extremely sad and planned to return to her hometown to spend the rest of her life.The people there she has known since she was a child speak a language she is familiar with. She loved her two daughters-in-law, but she knew that she could not ask them to go back with her. She told them what she thought, and Orpah, the widow of Machilian, was determined to stay with her natal family, so she said goodbye to Naomi, stay in Moab.

However, Marlon's widow, Ruth, was unwilling to leave Naomi because the old woman had no relatives.She abandoned her family and married into Elimelech's house.She thought she couldn't leave Naomi, that it was her duty to be with her.Ruth then declared that nothing could separate her from her husband's mother.She hugged the old woman tenderly. They returned to Bethlehem together. They have nothing and no money to buy bread.Fortunately, when Moses made the law a long time ago, he considered that some people would starve, so he stipulated that the ears of wheat that fell on the ground after harvest should be picked up by poor people.All the grain in the field belongs to the grower, but the little bit that falls on the ground belongs to those who do not have the land, which is the right given to them by God.

When Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem, it was the autumn harvest season. Boaz, Elimelech's relative, took his men to work in the fields, while Ruth followed a group of gleaners trying to find something to eat for Naomi. She worked for several days in a row. She was a strange woman in Bethlehem. People inquired about her, and soon everyone knew her origin.At last Boaz heard of her too, and he was eager to see her, to see what kind of woman she was, and he had a talk with her under the pretense of inspecting the field work. At lunch, he invited her to lunch with the other workers and gave her a lot of food.

Ruth ate only a small amount, and brought the rest back to Naomi, who was too old to work. The next day, she went to glean ears of wheat. Boaz wanted her to do it easier, but he was afraid of hurting her self-esteem, so he ordered his men not to be too serious and to drop more ears of wheat. Ruth had been busy all day, and when she came home at night, she found that she had gained too much, and she couldn't even take it. She told Naomi exactly what happened.How did she meet Boaz, and how did she pick up wheat ears in one morning that she couldn't pick up in a week. Naomi was very happy in her heart, she knew that she would not live long.She wanted Ruth to marry Boaz.In this way, Ruth can have a happy family.True, Ruth was a foreigner, but by her marriage to a relative of Boaz she was undoubtedly part of the Jewish family, and everyone liked her so much.

All went well, first Boaz redeemed Elimelech's land (a law made by Moses to prevent usurers from plundering farmers' land, and Boaz, a relative of Elimelech, had the right to do so).Then he proposed to Ruth. Ruth agreed, and Naomi moved in with them until the day she died. Before she died, she saw Ruth's eldest son, whose name was Obed. When Obed grew up, he had a son named Jesse and a grandson named David.David, who later became king of Judea, was a direct ancestor of Mary, the wife of Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. With a tender heart, Ruth left her natal family to take care of an old lady who treated her like a loving mother. Jesus is the descendant of the gentle and kind Ruth.