Where You Go, I Will Go

In the days when the judges were judging Israel, there came a year with no rain, and no bread. And a man from Bethlehem named Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their two sons and went away to live in the country of Moab, on the other side of the Dead Sea, where there was food. They meant to stay a little while. They stayed ten years. And in those ten years everything went wrong. First Elimelech died. Then the two sons grew up and married Moabite girls — one named Orpah and one named Ruth — and then the two sons died as well. And Naomi was left with no husband and no children: three women alone in a foreign country. Then word came to Moab that back in Israel the Lord had visited his people and given them bread again. So Naomi packed what she had and set out on the road home, and her two daughters-in-law walked with her.

But partway along the road Naomi stopped and turned around and said to them, “Go back, each of you, to your own mother’s house. You were kind to my sons and you have been kind to me — may the Lord be as kind to you. May he give each of you a home of your own and a husband to look after you.” And she kissed them both goodbye. And the two of them burst out crying and said, “No — we are going with you, to your people.” But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why would you come with me? I have no more sons to give you. I am too old. And it is more bitter for me than it is for you, because the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” And they cried again, out loud, there in the road. And in the end Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye and turned back to her own people. But Ruth would not let go. And Naomi said, “Look — your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods. Go on back after her.”

And Ruth said: “Do not ask me to leave you, or to turn back from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay the night, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. And wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried. Only death is going to come between me and you.” And when Naomi saw that she had made up her mind, she stopped telling her to go home. So the two of them walked on together, all the way to Bethlehem. And when they came into the town, the whole place buzzed with it, and the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ And Naomi said, “Do not call me Naomi any more. Call me Bitter — because that is what has happened to me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home empty.” They came to Bethlehem just as the barley harvest was beginning.

Now there was a law in Israel, one of the kind ones. When a farmer reaped his field, he was not allowed to go back over it and pick up every last stalk, and he was not to harvest right into the corners. Whatever the reapers dropped or missed was to be left lying, so that poor people and strangers could come along behind them and gather it up and eat. It was called gleaning, and it was how somebody with nothing could still get bread. And Ruth said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the fields and gather up grain behind anyone who will let me.” And Naomi said, ‘Go, my daughter.’ So Ruth went out; and as it happened, the field she came to belonged to a man named Boaz — who was a relative of Naomi’s dead husband, though Ruth had no idea of it. And that morning Boaz himself came out from Bethlehem, and called to his reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they called back, “May the Lord bless you!” And Boaz noticed the stranger working in his field, and asked his foreman who she was. And the foreman said, “She is the Moabite girl, the one who came back with Naomi. She asked if she could gather behind the reapers, and she has been on her feet since first thing this morning, and she has hardly rested at all.”

So Boaz went over to her and said, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go gathering in anybody else’s field. Stay here, close to my young women. Keep your eyes on the part they are reaping and go along behind them. I have told the young men to leave you alone. And when you are thirsty, go and drink from the water jars, the same as they do.” And Ruth bowed right down to the ground and said, “Why are you being so kind to me — why even notice me, when I am a foreigner?” And Boaz said, “Because I have been told all about it — everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband died, and how you left your own father and mother and your own country and came to a people you had never met. May the Lord pay you back for what you have done. May you be paid in full by the Lord, the God of Israel, whose wings you have come to shelter under.” And at lunchtime he called her over to eat with the workers, and gave her bread and roasted grain — and there was so much that she could not finish it. And when she got up to work again, Boaz told his young men quietly: let her gather right in among the sheaves, and do not embarrass her; and pull some stalks out of the bundles on purpose and drop them for her. So she gathered all day, and in the evening she beat out what she had picked up — and it came to about six gallons of barley. She carried it home to Naomi, and gave her the food she had saved from lunch as well. And Naomi said, “Where did you gather today? Bless the man who took notice of you!” And Ruth said, ‘The man I worked with today is called Boaz.’ And Naomi’s face changed. She said, “The Lord bless him! He has not stopped being kind — not to the living, and not to the dead. That man is a relative of ours. He is one of the ones with the right to look after us.” So Ruth stayed close to the young women of Boaz and gathered in his fields right through the barley harvest and on through the wheat harvest, and she lived with her mother-in-law.

Now in Israel there was another law, and it worked like this. If a man died, the nearest man in his family was supposed to step in and buy back his land, and look after his widow, and keep the dead man’s name and his family going. A man who did that was called the near relative — the one whose job it was to put the family right again. It was not a small thing to ask of anybody, and nobody could be made to do it. And Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, should I not be looking for a home for you, and a rest? Boaz is a man we know, and tonight he is winnowing barley on the threshing floor. So wash and put on your good clothes, and go down there — but do not let him see you until he has finished eating. And when he lies down to sleep, notice the place, and go and lie down at his feet, and he will tell you what to do.” And Ruth said, “I will do everything you say.” So she went down to the threshing floor and did exactly what Naomi had told her. Boaz ate and drank, and his heart was glad, and he lay down at the end of the heap of grain and fell asleep; and Ruth came quietly and lay down at his feet. And in the middle of the night the man woke up with a start, and there was somebody there. And he said, “Who are you?” And she said, “I am Ruth. Spread your wing over me — for you are the near relative.” And Boaz said, “The Lord bless you, my daughter. This last kindness of yours is even greater than the first, because you have not gone running after young men, rich or poor. Now do not be afraid. Everything you have asked, I will do for you — the whole town knows that you are a fine woman. It is true that I am a near relative. But there is one man closer than I am. Stay here tonight; and in the morning, if he will do it for you, well and good, let him do it. And if he will not, then as the Lord lives, I will.” So she lay at his feet until morning, and she got up while it was still too dark to tell one person from another; and Boaz poured six measures of barley into her wrap and lifted it onto her, and said, ‘Do not go home to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’ And Naomi, hearing it all, said, “Sit still, my daughter, until you see how this falls out. That man will not rest until he has settled it — today.”

And Naomi was right. Boaz went straight up to the gate of the town, which was where all the business of a town was done, and sat down there. And when the other relative came by, Boaz called to him, “Turn aside and sit down here.” And he took ten of the elders of Bethlehem and sat them down as witnesses. Then Boaz said to the man, “Naomi has come home from Moab, and she is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech. You are the nearest relative, so the right is yours first. Buy it, here in front of these men — or if you will not, say so, and I will know, because after you it comes to me.” And the man said, “I will buy it.” Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the field from Naomi, you also take Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s wife, so that his name stays on his own land.” And the man changed his mind at once. He said, “Then I cannot do it — I would only spoil what belongs to my own children. Take my right and use it yourself. I cannot.” And here is how people made a bargain stick in Israel in those days: a man pulled off his sandal and handed it to the other man, and everybody watching knew the thing was settled. So the near relative pulled off his sandal and gave it to Boaz. And Boaz said to the elders and to everybody standing round, “You are witnesses today that I have bought everything that was Elimelech’s from the hand of Naomi. And Ruth the Moabite I am taking as my wife, so that the dead man’s name will not disappear from among his brothers and from the gate of his own town. You are witnesses today.” And all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses! May the Lord make the woman coming into your house like Rachel and like Leah, who between them built the whole house of Israel. Do well in Bethlehem, and may your name be spoken here.”

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And the Lord gave her a baby, and she had a son. And the women of Bethlehem came to Naomi — the same women who had watched her come home empty — and they said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you without a near relative today! This child will bring your life back to you, and look after you when you are old. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has borne him — and she is better to you than seven sons.” And Naomi took the baby and laid him in her lap, and looked after him. And the women next door gave him his name, and they said, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ And they called him Obed. And Obed grew up and had a son named Jesse. And Jesse grew up and had eight sons — and the youngest of them, the one who was out keeping the sheep, was called David.