Ruth

No. 357 Ruth 4:11-17
The book of Ruth began in grief. Naomi had left Bethlehem in a famine and lost her husband and both her sons in a foreign land, and when she came home she told the women not to call her Naomi, which means...
No. 779 Ruth 2:11-16
Ruth is a foreign widow, a Moabite, gleaning at the edges of a stranger's field to keep herself and her mother-in-law alive, and Boaz, the owner, notices her and speaks. He has heard her story, how after her...
No. 873 Ruth 4:18-22
These five verses close the book of Ruth with a genealogy: Perez fathered Hezron, down through Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. It reads like a dry list, but it is the payoff of the...
No. 1726 Ruth 2:6-10
Ruth, a poor Moabite widow who has come back to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law Naomi, goes out to glean in the fields, gathering the leftover grain that the law allowed the poor to take. She happens onto the...
No. 2032 Ruth 1:16-22
Naomi, widowed and bereaved of both her sons in a foreign land, urges her daughters-in-law to return to their own people. One does. But Ruth clings to her and answers with words of remarkable devotion: do not...
No. 2171 Ruth 2:1-5
Ruth goes out to glean in the fields to provide for herself and Naomi, and comes to the field of Boaz. When Boaz arrives from Bethlehem, the first thing recorded of him is how he greets his workers. May the...
No. 2252 Ruth 4:1-5
Boaz goes to the town gate to settle the matter of Ruth and Naomi's redemption. There is a nearer kinsman with the first right to redeem Naomi's land, and Boaz lays the matter before him. The nearer kinsman is...
No. 2536 Ruth 1:1-9
The book of Ruth opens in loss. A famine drives Naomi's family from Bethlehem to Moab, and there, one by one, the men die, her husband and then both her sons, leaving Naomi bereaved and far from home with two...
No. 2695 Ruth 4:6-10
At the town gate the drama of Ruth reaches its settlement. The nearer kinsman has first claim to redeem Elimelech's land, but when he learns that redeeming it means also taking Ruth to raise up the dead man's...
No. 2722 Ruth 3:10-18
Ruth has come to Boaz at the threshing floor and asked him, in the custom of the time, to be her redeemer. Boaz answers not with alarm but with blessing: you are a worthy woman, and this kindness is greater...
No. 3368 Ruth 1:10-15
Widowed and bitter, Naomi urges her two Moabite daughters-in-law to go back to their own people and their own gods. She has nothing to offer them, no more sons, no future; the LORD's hand, she feels, has gone...
No. 3441 Ruth 3:1-9
At Naomi's counsel, Ruth goes to the threshing floor by night and, when Boaz wakes and finds a woman lying at his feet, she makes a bold and humble request: spread the corner of your garment over your servant,...
No. 4208 Ruth 2:17-23
Ruth returns to Naomi with an abundance of grain gleaned in Boaz's field, and when Naomi hears whose field it was, hope stirs in her for the first time since her bitter losses. Blessed be he by the LORD, she...