First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

Neither Edgar Allan Poe nor any other modern writer formulated

the short story as we know it. It was invented by G-d long

before. Ruth is a short story, though of course, its material is

history and not fiction.

Judges and Ruth are so different in tone that it is amazing that

they take place during the same time period. In contrast to the

murder and lust of Judges, there is the wonder of how much Ruth

endeared herself to people who should have been strangers. A

miracle quietly transpires in this story, and people who might

have considered Ruth an enemy because of her Moabite ancestry,

were instead drawn to her by the cords of G-d's love. Love is a

wonderful thing. The story of Ruth is saying, look how G-d's

love binds people together, with a bond that even death cannot

sever, for G-d is the G-d of the living, and even the dead are

not beyond his protective, loving hand.

Look at Ruth's story. Ruth's husband Mahlon is dead, he left her

no son, Naomi he left no grandchildren. Mahlon's property is

languishing untilled in Bethlehem, and all seems hopelessly lost.

Who can help her? Who can reclaim the land and bring a harvest

of prosperity again? Who can redeem the dead? No one, it seems.

The land has seen famine, the dead are gone.

But is anything too hard for G-d? Read the story and watch G-d

go into action! Watch him redeem the lost property and put the

deed of ownership back into the name of the deceased. All right,

you say, G-d can redeem the land perhaps. But can G-d redeem the

dead? Can the dead live again? Can a corpse have a child?

Again we ask, is anything too hard for the L-rd? Look at this

true story, recorded in the annals of the history of King David!

In this true story, the dead man's widow even conceives the dead

man's child, giving us a foreglimpse of Isaiah's virgin in Isaiah

7:14! And what a child! The child that is on the way in this

story is the Davidic King of Judah, even the Moshiach! Now, the

story is saying, after all that, you, reader, should believe that

G-d is the G-d of the living, who can redeem the world and the

land and who can make alive even the dead.

Ruth had neither a Jewish mother nor a Jewish father! But she

has entered Ideal Israel (Y'shuron Yisroel, meaning "upright one

or "law-upholding one", a poetic name for the true Israel of G-d

--see Isaiah 44:2; Deut. 32:15; 33:26; 33:5) by faith alone (Gal.

2:15-21), by an individual choice to turn away from the former

heathenish direction she was going and by making a personal

decision to turn back and join the people of G-d and to take

their G-d as her God in true teshuva (1:16-17). (Moab symbolizes

for Naomi a heathenish neglect of G-d's people and G-d's House,

because Bethlehem means "House of Bread," and she has felt the

covenant curses of famine, death, and childlessness as a result

of her moving in a heathenish direction that neglects G-d's

House--Deut. 28:18, 21, 24). But Ruth has become a "supernatural

Jew" through the new birth and has entered "Upright" Israel by

what alone made her upright, that is, emunah (Hab. 2:4; Gen.

15:6; Psalm 106:31; Gal. 2:16), and Ruth has entered Upright

Israel ahead of those who say they are Jews but are still

spiritually uncircumcised, still heathen at heart, as Naomi seems

to be until she comes back to Bethlehem and begins to see G-d

bless one of the Gentiles, her daughter-in-law Ruth (contrast

Ruth 1:15 and Ruth 2:20). Ruth's regenerated, circumcised heart

made her part of the true circumcision, the true Israel of G-d,

and we who are regenerated in the Brit Chadasha kehillah have

also entered Israel with Ruth the Moabitess and with Rahab.

The point that the story is leading to is how great G-d's

blessing is on this Gentile woman--more than she could ever see

in her lifetime. (G-d has also similarly blessed us more than we

can see in our lifetime.) She became a direct ancestor of King

David and, through him, Ruth became a direct ancestor of the

promised Moshiach Himself! The irony of G-d's hand on Ruth's

life is a theme of the story. His providential care for her, the

way her footsteps are literally ordered by the L-rd (Psalm

37:23), the gracious way her faith is answered by his provision

--these are all highlighted by the fact that she is an outsider,

alone, a widow, a non-Jew, a foreigner, a member of the excluded,

(cursed by the Law--Deut. 23:3) Moabite people, a pagan who had

known only death and a false religion and was now poor and

helpless in a strange land.

G-d's special providential care toward those on their way to

salvation is a theme of Ruth. Everywhere this Gentile widow

turns, she is blessed, because she has been given a heart to

bless G-d's people (Gen. 12:2). Just as she does not forget her

mother-in-law, G-d does not abandon his chesed (covenant-keeping

loving kindness) with Ruth and with the living and the dead (Ruth

2:20). G-d makes everything work together for good for Ruth,

even a famine, even the death of her husband (Romans 8:28). G-d

uses the famine in Israel to get Ruth's future mother-in-law

Naomi to move from Bethlehem to where Ruth could meet her in

Moab. G-d uses the death of her husband to free Ruth to begin a

wonderful, spiritual pilgrimage. G-d, who withdraws the rain,

now brings the early rain and the later rain to end the famine

and bless the land with the harvest, which is a reward for

covenant-obedience (Deut 28:4). But, here is where the wonder

really begins. G-d leads the widows back to Bethlehem for a

harvest greater than they could ever imagine, a world harvest led

by the Moshiach Himself, the world Harvester "to whom the nations

belong (Gen.49:10)." (Notice carefully the Goel redeemer son of

Judah at the threshing floor in Ruth 3:2). The World Harvester,

the Moshiach will be born there in Bethlehem a thousand years

later (see Micah 5:2).

G-d gives Ruth a strange and marvelous love. G-d gives Ruth a

love for her mother-in-law and for the people of G-d. G-d gives

her the courage to say good-bye to her heathen sister and to go

to Israel with her mother-in-law. Then G-d brings her to a very

special man, a man of substance, a man of destiny, the most

wonderful husband she could ever have dreamed of, in fact a

husband far beyond her imagination, an absolutely unique man of

royal blood, the only man in the world who was Ruth's

contemporary and was at the same time destined to become a direct

ancestor of King David and of the Moshiach Yehoshua. And the

wonder is that G-d led this Gentile woman Ruth to find favor in

his sight and become related to him in holy covenant love. For

this man (Boaz) from the Messianic tribe of Judah become Ruth's

kinsman Go'el (redeemer), protecting the family, the dead as well

as the living. This man from the tribe of the Moshiach married

Ruth and redeemed (bought back) the land of Ruth's dead husband

and raised up an heir to carry the dead man's name. So the dead

man's inheritance was not wiped out. G-d is the G-d who saves

the living and the dead through a Redeemer from the tribe of

Judah. Here it is important to remember that APOLUTROSEOS or

HAPEDUT (redemption) as in Romans 3:24 means release on payment

of ransom. Had Moshiach Yehoshua not paid the ransom of his

blood as our Go'el (redeemer) we could never have been bought

back from sin and death and judgment. Our plight would have been

more hopeless than Ruth and Naomi, these two tragic ALMANOT

(widows).

In the Bible, G-d is also the protector of ALMANOT. In Bible

times, a woman without the covering of a husband was in danger of

exploitation or of sexual molestation or even being carried off.

Because of our sin nature and our sin practices, we were carried

off and on the slave market auction block of sin. We needed a

redeemer to buy us back. Moshiach Yehoshua is rich and can do

that because Moshiach Yehoshua is not in debt to HaSatan.

Moshiach Yehoshua has no sin nature and no sin practices. If we

humble ourselves like a poor widow and turn to him to redeem us,

he will put the wings of his garment over us and protect us from

all hurt and loss. Moshiach Yehoshua will be to us what Boaz was

to Ruth and Naomi. This book of the Bible is extremely important

because it shows the tribe of Judah and a coming redeemer of the

Jews and Gentiles, the Moshiach, who will fulfill Gen. 49:10.

The secret of Ruth's blessing was her faithfulness. She remained

where G-d placed her. She refused to leave her mother-in-law,

she remained with her in life and refused to leave her in death

(1:16-18). Ruth remained faithfully where G-d placed her. She

remained in Boaz's field. Boaz said, "Stay with my workers until

they finish harvesting all my grain" (2:21) and she obeyed him.

Ruth didn't go to the field of someone else where she might have

been harmed (2:22). The passage says "she stayed close to the

servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat

harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law"

Naomi (2:23). Ruth remained with the people of G-d, and she kept

her heart loyal to her L-rd and His people. She is a chayil

isha "noble woman" (see Ruth 3:11; compare same exact words in

Prov. 31:10).

Notice how G-d leads Ruth out of her heathen past into a future

place of blessing with G-d's people. G-d leads her to just the

right field, one that G-d can eternally redeem with new life and

an abundant harvest, a field that will become Ruth's own,

allotted for her before time ever was, her portion, signifying

eternal life (see Romans 9:6-11).

In the Bible, your land signifies your eternal inheritance in

G-d, your allotted portion forever. There are two kinds of

people in the world! Those who despise their birthright of

Chayyei Olam (Eternal Life) and neglect the House of G-d, and

those who love the people of G-d and the courts of G-d's Beis

Hamikdash. There's no redemption, no redeemer, no hope for the

land or the dead in "Moab."

Notice, on this field of the Redeemer of Judah, G-d gives Ruth

true Menucha (security--1:9; 3:1). He sustains Ruth with food

and a home and a husband and even makes her the great grandmother

of the great King (see Ruth 4:21-22). Judges 21:17 says that

marriage was given to get an heir to avoid extinction, to avoid

being wiped out. But the ultimate heir that Ruth will be given

is the Moshiach, the One that will burst out of the grave and

wipe out death itself.

Those with heathen hearts are still back in Moab. Ruth has come

to the Promised Land and she has had her heathen heart cleansed

and reborn in G-d's love, and she has come to hope in the G-d who

raises the dead. Her hope has cleansed her, too, as it says,

"every man who hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as

He is pure (I Yochanan 3:3)."

Then Ruth, who was humble enough to do any chore, any task, no

matter how menial--so great was her love for G-d's people--then

Ruth faithfully abides in G-d's love, and G-d makes Ruth's name

great. And in the story, all this providential blessing is

introduced so subtly that the reader barely see it as he reads.

Yet at the end of the story, G-d's grace becomes overwhelmingly

wonderful, just as when the believer reflects on the providential

care of the L-rd on his own life. Like Ruth, we find that G-d

was subtly blessing us all along, even before we knew him.

When going to the Jewish people, it is essential to identify with

them as Ruth did. When a Jewish person asks you about your

faith, if your deeds and your lips say, "My faith is Jewish.

These are my people," your sincere love and seriousness will get

a definite reaction from the Jewish people, as it did for Ruth.

The Go'el is introduced in the book of Ruth. Look at 3:9. The

Go'el is the kinsman-redeemer who shows kindness to the living

and to the dead, and redeems the inheritance of those who have

died. This is what the Moshiach does, and Boaz, the son of Judah

(Gen. 49:10) who takes the Gentile bride, is a picture of the

Go'el Moshiach Yehoshua, who rose from the dead to redeem the

Brit Chadasha kehillah.

Naomi had to be made empty in order that G-d could lead her back

to Him and fill her with blessing. There is a kind of chiasmus

in the fact that the land of Israel is empty when Naomi goes out

of it full, and the land is full when she comes back to it empty.

She had to leave a place called Beit-Lechem ("House of Bread")

and return marah ("bitter") to it. The name Naomi means

"pleasant", but life's blows make her bitter until G-d starts to

open her eyes as she sees a Gentile "daughter" blessing her and

being blessed by G-d with Israel's blessings, a Rom. 10:19;

11:13-14 fact which provokes Naomi to jealousy to come back to

G-d in her own heart. Only when things get as bad as they could

be in a heathen land, and all of her loved ones were dying, only

then did Naomi, bitter Naomi, turn around and repent of the

heathen direction of her life, and start heading back to G-d's

House and G-d's people. Then G-d blesses her through her return

to G-d's people. It's important to remember that the child in

the story, Obed, is called "Naomi's son." (See Ruth 4:17.)

Naomi's unredeemed property has to be purchased and it belongs to

her husband and her son Mahlon (both deceased) and the son Obed

also belongs to them and to Naomi. The child would be known as

Obed son of Mahlon son of Elimelech. The son would be Naomi's

protector and the heir of the land, insuring that it would stay

in the family. So G-d is making it evident to Naomi that He is

redeeming her life because she has returned to him. This is a

solemn warning to the backslider, but it has a loving expression

in this beautiful little book.

Ruth 3:12

Though it is true that I am a kinsman-redeemer, there is a

kinsman-redeemer nearer than I. [i.e. Moshiach]