07/29/2020 – Day 066 – Ruth 1-4
I get much use out of my Haley’s Bible Handbook. There is summary provided for each book of the Bible along with maps and photo illustrations. Since we our spending only one day on Ruth, I will copy much of the summary, from this book:
“Ruth – Great Grandmother of David – Beginning of Messianic Family”
This lovely story of a lovely woman, following, like calm after a storm, the turbulent scenes of Judges, is a delightful and charming picture of domestic life in a time of anarchy and trouble.
A thousand years earlier, Abraham had been called of God to found a Nation for the purpose of one day bringing a Saviour to mankind. In the book of Ruth we have the founding of the Family within that Nation in which the Saviour would come. Ruth was the great grandmother of king David. From here on Old Testament interest centers mainly around the family of David.
…. Chapter 2 Ruth Gleans in the Field of Boaz
…. About a mile east of Bethlehem is a field, called “Field of Boaz,” where tradition says, Ruth gleaned. Adjoining is “Shepherd’s Field,”, where, tradition says, the angels announced the birth of Jesus. According to these traditions, the scene of Ruth’s romance with Boaz, which led to the formation of the Family that was to produce Christ, was chosen of God, 1100 years later, as the place for the Heavenly Announcement of Christ’s Arrival.
Chapters 3,4. Their Marriage
Under the Church of the Nativity, in Bethleem, there is a room in which, it is said, Jesus was born. And old tradition says that this same room was part of the ancestral home of David, and before David, of Boaz and Ruth. Thus, according to this tradition, Boaz took Ruth to be his bride, and started the Family that was to bring Christ into the world, in the Very Same Room in which, 1100 years later, Christ himself was born.
The Genealogy (4: 17-22), showing Ruth’s son to be Obed, Obed’s son to be Jesse, and Jesse’s son to be David, is the thing for which the Book of Ruth was written. Thenceforth Old Testament thought centers around the Coming King of Kings, to be born in David’s line.”
Soli Deo Gloria!