Seek Rest

Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?

And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley to night in the threshingfloor.

Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor: but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking.

Ruth 3:1-3

I have been looking forward... To Ruth chapter 3 verse 1, since we began the book of Ruth. So if I get a little excited, a little loud, you'll know why. Now, as people know, I try to teach how to preach. when I'm preaching or teaching. And so one thing,

One thing that I would say is when you go to preach on a text, make sure you read the various commentators on the text. And if you are going to disagree with them, then tread very, very carefully. Now, obviously, there's a couple ways to disagree.

One is to say, no, they have it just flat wrong. I'm not prepared to do that this morning in the slightest. But I am prepared to say that sometimes we don't take everything into account when we get to a text.

Note: This post is a semi-edited transcript from a sermon I preached on Ruth 3:1-3.

And so what I'm going to try to do here is bring all of this story to bear on this passage and see if we can do a little better than some of the people I read. Because some of the people I read basically came to this passage and they said, “I don't understand what's going on here.”

Why are they doing this? Why are they acting in this way? “This is all so confusing.” I read a man and he almost said, “Now don't do this.” And I would like to completely eliminate that from your thinking. There's a difference between specifics and principles, and I think when we understand the principles here.

I'll be able at the end of this hour to say, “Do this”, “Follow this”. But before we get started with verse 1, we have to understand where we are at. There are three things in particular that we've talked about over the weeks, but I'm going to underline them in red and circle them and highlight them.

And these three things are, first of all, the Levirate Law. If you do not understand the Levirate Law, this passage is an absolute and complete and utter mystery. The Levirate Law, reads like this, paraphrased, That if a man marries a woman and he dies and they didn't have any children, that his next of kin, the word in the King James would be brother, but in Hebrew that means next of kin. It's a very broad word. It can include cousins and nephews and this kind of thing. That his next of kin was required to go in onto the woman and raise up seed. Nice euphemism there.

And the son that they had would not belong to the brother. It would belong to the man who died. And so all of the inheritance issues would treat that son as if he had been the son of the dead man. And if you don't understand that, these next two chapters are just wildly confusing.

The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.

If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.

Leviticus 25:23-25

The other law that we've talked about, but I'm going to underline again and remind you of, is that of the law of land redemption. In God's law, who owned the land was very, very, very important. In God's law, the land in Israel was divided up by families. So there would be a Smith plot. And Mr Smith, sitting in our pews, would be the owner of the Smith plot. And all the other Smith boys, Adam, Benjamin, whoever, I can't name them all, would all be working, or available to work if he needed them, the Smith plot.

And if all of the Smith, some great plague, that was considered a disaster. There's no Smith to take over for the Smith plot. And if something happened and he had to sell the land, I guess he's not a very good farmer. Things didn't get managed very well. You know, they fall into poverty, a famine, you know, Benjamin’s out there spending all their money, whatever it is. Okay. They ended up having to sell the land. That too was considered a disaster, but it was a disaster that the law took into account.

And the law then put the gist on the Smith relatives for somebody to step up and buy that land. Maybe years later. Or maybe Mr Smith, you know, manages to make some money and he comes back and buys it. Or maybe he's dead and Benjamin does good in the stock market, he comes back and buys it.

And the guy that owned the land couldn't say, no, hey, I bought it. The law said it had to go back to the family. 

So keep those two things in mind. If you're a good juggler, I've got two balls in the air for you so far.

But you've got to keep in mind the Levirate Law and the Law of Redemption. Now the third thing you have to keep in mind is actually three things. But the number one part of the third thing is that Ruth is, or was, a Moabitess. And that was not a good thing to be in two senses.

The first is that the law of God literally said that you weren't supposed to marry a Moabitess. The second thing is that the Moabite people were not exactly known for their clean living. It was a country of idolatry, rampant idolatry and sexual sin and all sorts of evil practices.

So Ruth was a Moabitess. Now, the other two things I want to remind you of, and it may seem overly obvious, but it still needs saying. First of all, Ruth was not a virgin. She was a widow. And at this time and place, being a virgin was an important thing to consider when marrying a wife.

It was legal to marry a widow, but it was kind of second class. For the priest it was forbidden. And then something else that almost never gets said. Nobody that I read said this. But it's important to remember, Ruth was barren. Now I'm not meaning that in the technical sense. In the technical sense, in the United States, if you go a year and you're married in the regular way and you're performing all of the regular duties of your marriage and not using anything that prevents it, and you don't have a kid, you don't get pregnant, you're considered barren. But that's the technical sense.

But I'm using it in a way well beyond the technical sense. Let's look, if you would, Deuteronomy chapter 7. Deuteronomy 7. Chapter 7, verse 14.

Thou shalt be blessed above all people. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your cattle.

It is not here speaking of the medical problem, it is speaking of the lack of children. Ruth had not had a child with her first husband. She was married, but she had had no child. Let's turn to Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54, verse 1.

Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail a child. For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife. 

Note the distinction there. Another kind of barrenness that occurs in Scripture, it's in all sorts of curses and all sorts of blessings, is that people won't be able to get married. That their husbands will be killed. Maybe before they got married, maybe after they got married, but there'd be no men to marry. They would be unable to to find a husband. Now let's cast our mind back for a second to Ruth chapter two. You remember Ruth chapter one?

Chapter one verse 11. Naomi's walking along with her daughter's in law and she says, paraphrased, “How are you going to get husbands? Do you think I'm going to be able to have more kids, more sons?”

This sounds like a silly question to Americans. Why would you need to have a son in order for me to have a husband? But in this situation, it was not. Because Ruth was a Moabitess. And so, being the widow of an Israelite, she was expected to marry a relative of her husband, and his father.

A cousin, a brother, a nephew of her dead husband, of his father. But what person like that would marry her?! She's a Moabitess. They're all going to laugh in her face. And so Naomi's saying, “the only way I could see you possibly get married is if I have another son. And that's not happening.”

“And even if it was, do you think you're going to wait long enough? It's going to take a while. Even if I had one today, she says, it'd be a while before he'd be available.” And one of the daughters-in-law goes back because she realizes the problem, or at least after she hears the problem. And that's the problem that I'm bringing you today.

Because that's the problem I think we have to understand fully when we get to Ruth chapter 3, verse 1. that we have a combination of the Levirate Law, the law of the redemption of land, and we have a Moabitess woman who's not a virgin and who had no children for her first husband.

If you're adding up your points on the ‘who do I want to marry list in Israel’, she's right down there toward the bottom. She's not that old, so maybe you'd give her a two out of ten or something. But everything else is wrong. What's Mama going to say if I bring her home?  ‘What? You married a Moabitess?’

Why would you think? She was a zero. Well, I'll give her a two. As far as interest for the men of Israel. In the natural way. In the way outside of God's sovereignty, outside of God's providence, outside of God's salvation, she was way down there.

And I think you have to understand that when you come to this verse. And now let's read verse 1.

Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? 

Now, Another thing that I always recommend is always look up these words. Always look up these words. Because when I first read this, I thought, ‘rest’? I've known a lot of housewives. ‘Rest’ isn't exactly the word I would use. Right? If they're any good, they work really hard. Read Proverbs 31. She works really hard. What are you talking about? ‘Rest’. Then  I looked it up:

Let's look at Genesis 8. Genesis chapter 8. Those of you that know your Bible really well say, wait a minute, are we talking about the flood? Yeah, Genesis chapter 8. We'll begin with verse 8. 

Also he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground.

But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot. 

Now, I don't know about you, but when I picture doves flying, the sole of the foot is not exactly the part that I picture doing the most work. Right? Now, there's the wings, right? The wings, right? I imagine the back muscles are getting kind of tired.

She's flapping around. She's not really saying to herself, “What I really need is the sole of my foot to rest.”

That's not what the word means. It means a place to stop. It means a place to live. It means a place to be! 

Let's turn to... Isaiah. The book of Isaiah, 34.

I had no idea we were going to be in Isaiah this much. The book of Isaiah, chapter 34, verse 14. Now, just so you know, this is the same Hebrew word. I looked up the Hebrew word, and that's why I'm going all day. I'm not just looking on the English word rest.

But the Hebrew word that was used there for rest, the one that Naomi said she was looking for for her daughter-in-law. 

Isaiah 34, verse 14.

The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the sonner shall cry to his fellow, the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. 

It's a home. It's a place to live, a place to stay. 

1 Chronicles, chapter 6. Chronicles chapter 6 first Chronicles chapter 6 verse 31 

and these are they whom David said over the service of song the house of the Lord After that, the ark had rest.

Obviously, the ark wasn't working very hard. It's not talking about the ark getting a day off. It's a place for the ark to stay. 

Now, I would like to throw in a little bit of culture here. I would like you all to cast your mind back into this day. I think this happens less nowadays.

I think it's a shame that it happens less nowadays, actually. But if you go back and you read Jane Austen, if you go back and you read pretty much anywhere in history, one of the big worries of a mother was, ‘Who is my daughter going to marry?’

Now, you may think that what I mean is, “Boy, I hope I'm able to get along with my son-in-law.” But that's not what I mean. What I mean is that the mother had no rest in her heart, had no calmness in her heart, until her daughter-in-law had found a home, a place. And for the daughter as well.

“Where am I going to end up? Who am I going to begin with? I think it's a fairly well-known thing. The teenage girls and their mothers start to get at each other in a lot of families. And I think a lot of that is because the girl is like, “I want my house. I want my place. I want to make my home to look like me. I want to cook my food my way for my husband, for my family, for my children. “

So then Naomi, her mother-in-law said to her, 

My daughter shall I not seek rest for the thee. 

Now in the modern American context, the answer to that of course is no. “What are you thinking about? It's not your job. What on earth are you talking about? It's not your job to find rest for your husband, for your daughter!”

 Guess what? Once again, go back to history. It always was. It always was. All throughout Scripture, all throughout history, the mother, or in this case, the mother-in-law, who's standing in her place, saw it as her job to find a husband for her daughter. Her daughter. 

This is a rhetorical question. She's not saying,  “Hey, Ruth, do you think I should or I shouldn't find a place for you to be?” 

She's saying, “Of course, it is my job. That it may be well with thee.”

That is obviously the second part of the thing. You can find some jerk, some poor guy, some abusive guy to marry this Moabitess barren widow. But no, when you're seeking the rest of a husband, when you're seeking the rest of a household, of a family, you're also seeking the good of your daughter in law. I don't know if any of you have ever watched Fiddler on the Roof.

But that was one of the big things in Fiddler on the Roof. I don't know if you remember this. And obviously the storytellers told it in one way, but I would like to go back and say, was that really the right way to tell that? Because you remember when the father was seeking a husband for his daughter, he looked around and he said, “Where can she do well?” And there was a butcher and the butcher was interested in his daughter. And you know what he said? He said, “She'll always have something to eat. she always have something to eat. My daughter will not starve.” Literally, that was something he was judging this on.

“Will my daughter starve? Will my grandchildren be able to eat?” And throughout all of history, that has been the job of the parent to help determine You're going to find lots in scripture about inheritance. About a father working for an inheritance for his children, for his son. Once again, so they won't starve.

Why does a father work so hard planting trees that are going to produce fruit long after he's dead? So his children and his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren won't starve. 

Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said unto her, My daughter shall I not seek? Rest for thee, that it may be well with thee. And now is not Boaz of our kindred.

Once again, go back to the Levirate Law. She's saying, “I see a glimmer of hope.” Except we know full well from the previous chapter, she sees more than a glimmer of hope. She sees the hand of God. She sees the providence of God. She sees the salvation of God.

Whereas back in chapter 1, she's saying, “There's no way for you to get married. If you come with me to Israel, no one's going to marry you. I would have to get married. I would have to have a son. You'd have to wait for him to grow up.”

“That's the only way you're going to be able to get married. That's the only way you're going to be able to have your own household.” We saw in chapter 2 that she says, “The Lord is beginning to work. The Lord is beginning to work.” Verse 20 of chapter 2 says, 

And Naomi said unto her daughter,

Blessed be he of the Lord who has not left off his kindness to the living and the dead. 

Once again, a sentence that makes no sense in modern America. But God was providing a son for Ruth's dead husband. God was providing a grandson via Ruth, for Naomi's husband. God was going to provide. And Naomi said unto her, still verse 20 of chapter 2, 

The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen. 

Levirate Law. Levirate Law. “Maybe it doesn't have to be a son that I have in my old age. Maybe there is someone in Israel godly enough to marry you. And besides which, he's not exactly poor. Godly, and not poor.”

She's good with that. Godly and not poor and available. 

A couple weeks ago, I had a guy on my Facebook, not my sub-site, and he posted this big list. The 27 things that your wife must be. And I said, I think you forgot one. Actually, I think you forgot two.

She must exist, and she must be willing to marry you. 

And that's what Naomi was thinking about here. He must exist. He must be willing to marry Ruth. And now we get to add he's godly and he's rich. Oh, wow. He's a good businessman. You remember that? We talked about that the other week when their famine came, Naomi and her family emmigrated. They went off. They couldn't manage to survive. Boaz got rich. That's how well he did. In the middle of a famine. He's got so many fields, he has to go out to see the different ones and talk to the foreman about what's going on.

And now

Boaz of our kindred with whose maidens thou wast. 

If you weren't here for the previous chapter, what that means is he gave you protection. We talked about how dangerous it was. for a young woman in this culture to have to walk home in the dark, to have to be out in the middle of the field with all these men while they're winnowing, while they're reaping and winnowing. Okay, all sorts of opportunities for trouble. But Boaz did two things. First of all, he went to the young men and he said, “Don't touch. You leave her alone.”

And the other thing he said to the girl is, “now you stay with my girls. You stay with my slave girls. You stay with my girls. You hang around them.” He kept her safe. 

With whose maiden thou wast. Behold, he winnowed barley tonight in the threshing floor. 

You remember Ruth?

She harvested and then she winnowed every day and she brought it home. Well, Boaz didn't have that option. I mean, they were getting so much harvested they couldn’t. They piled it up and now they're doing their winnowing. They didn't have just a little bit like she had. They had a whole ton. So now they're winnowing.

But I want to focus for a second, if you could, on the word night. Because I think this word night is one of the most overlooked and important words in the whole thing. So if you turn with me to John chapter 3, and probably a lot of you don't even have to turn. 

John chapter 3, and no, I'm not going to bring up verse 16. I'm going to bring up verse 2. We'll read 1 and 2. 

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night. 

And every preacher I've ever heard preached on this sermon gets what I think is absolutely the right thing. Why did he come at night? Well, because if you're a big, important teacher of the Jews, you don't just stroll up to this itinerant, heretical, wild-eyed guy that everybody hates in the day.

You sneak in there at night, put your little robe on, you walk through the dark shadows, you knock timidly on the door. “Hey, can I talk to Jesus?”

He was a big, important guy. He could have had Jesus come to him. But he went to Jesus by night. Now, I want you to take that theory, and now I want you to go to Ruth chapter 3. And I want you to ask yourself what Naomi is thinking.

I think it relates to everything that we just said. The rule for the Leveriate Law was that the girl was to walk up to the guy. She was to say, “My husband is dead. You're the next of kin. We need to go make a baby.”

“We need to make a child that's going to be the heir of my dead husband. We need to make a child that's going to inherit all of his land. We make a child that's going to inherit his name.” That was the law of God. That can be done in the full sunlight, at high noon, in front of everbody.

With everybody watching. And guess what? If he said “no,” the punishment too happened with everybody watching. You remember... this guy in the New Testament named Joseph, he had a wife. He had a betrothed wife, which means they weren't yet living together. She came up pregnant. And he's like, “It wasn't me.”

And being a just man, he thought about putting her away privately. 

I believe that this chapter is best read if we read Naomi as saying, “Don't make a big public fuss. I want you to go to him at night when no one is watching And confront him there, quietly, privately.”

“This man has already done so much for us. If it turns out he's not willing to take you, if it turns out he's not willing to do the left, he has already done a ton for us. We do not want to shame him. We do not want to embarrass him. So go at night.”

And when you read the rest of these instructions, these are private instructions. These are how to get a man alone. And now with Boaz, not 

Boaz, but with Kindred, with whose maidens thou wast, behold, he winneth with barley tonight in the threshing floor. 

Now, the next word.

I wanna camp out there for a second, and I'm gonna give you two possibilities. Wash. Wash. We have to remember when we come to these texts that we're not talking about Americans. When I was a teenager, my mother would frequently say to myself, say to me, “Wash. Go take a shower. Put on some deodorant. Use soap.”

Because, as a teenager, I was not exactly the cleanest thing on the face of the earth. And you know what? That meaning makes perfect, perfect sense here. “You're going to go confront this guy?  Go out there with your bucket or whatever because they're probably living in a pretty cheap house.”

“Go out there with a bucket. Get some water. Clean yourself up. Make yourself nice for the guy. You can put on some perfume.”

But I think there's another option and I'd like to present you the other option if you would turn with me to Exodus chapter 30. Exodus chapter 30.

And once again, this is the same word, guys. Same word. This word is used in both ways. Okay? I'm not saying this is the only way this word is used, but it's used in both ways. It's used for the regular, hey, you know, your feet are dirty. Go wash your feet. Right?

Some guy comes to your house, give him a bucket of water so he can wash his feet. He's been walking, they're all sandy and other junk that might be in the street, go let him wash. But it's also used in Exodus chapter 30. I'll begin with 17. 

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

Thou shalt make a laver of grass, and his foot also of grass, to wash withal. And thou shalt put it between the tabernacle, the congregation, and the altar. And thou shalt put water therein. For Aaron his son shall wash their hands and their feet thereat.

When they go into the tabernacle, the congregation, they shall wash with water that they die not. This is not talking about, “hey guys, your hands and feet are a little dirty. Wouldn't it be nice if you washed them before you went into the temple?” This is talking about the holiness of God required a ceremonial washing.

Now I'm running out of time. I have another dozen verses here. But let's turn just to one, Leviticus 15. I have this one circled. I'm going to assume it's a critical one. Leviticus chapter 15. We'll begin in verse 1. 

And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man has a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean. And there shall be uncleanness in his issue, whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is uncleanness.

Every bed wherein he lies and has an issue is unclean, and every thing where he sits shall be unclean. And whosoever touches his bed... shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And he that sits on anything where he shall sit shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. 

It goes on and on and on and I have verse and after verse and verse. But Ruth was a Moabitess. She was unclean. She was unclean. And she was unclean for various other reasons we could go into.

She was unclean from her dead husband and the relationship she had with him. She was unclean. She probably touched his dead body. She had uncleanness upon uncleanness upon uncleanness piled up. And so I'm going to give you as an option here that the washing that Naomi is talking about is not just to make herself pretty.

In the earlier chapter, Ruth had said, your God shall be my God. And Naomi is saying, “Okay, put up or shut up. It's time. Go wash. Ceremonial wash yourself to become no longer a Moabitess. No longer unclean. No longer polluted with blood and with death. No longer polluted with the idolatry that you came from. Go and wash yourself. And anoint thee.”

 Time does not permit us to go into all the passages that use that word. Sure, it could mean she put out some nice perfume, some nice scented oil. So she'd be nice. But when we see a word like anointed scripture, we need to take it seriously. 

And put thy raiment upon the earth.

I literally had one commentator say, “I’m not sure why she needs to get dressed. I'm like, she just took a bath. What do you mean? She just took a bath. So put your clothes on.” But he was quite right that the kind of clothes she was going to put on were not her normal working clothes.

These would have been the best that she had. The best that this poor woman had, she should put on. So she washed, she anointed, and she was clothed. And if you don't see a metaphor in all three of those things, you need to go back to Scripture. What does the New Testament say?

It says we are clothed in His righteousness. We are washed from our sins. We are anointed with the Holy Spirit. We are clothed in righteousness. When we first started this series, we said, we need to be looking for where salvation is here. Salvation is here. Salvation is here. This is a picture of the gospel. She was a sinner. She was from a people of sinners. She was from a perverted idolatrous group of people. And through the providence of God she was brought to Israel, to God. 

 Chapter 3. Verse 3. Wash yourself, anoint yourself, and clothe yourself. 

And we know from the New Testament that the clothes we put on are not ours. That the anointing that we are anointed with is not from us. That the washing that we are washed with is not of ourselves, but of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. 

Verse 3. But there's so much in here. 

And get thee down to the floor.

But make not thyself known unto the man until he shall have done eating and drinking. 

You remember in one of the previous talks we had How Ruth presented herself as a slave. She said, “I’m willing to put myself in the position of a slave.” And the other alternate reading of that verse was, “less than a slave.”

And Naomi is here saying, “Don't go bother him. He's been working hard. He's going to sit there with his guys. They're going to eat. They're going to drink. They're going to talk. Don't bother him. You've got to wait. You've got to wait.”

I'm going to close with this:

One of the most powerful stories in the New Testament, in my opinion, is that woman who came to Christ. She wanted a blessing from Christ. I think it was she wanted her daughter healed. But she wasn't Jewish. And Jesus, who knew her heart and knew what she would say, in order to demonstrate her faith, said to her,

Why should the children's food be given to the dogs?

“99.9% of people, if they heard something like that, they're out of there. But this woman looked at him and said, 

Yes, Lord. But even the dogs get to eat the food that falls from the table. 

And that's what we see here in Ruth.

We see the humility of Ruth. We will see her following the instructions of Naomi. We see a picture of the gospel because We have to come to the gospel humbly. We cannot come to the gospel, we cannot come to Christ with the idea, “Hey, hey, I'm so great, you need to save me.”

That's not what Ruth did. Ruth didn't come up and say, “Hey, aren't I, aren't I, you know, you really want to marry me, right? I'm just such a wonderful person, I'm sure you want to marry me.” 

That's not what she says. That's not what she says. She washes... She anoints, she dresses, and then she waits.

She waits humbly, out of the way, unseen, quietly. She waits until the time appointed by her mother-in-law. She follows the instructions of her mother-in-law, as we will see in the next text and the rest of the story. 

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Von

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