Kindness to the Living and the DeadRuth 2:18–23

Introduction 29:05

Welcome again to Superstition Foothills Baptist Church. I am excited to be with you this morning. Today we jump back into the book of Ruth. If this is your first time here, or you have not been here in a while, we go through the Bible book by book. I am what is called an expository preacher, which is a big term to say that I like to study book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, directly from the Bible, instead of talking about topics.

For the last several weeks we have been in the book of Ruth, which is close to the beginning of your Bible, right after Judges. Last week we covered Ruth chapter 2, verses 14 through 17. Today we are still at Boaz’s field, and then heading home from it, all in the same day.

The story so far 31:10

If you are new to the story, here is a quick explanation. There was a woman named Naomi, married to Elimelech. They lived in Bethlehem, a town in Judah, during the time of the Judges. That tells us something. The time of the Judges is described this way: everybody did what was right in their own eyes. Whether it was really right or not was beside the point. If it seemed right to them to take from you, that is what they did. There was no great system keeping everyone in line.

There was a famine in Bethlehem, and it caused Naomi and Elimelech to leave for Moab with their two sons. The sons married women named Orpah and Ruth. Then all the men died, and Naomi was left with her two daughters-in-law. In that culture, a woman could not go get a job at Walmart to support herself. So Naomi said, “I cannot take care of you. I have no more sons for you to marry. Go back to your hometowns, where your families can take care of you.” Culturally, that was fine. Orpah said, “I don’t want to, but I love you, and I will go.” Ruth clung to Naomi. “Where you go, I will go. Your God will be my God. Your people will be my people. Where you die, I will die and be buried.”

So Naomi sends her into the fields to glean, which means gathering from the edges and picking up what falls to the ground. There were laws that set aside a portion for people who had no other means to survive.

Last week we saw Ruth gleaning in Boaz’s field. Boaz invited her to take a break and eat with his workers, and he personally handed her food. She ate until she was full and had some left over, which she put away. Then Boaz gave his young men private instructions to let her glean even among the standing sheaves and to pull grain out of the bundles for her on purpose. That went beyond what the law required. He was saying, “Don’t keep her on the edges. Let her come into the rows and take from the good grain. And if some happens to fall out of your bundles as you walk by, that would be a good thing too.”

By the end of the day she had beaten out about an ephah of barley, close to thirty pounds. That is a remarkable amount for one afternoon’s work, and it was no accident. God had set it in place. Boaz opened the door of generosity, and Ruth was blessed because of it. Today we follow Ruth home with that grain and listen as she tells Naomi about her day.

Reading the passage 36:10

[Pastor Tim reads Ruth 2:18–23 from the New King James Version.]

There is a lot to unpack, so let’s go back to verse 18.

Verse 18: she went home to give 37:56

[Reads Ruth 2:18.]

Ruth carries the day’s grain into town and shows Naomi what she gleaned. Picture the walk home: nearly thirty pounds of barley on her back after a full day of stooping and gathering. I don’t know about you, but I have a bad back. Bending over to pick things up off the ground all afternoon would wear me out. Then strap on a thirty-pound pack and carry it all the way back into town. When I got home, I would get in my recliner and put my feet up.

That is not what the Scripture says. Ruth carries the pack all the way home, and she goes home not to rest but to give. She brings out what she kept back from her own meal. Remember, Boaz gave her roasted grain. The best way I can describe it is corn nuts made from grain. She ate until she was full and kept some. She carried that heavy load home, set it down, and gave Naomi the food right away.

So first Naomi sees the grain, the day’s labor. Then she gets the food, which is Ruth’s personal generosity. Nobody told her to save it. Boaz did not say, “Put some in your pocket for your mother-in-law.” Ruth knew Naomi was at home and needed food, so she kept some back on her own.

Verse 19: blessing before the answer 40:40

[Reads Ruth 2:19.]

Here is Naomi’s excited question. She sees all that barley and says, “Where did you go, that they left all of this at the edges?” I would be thinking they need to fire their workers. Their productivity is very low. You brought home thirty pounds in one day. Where did you go?

Notice that she does not wait for an answer before she starts blessing. She does not ask, hear the name, and then say, “Oh, bless Boaz.” She asks where Ruth worked and immediately says, “Blessed be the one who took notice of you.” She does not know yet who the man is, and she is already thanking God for him. “Praise God for whoever he was. Thank You, God, for taking care of my daughter-in-law and for taking care of me.”

That phrase “took notice” is a Hebrew word that ties back to verses 10 and 11 of this chapter, where Ruth herself asked Boaz why she had found favor in his eyes, why he would take notice of her even though she was a foreigner.

Then Ruth answers: “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” A simple, plain answer. Ruth has no idea yet what that name is about to mean for both of them.

Verse 20: kindness to the living and the dead 43:40

[Reads Ruth 2:20.]

In my opinion, verse 20 is the pinnacle of the entire book of Ruth. Before we go too far, let’s understand a few things.

Hesed is the Hebrew word behind “kindness.” It means loyal, covenant-keeping love, the kind that keeps showing up and doing right by someone even when nothing requires it. It is continuous loyalty, kindness over and over, above and beyond.

“Blessed is he of the Lord, who has not forsaken his kindness.” I believe the Hebrew leaves the word “he” genuinely ambiguous. It could mean the Lord directly, or it could mean Boaz as the one through whom the Lord’s kindness is being shown. Both are intended. Naomi is praising God’s faithfulness while also recognizing that God’s faithfulness has just walked into her story in the form of Boaz.

And notice what she praises Him for: His kindness to the living and the dead. She said that on purpose. The living are Naomi and Ruth. The dead are Elimelech and his two sons. God’s kindness has not let go even of the dead men’s household and their name, and that is about to become very literal in the story. God is still caring for the reputation and the family line of those who have passed. Naomi is recognizing it: “God is not only taking care of us. He has not forgotten our husbands. He is taking care of their line as well.”

Verse 20: a close relative and a redeemer 46:40

Naomi then says, “This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives.” She uses two overlapping Hebrew ideas. The first is a word that simply means “near.” The second is go’el. That word should sound familiar by now, because for the seventh time I am going to tell you that on our church website there is a background document you can download to better understand the story of Ruth, and go’el is part of the word study in it.

Go’el also means close relative, but in the sense of a redeemer. It comes from a verb meaning to redeem or reclaim. This is a specific category: a man with the right and the responsibility to act on behalf of a relative who cannot act for themselves. So Naomi is saying, “Yes, he is kin. But beyond that, he is a close relative who can help us as a family redeemer.”

Redeemers stepped in in different ways. One was buying back family land that had been sold. You can find that in Leviticus 25:25–28. If I died and my land had to be sold to pay off my debt, it would be expected that my brother would buy it back, so that Sara had a place to live and raise our family, or at least a way to earn something from the land.

The second was redeeming a relative who had been sold into debt slavery. If I had a debt I could not pay, I could become a bondservant. By the way, ladies, that is where your earrings come from. It began as the mark of a bondservant, saying, “I belong to someone for a set amount of time, because I owe them my life or I owe them a debt.” A redeemer could come in and buy that relative back.

The third was avenging a murder. This is the go’el as the avenger of blood. If someone killed me, then according to the law my brother could avenge my murder.

The last was preserving a dead relative’s name and inheritance, and that is what becomes central here. Boaz serves as go’el by preserving a dead relative’s name and inheritance.

This is the first time the word go’el appears in the book of Ruth. But the ground was laid back in chapter 2, verse 12, when Boaz blessed Ruth for coming to take refuge under the Lord’s wings. The idea builds in stages. It is pictured in 2:12. It is named here in verse 20. And it is requested in chapter 3, which we will get to later.

A redeemer and levirate marriage 50:40

The redeemer’s duty and levirate marriage are related, but they are not the same obligation. This book quietly puts them together.

We just talked about the go’el. The levirate duty in the Old Testament was specific. If a married man died without a son, his brother was expected to marry the widow and raise up a son in the dead man’s name, so the family line and inheritance would not disappear. If my brother and I were living in the same household and I died, he would marry my wife, in the hope that she would have a child and my name and line would continue.

Strict levirate law applied narrowly to a surviving brother of the dead man, living in the same household, and it concerned only the widow’s marriage to produce an heir. Redeemer law was a broader family duty concerned with property and with marriage.

Boaz was not the brother of Mahlon, Ruth’s late husband. He was not Ruth’s brother-in-law. So he is not under the levirate duty in the strict sense. But what we will find in chapters 3 and 4 is Boaz acting as the family’s go’el in a way that takes on the marriage responsibility of that custom as well.

Verse 21: she tells Naomi everything 53:10

[Reads Ruth 2:21.]

Ruth adds a detail Naomi never asked about: Boaz told her to stay with his workers until they finished the harvest. She volunteers it. Whatever happened in the field that day, she wants Naomi to hear all of it, not only the part about the grain.

Ruth is likely repeating Boaz’s own instructions. Some manuscripts and translations render this “young women,” which matches what Naomi says next. Either way, the sense is the same. It is a protective arrangement. He told her to stay close to his people so she would be safe.

Verse 22: a real danger named 54:15

[Reads Ruth 2:22.]

Naomi tells her it is good to go out with Boaz’s young women, so that she is not harmed in another man’s field. Remember, this is the time of the Judges. People did what was right in their own eyes. I know some evil, wicked men, and I know some evil, wicked women. Naomi is saying, “Yes. Go and stay by their side.”

The word “meet” here can carry the sense of physical or sexual assault, not just a chance encounter. It is a dangerous way to be met. Naomi is naming a real danger. Unmarried foreign women who gleaned faced real risks in fields where no one was watching out for them. She is trying to keep Ruth safe.

Verse 23: through the whole harvest 55:50

[Reads Ruth 2:23.]

Ruth stays close to Boaz’s young women and gleans all the way through the end of the barley harvest and the end of the wheat harvest, all while living with Naomi.

The barley harvest would have run from April into May. The wheat harvest followed, from May through June, ending around the Feast of Weeks, one of Israel’s yearly harvest festivals, later called Pentecost in the New Testament. This one verse quietly covers something like six to seven weeks.

We don’t know whether it was thirty pounds every day. We do know that for six to seven weeks she kept finding favor and bringing grain home to her mother-in-law. Chapter 2 opened with one specific day, when she “happened” to come to a field. It ends with six to seven weeks of provision. A lot happens when God steps in.

What does this mean for us? 57:40

That is great, Tim, but what is the point for me? I cannot walk into a cotton field or a wheat field and pick what I want.

First, ordinary faithfulness is still character on display, even when nobody is watching for it. Ruth saving her leftover food in verse 18 is small and unprompted, but it is consistent with everything we have seen from her. People could see her cling to Naomi. People could see her tears. They could not see the grain she tucked away to bring back for her mother-in-law. It was done in private, and it was still consistent with her character.

Ordinary faithfulness is what God is calling us to. Jesus said it this way in the Great Commission: “As you are going, make disciples.” He does not say you have to go on a mission trip every year or go to Africa to share the gospel. He says, “As you are going,” in your everyday life, will you be faithful? Even when nobody is looking, when it is not a grand gesture? That may look like some food held back in your pocket. It may look like having the boldness to say, “This is going to sound crazy, but I am about to pray. Is there anything I can pray for you about?” Little acts of faithfulness shape our character and point people back to Jesus.

Second, naming what God does matters. Too many times God does something, we say “Yes!” and then we move on. Naomi’s blessing in verse 20 turns an ordinary report about a day of gleaning into a moment of worship. God’s provision deserves to be noticed and said out loud. It was a normal report. Ruth came home and set down her bag. Thirty pounds of grain were sitting there. Naomi asked, “Whose field did you go to?” and immediately pointed the picture back to God.

Every day we should be pointing things back to God. Then we will understand the gratefulness He wants from our hearts. Too often we assume. “God takes care of the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, and He loves me more, so of course I have food on my plate.” Let’s be grateful. Let’s praise God even for the small things, because He deserves it. I got here today driving on US-60. Praise God. We have friends back in town from other states. Praise God.

It is no different from when Joshua and the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River and set up twelve stones of remembrance, so they could tell generation after generation about what God had done for them. When we praise God, we keep telling ourselves and those around us what He has done.

Third, wise counsel protects. Naomi’s instruction in verse 22 is practical and protective. She names a real risk plainly instead of offering vague comfort. That is what good mentorship and family wisdom look like. Practical help and practical counsel, not just “I will pray that God keeps you safe.”

Closing prayer 63:20

Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Boaz, for his kindness and generosity, still on display thousands of years later. Thank You that we can learn from the story of Naomi and Ruth that we have a loving God who sets things in motion for His children.

We read earlier that Ruth just happened to come to that field, but we know it was not chance. It was You putting things into motion. I pray that over our church. May we see the people we meet this week as part of Your plan in motion. Give us the boldness to speak up and share the good news of what You have been doing in our lives.

Guide us, Lord. Open our eyes to see what You would have us see. I pray that we would do the little things well, that our small moments of faithfulness would keep building and reveal a character that looks like Jesus. I pray that we would praise You openly for the little things and the big things, and that You would help us give wise counsel. In Jesus’ name, amen.