Ruth and the second man of Hindustan

The second wise man of Hindustan pipes up: "Nay, the book of Ruth is about the Land! In fact the whole Old Testament is about Land!"

Let me explain: The crisis that opens Chapter 1 is that a man of Bethlehem has lost his land inheritance through misfortune, and now his family will be struck from Israel's book of life. In ancient Israel, to have an inheritance is to be alive, and to have none is to be dead.

The author lays it out in a terse economy of words: There was a famine in Israel; Elimelech went to Moab with his wife, Naomi, and sons; he died; his sons married foreigners; his sons died; Naomi is left with no husband and no sons (just two culturally useless daughters-in-law, including one named Ruth).

The daughters of Zelophehad, in their day, understood the consequences of no husbands and sons. That's why they had gone to Moses and pleaded their case to let the land of their father pass through the daughters (Numbers 27). Moses took it to God and God agreed, because God himself is zealous that none of the 12 tribes should ever be lost (Revelation 21:12).

Just to make sure the land stayed in the family, God decreed (Deuteronomy 25) that a man has to marry his dead relative's wife to sire a son for him. (You may recall what unpleasantness happened to Er and Onan when they didn't want to do that and spilled their seed on the ground [Genesis 38]).

Through the unfolding of a series of improbable events, by the end of the book of Ruth the Lord restores Elimelech's line and land, through the ingenuity of Naomi, the obedience of Boaz, and a culturally useless Moabite named Ruth.

In the New Testament, by the way, it is still all about Land. God's zeal for expansion is not diminished. The concerns and promises of the Old Testament are spiritualized in the New. Woe to us if we think the days of territorial conquest are now over: The glory of God must cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. The sword is the gospel, the warrior are you and I.

The territory is also supposed to be passed down generationally today as before. Gains made for the kingdom must not be allowed to revert to the enemy camp. Yale was once a training center for revivalists. Now it is a launching pad from which to mock them.

To read Andrée Seu's series on the book of Ruth, click here.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.