Redemption stories fill the Bible, but few carry the significance of Ruth the Moabite. From the grave of her husband to the cradle of her son, she is a testament to God’s provision, providence, and purpose for each of us. As we journey through her story, may we find a hope that still exists for each of us in this simple phrase – Yahweh knows what He is doing, even if we don’t.
There are seasons in life that arrive without warning and leave without apology.
They have names like famine, loss, and grief. They are the quiet collapse of everything you hoped for and the slow realization that life is not always what you planned, and that no amount of faith seems to change that.
If you’ve walked through one of those seasons, you already know what I mean. You’ve felt the weight of it. If you haven’t, you may be tempted to think you never will. I understand that instinct. But this isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And I want you to be ready, because I wasn’t when those moments found me.
That’s why the book of Ruth matters so much to me.
Ruth doesn’t open with a celebration. It opens with a famine. That alone tells us something important.
Scripture rarely sugarcoats life.
Famines appear throughout the Old Testament (see Genesis 12, 26, and 41), and some are even divinely directed by God Himself (see 1 Kings 17–18). Suffering, in the Biblical text, is not an interruption to the story. It is the story, it is the movement that brings people together, and a need for answers to the forefront.
Into this particular famine steps a family from Bethlehem. The man named Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons are introduced into the story without pomp or circumstance. They could be anyone, anywhere. Faced with a barren land, they make a desperate decision and leave. They don’t go to the next town; they move to Moab, a foreign nation where idolatry was the norm, where their rights as Israelites would be forfeit, and where the safety of family and community was anything but guaranteed.
I would have loved to hear that conversation between Elimelech and Naomi. Why is leaving the answer? What do we possibly have to gain? Is there really no other choice?
Why Elimelech chose Moab over any other country remains lost to history. But it was not lost to Yahweh. The famine, the journey, and everything that followed were not accidents of fate. They were the opening movements of a far grander plan. That’s why the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like a greener yard and a brighter future when it really isn’t.
Over the course of a decade, life in Moab continued. The family settled in, the boys married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth, and then, tragedy struck once more. The famine that moved them is followed by barrenness and three funerals. Tragedy surrounds them, even in places we don’t recognize.1
Elimelech dies first. Then both of his sons follow (once again) without any explanation (or any children). His wife Naomi is left in a foreign land with two Moabite daughters-in-law, no husband, no sons, and no real means to provide for herself or anyone else. Some Jewish teachers believed the family’s misfortunes were connected to their decision to settle outside the Promised Land, but the author of Ruth makes no such judgment. They simply let the events unfold, as tragic and unsparing as they are, without commentary.
What’s striking is what the author doesn’t say. There’s no explanation. No theological footnote. No tidy reason was offered for why this family suffered so much. Just the weight of the losses, one after another.
Sometimes that’s the most honest thing a writer can do. That’s why the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like an unanswered question.
What Ruth said in that moment is one of the most extraordinary statements of faith and loyalty in all of Scripture. She didn’t simply choose to stay; she chose to belong when she said:
“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” (Ruth 1:16–17)
These words have echoed through the centuries. They are quoted at weddings, whispered in moments of devotion, and painted by artists like Salvador Dalí (see below). They endure because they capture something we all long for – the kind of love and loyalty that doesn’t flinch in the face of loss. The kind of love that doesn’t run away. The kind of love that is selfless and defies clichés, memes, and simple platitudes.
There’s something even deeper here. Ruth was a Moabite. That means she’s an outsider, a foreigner, someone with every reason to walk away, yet she chose Naomi’s and everything that meant. In the middle of famine and grief and uncertainty, she made a declaration of faith that would start both of them on the path of redemption.
That’s how Yahweh works. Not just in the bright and easy moments, but also in the dark ones. Not when everything is going right, but when everything has fallen apart. The hidden hand of the Lord was already moving through famine, death, and the faithfulness of a foreign woman who had nothing to offer but herself.
That’s why the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like a friend.
For Ruth, devotion was no small thing. She was leaving behind her culture, her community, her gods, and her homeland. She was leaving behind everything familiar to walk with a grief-stricken old woman toward an uncertain future in a foreign land. In and of itself, that is a remarkable testament to her quality.
Her situation was more perilous than many modern readers can appreciate. In an article from Inherit Magazine, Jeffrey Still described her as “the ancient equivalent of an undocumented alien, hailing from an enemy foreign power. Her arrival would have aroused the same kind of unease that the arrival of Syrian refugees in European and American cities does today. And everything from her accent to her hair to her dress would have broadcast to everyone in Bethlehem, “This girl ain’t from around here.”’2
I want to encourage you to look closely at the circumstances. It was death and trauma that created the opportunity for Ruth’s loyalty to be demonstrated. Far too often, people in Ruth’s situation blame the Lord, but she didn’t. Somehow, she knew Yahweh did not cause the suffering.
We can see He was present in all of it, weaving threads that would form a tapestry neither woman could see just yet. It was a moment of death, despair, and darkness to everyone except the One who could see the future. That’s why the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like a graveyard.
Ruth and Naomi returned to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Without anywhere to turn, the women were forced to fend for themselves. That led Ruth to the fields outside of town (see 2:2-3).
In ancient Israel, the law permitted the poor and the stranger to follow behind harvesters and collect whatever grain was left behind (see Leviticus 19:9-10 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21). In those commands, Yahweh provided a lifeline for the vulnerable, but it was hard, humble work.
The text says Ruth “happened” (see 2:3) to come to the portion of the field belonging to a man named Boaz. The original Hebrew word is miqre, and it is defined as an “unforeseen meeting or event, an accident, a happening, a chance, fortune (fate).”3
The author seems to be winking at those who would read the story because the Bible has a strong track record of giving the Lord credit for the happenings of this world, not chance. Consider the following passages as proof that the inspired writers didn’t consider fate a reasonable option.
- Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps;”
- Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand;”
- Romans 8:28 which says, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”4
In his commentary, Frederick Bush said of this idea, “one must be careful not to read modern secular conceptions of fate or luck or chance into this language. In the OT view, God directly controlled all that happened (i.e., Amos 3:6, Lamentations 3:37-38; Isaiah 45:1-8).5 Another noted author said this scene makes something abundantly clear, “even the ‘accidental’ is directed by God.”6
That’s why the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like a coincidence.
Boaz is a man of great wealth and character, and a relative of Naomi’s late husband, which would prove extraordinarily significant. He noticed Ruth and inquired about her in 2:5-6. Then, he gave her permission to work in his field, protection from the men who might harm her, an invitation to eat with his workers, and instructions to his harvesters to deliberately leave extra grain behind for her (see 2:8,9,14,15,16).
She asked why, and his response is one we must mention. Boaz said in 2:11-12, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”
In that moment, her faithfulness to Naomi was repaid by Yahweh through the hands of Boaz, and he became a portrait of grace by giving generously, not because Ruth had earned it, but because he recognized her faithfulness and her need. Is that not a picture of the Lord who “does not let the righteous go hungry,” (see Proverbs 10:3)?That’s why the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like a kind gesture.
In the Hebrew language, the role Boaz played in her life has a name, he is a go’el, which we would translate as kinsman-redeemer. The go’el protected family inheritance, honor, and continuity. Several OT passages explain the full range of their responsibility.7
As Boaz stepped into that role, he gave us a picture of someone greater, the ultimate kinsman-redeemer who would come to restore what sin had taken from us all. (Hint: He’s also from Bethlehem)
That evening, Ruth carried home an extraordinary amount of grain and told Naomi everything. As her mother-in-law listened, she who had declared herself empty, who had renamed herself Mara (“bitter”), began to sense that God had not forgotten them after all. When she said, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead,” in 2:20, we see her hope restored because the providence of God does not always look obvious in the moment.
Sometimes it looks like a bushel of barley.
By this point, the hand of God appears obvious to those of us who read this story. A widow, a journey, a need, a provider, and now, is it time for a happy ending? Without a doubt, that’s how Hollywood would script it. Thankfully, so does our Lord.
Chapters 3 and 4 see their story finished in a way we can celebrate. Boaz and Ruth do get married, they do have a child, Naomi and Ruth are redeemed, and their husbands’ lines do continue throughout Israel.
But Yahweh isn’t done.
Ruth’s son Obed becomes the father of Jesse the Bethlehemite, a man who appears in the text of 1 Samuel 16 for a special moment in Israel’s history. In that chapter, the prophet Samuel traveled to Bethlehem to Jesse’s house because he was the father of a great man made in the image of Boaz. That boy’s name was David.
You heard me right.
David, the slayer of giants, the writer of Psalms, the “Man after God’s own Heart,” who became the mold by which all Jewish kings were compared, is the grandson of the Moabite immigrant Ruth. That’s providence.
That’s Yahweh working behind the scenes to turn pain into purpose. That’s the Lord who takes a broken Moabite widow and creates a line of kings that one day welcomes His Only Begotten into our world.
Right now, some of you reading this are sitting in a graveyard, or working hard in a barley field, or holding your own child, and you are sitting in the presence of the Lord’s providence. He has a plan for you that is greater than you can imagine (see Jeremiah 1:5, 29:11), and He is faithful to see it through. Just like the widow Ruth, you are not alone. There is a Naomi, a Boaz, and a Lord working right now to redeem you from death, despair, and hopelessness. Ruth always lived in the presence of Yahweh; she just didn’t know it.
That’s how He gave her pain purpose. Not for the sake of the pain, for the sake of her purpose. She was meant to be the grandmother of kings before she was formed in her own mother’s womb, before she met her Israelite husband, before he died, before she became an immigrant, before she met Boaz in that field, and before she knew the Lord. She had purpose before the “foundations of this world were laid.”
That’s why God worked behind the scenes (providence) to create her story. And that’s exactly what He’s doing right now for each of us.
The modern hymn The Goodness of God does a great job of illustrating the beauty of the Lord’s providence in our lives when it says:8
I love You, Lord
For Your mercy never fails me
All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands
From the moment that I wake up
Until I lay my head
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
I love Your voice
You have led me through the fire
In darkest night
You are close like no other
I’ve known You as a Father
I’ve known You as a Friend
And I have lived in the goodness of God
All her life, Ruth lived in the goodness of God, and so do you. That’s providence, and that’s how Yahweh turned pain into promise.
Sometimes, it’s just not so obvious.
Notes and Further Reading
- For a woman of that time period, infertility was a public shame and unwanted attention. Many times, it was attributed to a person’s quality of life (i.e., they were sinners). While there is no direct correlation in Scripture, that was a prevailing thought. The daughters-in-law of Ruth are not mentioned as barren, but the fact that no children are mentioned is a tragedy in and of itself. If you’d like to read more, follow the link that follows: https://www.cbhd.org/intersections/gods-sovereignty-in-barrenness. ↩︎
- Quote comes from https://inheritmag.com/articles/five-things-about-ruth-that-nobody-talks-about. The article goes on to describe her situation with the following explanation: “She was (also) a religious outsider. She came from a land where people worshipped hideous idols and practiced human sacrifice (see 2 Kings 3:27). She had renounced her people’s gods, but many of the good people of Bethlehem would be more than a little wary of her.
She was also a husbandless and sonless woman. In ancient Near Eastern society, where the value of women was largely based on their relationship to male relatives, that was a problem. Seeing as she had already been married for some time—perhaps even 10 years (see Ruth 1:4)—and failed to produce a son, her prospects of finding another husband were not great, to put it mildly. ↩︎ - Hebrew words are defined at Blueletterbible.org, which gives a thorough rundown of the usage and definitions of both Hebrew and Greek words. ↩︎
- Scripture quotations are from The ESV (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright (c) 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ↩︎
- Taken from World Bible Commentary, 106. ↩︎
- Ronald Hals, The Theology of the Book of Ruth, 12. He goes on to add, “The labelling of Ruth’s meeting with Boaz as ‘chance’ is nothing more than the author’s way of saying that no human intent was involved. For Ruth and Boaz, it was an accident, but not for God. The tenor of the whole story makes it clear that the narrator sees God’s hand throughout.” ↩︎
- The Kinsman Redeemer resposibility was taken from Leviticus 25:25-28 where the nearest relative (go’el) had the duty to buy back land that was sold; and Leviticus 25:47-49, where a go’el was expected to redeem a relative who had sold themselves into servitude. In Numbers 35:12, 19-27, the go’el ha-dam (avenger of blood) had the duty to pursue justice for a murdered relative. While not specifically connected, in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, the brother-in-law’s duty to marry a childless widow and preserve the family line has a redemptive function even though they are not labeled as a go’el in that particular instance. The Book of Ruth shows elements of both the land and marriage actions used in a package deal as Boaz marries Ruth and redeems her dead husband. ↩︎
- Lyrics were found at this website ↩︎
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