“Comfort”
Jesse begat David. —Ruth 4:22
Read Ruth 4:18-22
Today our attention is directed to a particular genealogy, an index confirming the history recorded in the Bible. It is an “amen” upon the teaching we have read and also elevates the little book of Ruth to a higher plane. The genealogies reveal how we must regard the lives of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, especially in light of the salvation history the Lord has worked out in the world. What do we learn from this book of the Bible? First of all, David was not called the man after God’s own heart for nothing. Even the heathen had a role to play when it came to the chosen house of David. But above all, we see how everything had to be subser-vient to the event of Christ’s coming in the flesh. Naomi, Ruth and Boaz formed an inseparable link between the mother promise written in Genesis 3:15 and its fulfillment found in Luke 2:7.
Do you think that Naomi, Ruth and Boaz would have realized this from the beginning? Naomi was but a widow, with no sons and no income. Ruth was a widow in a foreign land with no fixed in-come. Boaz was an older man with no wife or children; he took upon himself the duty of marrying a heathen woman to redeem her. We can see God’s leading hand in their lives. As a conse-quence, their names are honourably mentioned in the book of the generations of the great King David.
What can we learn from this list of genealogies?