2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51
David was the greatest king that Israel ever had, for several reasons: "1) he united the tribes into one nation, 2) he secured undisputed possession of the country, and 3) the whole government rested upon a religious basis, and the will of God was the law of Israel" (Bible Dictionary, p. 654). The experiences he had in his earlier life prepared him well to be a great king. "As shepherd he acquired the habit of deep reflections; as courtier he was trained in self-control and chivalrous generosity; as outlaw he acquired knowledge of men and power of government; while each successive phase of experience developed that conscious dependence upon God which was the secret of his strength throughout his life" (ibid., p. 653).
Despite all of the valor, testimony, loyalty, intelligence, kindness, and generosity of spirit he demonstrated throughout his life, he abandoned all of these qualities in an instant when he saw Bathsheba. What led to this cataclysmic error?
David, who could look the mighty Goliath in the eye, claim victory in the name of the Lord, and slay him with a dramatically inferior weapon, allowed himself to become blind to the dangers of the little things.
Neglecting duty
"And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab [the general of his army], and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and beseiged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem" (2 Sam. 11:1). At the time when he, the king, should have gone forth to battle, David sent. He neglected his duty, left it to the care of others. He tarried still at Jerusalem, the comfortable place, the safe place, the wrong place for a king at time of battle.
Looking
"And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon" (2 Sam. 11:2). The sun was setting, it was fairly dark, yet David took the effort to look closer at the bathing figure. He lingered.
Wanting
"And David sent and enquired after the woman" (2 Sam. 11:3). David started thinking about what he had seen. Of course, polygamy was practiced then, so he might have sought her as another wife. But he wasn't just interested in dating, in finding out her virtues, in getting to know her personality. It was only her body that he had seen, and it was only her body that he therefore could have had an interest in. On top of that, when he was told she was already the wife of Uriah, he should have closed the book. David, however, allowed himself to continue to want.
Acting upon lusts
"And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her...and she returned unto her house" (2 Sam. 11:4). David had no possibility of being honorably married to Bathsheba, and perhaps he didn't care to be. He used her to satisfy his lusts in a "one-night stand," and then returned her to her home. Why is Bathsheba never condemned by the Bible authors? David was the king. She was helpless to do anything but what he commanded, likely at peril of her life.
Attempting to cover sin
"And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child" (1 Sam. 11:5). The little parenthetical statement in the previous verse, "for she was purified from her uncleanness," tells us that the bathing David had watched was the monthly ritual to cleanse herself after menses. Therefore, it also tells us that, with Uriah off to war, the time of the conception of the child was absolutely clear, and there was only one possibility for paternal claim: David.
David tried all kinds of tactics to get Uriah to come in to be with his wife and give the appearance of being the child's father, but Uriah was such a faithful servant, always in the right place at the right time, he would not relent and neglect his duty as did David. Ironically, in desperation, David did to Uriah exactly what his father-in-law Saul had tried to do to him. Saul had promised David his daughter to wife if David would kill 100 Philistines, expecting that the Philistines would kill David (1 Sam. 18:17-21; 25-27). David, then, took Uriah's life by arranging for his death in battle. Other soldiers were killed with Uriah in the wreckless maneuver (2 Sam. 11:17). After the death of Uriah, he married Bathsheba, which act would have appeared to the Israelites to have been noble on David's part: the benevolent king taking his noble servant's widow under his sheltering care, a great cover-up.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF COVER-UPS
A new family bought a house on our street several years ago. It was a 25-year-old home with pretty rooms, a lovely open kitchen, and nice landscaping. It had been freshly painted inside, and everything looked like new. Our new friends were pleased with their home, but after several months, they noticed mildew growing on a bathroom wall in the basement. The problem got worse as time went on, and the wall fairly oozed of mold. Finally, they called a repairman who cut a hole in the wall and found a broken pipe, wrapped in layers of damp, mildewed rags, and mold spreading all around it! Before selling the home, the previous owner had hastily wrapped up the pipe, covered the wall with new sheetrock, and given it a fresh coat of paint, rather than pay a plumber! In the end, the cost of repairing the pipe was minimal compared to the cost of removing the mold and mildew, rebuilding the wall, and repainting.
Who would do something this crazy? But, of course, this is just what David did after his affair with Bathsheba, covering up adultery with lies, trickery, and finally premeditated murder. Covering one problem led to another greater problem, and evil began to ooze from the festering wound of the original sin.
The prophet Nathan let David know, through a parable, that the Lord saw his crimes and condemned them, and that they had caused others to sin (2 Sam. 12:1-14). To his credit, David admitted his sin baldly, but there is no mention of repentance at that time. The JST footnote for 2 Samuel 12:13 changes Nathan's reply to say that David was not forgiven. Nathan prophesied grave consequences to David: first, that evil would arise in a person in his own family (2 Sam. 12:11) who would commit adultery with David's wives, not in secret, but in plain sight of all of Israel. This was fulfilled by his son Absalom (2 Sam. 16:22). The second consequence was that the child of the illegitimate union would die (2 Sam. 12:14), which it did, a sign in their culture of God's condemnation of its parents.
Elder Richard G. Scott said to those who cover up their sins, "Do not take comfort in the fact that your transgressions are not known by others...Excusing transgression with a cover-up may appear to fix the problem, but it does not. The tempter is intent on making public your most embarrassing acts at the most harmful time. Lies weave a pattern that is ever more confining and becomes a trap that Satan will spring to your detriment" (April 1995 General Conference).
"David committed a dreadful crime [to cover up his sin of adultery], and all his life afterwards sought for forgiveness. Some of the Psalms portray the anguish of his soul; yet David is still paying for his sin. He did not receive the resurrection at the time of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter declared that his body was still in the tomb, and the Prophet Joseph Smith has said, 'David sought repentance at the hand of God carefully with tears, for the murder of Uriah; but he could only get it through hell: he got a promise that his soul should not be left in hell.' Again we ask: Who wishes to spend a term in hell with the devil before being cleansed from sin?" (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 1:74)
Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, "Murderers are forgiven eventually but only in the sense that all sins are forgiven except the sin against the Holy Ghost; they are not forgiven in the sense that celestial salvation is made available to them (Matt. 12:31-34). After they have paid the full penalty for their crime, they shall go on to a telestial inheritance" (Rev. 22:15). (Mormon Doctrine, p. 520)
Had David repented of the first sin, the consequences would not have been nearly as severe, and he could have eventually been restored to a state of happiness. "Repentance always means that there is greater happiness ahead" (Neil L. Anderson, October 2009 General Conference). Instead, sorrow fell upon sorrow as David attempted to cover up his sin with yet greater sins, until the Lord stated "he hath fallen from his exaltation" and lost the privilege to have his wives and family in the next life (D&C 132:39).
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For more discussion on David see "Points to Ponder" in the chapter on "The Fall of King David" in the Old Testament Institute Manual.
Showing posts with label Bathsheba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bathsheba. Show all posts
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Old Testament Lesson #20 "All the City...Doth Know Thou Art a Virtuous Woman"
Ruth; 1 Samuel 1
The scriptures are full of treasure hunts and mysteries. If we hunt through the genealogy of Christ as recorded by Matthew, we find an odd collection of women mentioned: Tamar (Thamar), Rahab (Rachab), Ruth, and Bathsheba ("her that had been the wife of Urias") (Matthew 1:1-17). Matthew's purpose in writing his gospel was to convert the Jews to Christ, and so he specifically chose to mention those ancestors who had significance to the Jews. It's unusual that women would be mentioned at all--Luke's genealogy of Christ contains only the men (Luke 3:23-38)--but we find amazing treasures and mysteries in those particular women mentioned by Matthew. Not one of them had a perfect, traditional family situation. Each was faced with trying circumstances specifically relating to motherhood. Bathsheba had an extramarital affair with a king who then arranged the death of her husband so that he could marry her; Tamar was the twice widowed abandoned unwed mother of twins; Rahab was a converted Canaanite harlot, who endured the destruction of her entire city, integrated into a different culture, and raised a son whom we will see was a type of Christ; and that son's wife, Ruth, was a converted Moabite, a widowed pauper, who proposed her own marriage to a man much older than herself, and was undoubtedly not the first wife. It is Ruth's story that we tell today.
THE LETTER OF THE LAW
In the Old Testament, and up until the time of Christ, many of the Jews became obsessed with "the letter of the law," completely missing "the spirit of the law." What is really the difference between the two? One word: Love. The spirit of the law is found in the shema: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. 6:4-5). (See "Prayers" in a previous post.) The Book of Ruth is a beautiful story, tucked amid many bizarre and brutal accounts of justice twisted into vengeance, a perfect example of a family who lived the whole law, letter and spirit.
CHAPTER ONE: THE JOURNEYS
The levirate law is found in Deut. 25:5-10, the first part of which is: "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her." If the brother refuses, the woman has the right to confront him in front of the city elders, who then defend her case, and if he still refuses, he is shamed, but the woman is left destitute. Tamar was one who was dealt a terrible injustice when this law was not administered to her. (See Gen. 38, and "Opposites" in a previous entry.)
In the first chapter of Ruth, we find a family of three women who all have been widowed: Naomi and her two daughters-in-law. Naomi was an Israelite living in the land of the Moabites, about 30-40 miles from her homeland (Old Testament Institute Manual, p. 262). The Moabite god was Chemosh or Molech, and his worship was the cruelest idolatry known, involving horrific child sacrifice (Institute Manual, p. 247). Clearly, Naomi's daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, were converts to the gospel, or she would have been appalled at her sons' marriages.
At the deaths of her sons and the end of the famine that had brought her to Moab, Naomi decided to return to her kinsmen where she hoped to be cared for by family as tradition dictated. She sent her daughters-in-law back to their families for their own welfare, since she had no other son for them to marry (vs. 11-13). Orpah went back to her family, but Ruth "clave" unto Naomi, with the beautiful words, "Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me" (vs. 16-17). By staying with her mother-in-law, Ruth knew that she may be condemning herself to death by poverty, but she wanted to watch over her mother-in-law. In addition, she was true to the gospel and likely wanted to live among the believers. And so together they traveled back to Bethlehem.
Ruth ignored the letter of the law, and kept the spirit of the law, loving the Lord her God, and her mother-in-law as herself.
CHAPTER TWO: THE GLEANERS
The law of welfare practiced by the Israelites is stated in Lev. 19:9-10: "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God."
Ruth and Naomi were "welfare cases" and therefore Ruth went to glean in the fields. Providently, she happened to glean in the fields of a near kinsman to her father-in-law named Boaz. Boaz asked his servant who she was, and the servant answered that she was the Moabite who had come back with Naomi. Boaz treated Ruth with great kindness, calling her "daughter," telling her to glean only in his fields, commanding his reapers to leave extra for her. In one day, she gleaned an ephah of barley, or 2/3rds of a bushel (Bible Dictionary). Stunned at Boaz's generosity, she asked his reason. Boaz replied that her reputation had preceded her, since she had been so unusually kind as to leave her ethnic homeland and care for her mother-in-law.
Boaz kept both the letter and the spirit of the law, motivated by the love he saw Ruth exercising toward Naomi.
CHAPTER THREE: PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
The law of the Moabite in the congregation stated that "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever: because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee...Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever" (Deut. 23:3-6). (See a previous post for the story of Balaam.)
So by her birth, Ruth was not just a second-class citizen in Israel, but was not allowed at all. The reasons were that not only did the Moabites refuse aid to Israel, they also led the Israelites into idolatry. Ruth, however, did the opposite of both of these: She aided Naomi at the peril of her own life, and she converted completely from idolatry. Boaz and the community all recognized this: "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust" (Ruth 2:12).
Naomi counseled Ruth to propose a Levirate marriage to Boaz, and Ruth boldly followed through. This turnabout was probably necessary, since the elderly Boaz was not the closest kinsman, and did not expect young Ruth to desire to be his wife. Boaz said, "And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman" (Ruth 3:10). The name Boaz meant "in him is strength, swiftness, quickness" (footnote to Ruth 2:1). Boaz lived up to his name, as Naomi testified, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day" (Ruth 3:18).
CHAPTER FOUR: REDEEMING
The levirate law was also called the law of the near kinsman (or go'el). The word levirate is taken from the Latin word levir, meaning "husband's brother." As stated above, the brother of a dead man was expected to marry his widow for the purposes of 1) saving her life, 2) returning her to her former status, and 3) providing seed to perpetuate her family. If there was no brother, the next nearest kinsman was to take the role. In the case of Boaz and Ruth, there was a closer kinsman, but Boaz emphasized that Ruth was a Moabitess (vs. 5) when approaching this man with her case, and the man rejected her, freeing Boaz to be her go'el. This word go'el literally translates to "redeemer," and was borrowed by the later prophets to describe Jesus Christ's role (Institute Manual, p. 230, 263).
Boaz acted as a true redeemer to Ruth and Naomi, and kept the whole law, letter and spirit, restoring to them all they had lost.
The community issued love and good wishes upon the marriage, hearkening back to their revered ancestors, Rachel, Leah, and Tamar (vs. 11-12). They said that Ruth was better to Naomi than seven sons (vs. 15). The number seven in Hebrew means perfection, so it really doesn't get any better than that.
The neighbors appropriately called Ruth Naomi's daughter-in-law, as did the narrator, but Naomi never did. Six times in the story she refered to Ruth as "my daughter," evidence of her great love for Ruth. Boaz did the same (except when downplaying her qualities in the presence of the other near kinsman).
CHRIST THE REDEEMER
The story of Boaz and Ruth is the story of Christ and us. Christ is our near kinsman, who 1) saves us from death, 2) raises us from our fallen state, and 3) gives us eternal increase. He is the family member who redeems us, the destitute.
Christ exercises both justice and mercy, the letter and spirit of the law.
We as Latter-day Saints have many commandments to obey. We could write an enormous, long list. But when Jesus was asked which of all the laws was most important, He quoted the shema: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:37-40). Paul explained further, "He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For [all the commandments are] briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:8-10). Christ (Jehovah) taught it; Paul explained it; Naomi, Ruth and Boaz lived it. As long as we act in love, we need not fear missing the spirit of any law.
John issued this injunction to us: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:7-11).
Note: I chose to focus only on Ruth and cover Hannah and 1 Samuel in the next blog entry.
The scriptures are full of treasure hunts and mysteries. If we hunt through the genealogy of Christ as recorded by Matthew, we find an odd collection of women mentioned: Tamar (Thamar), Rahab (Rachab), Ruth, and Bathsheba ("her that had been the wife of Urias") (Matthew 1:1-17). Matthew's purpose in writing his gospel was to convert the Jews to Christ, and so he specifically chose to mention those ancestors who had significance to the Jews. It's unusual that women would be mentioned at all--Luke's genealogy of Christ contains only the men (Luke 3:23-38)--but we find amazing treasures and mysteries in those particular women mentioned by Matthew. Not one of them had a perfect, traditional family situation. Each was faced with trying circumstances specifically relating to motherhood. Bathsheba had an extramarital affair with a king who then arranged the death of her husband so that he could marry her; Tamar was the twice widowed abandoned unwed mother of twins; Rahab was a converted Canaanite harlot, who endured the destruction of her entire city, integrated into a different culture, and raised a son whom we will see was a type of Christ; and that son's wife, Ruth, was a converted Moabite, a widowed pauper, who proposed her own marriage to a man much older than herself, and was undoubtedly not the first wife. It is Ruth's story that we tell today.
THE LETTER OF THE LAW
In the Old Testament, and up until the time of Christ, many of the Jews became obsessed with "the letter of the law," completely missing "the spirit of the law." What is really the difference between the two? One word: Love. The spirit of the law is found in the shema: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. 6:4-5). (See "Prayers" in a previous post.) The Book of Ruth is a beautiful story, tucked amid many bizarre and brutal accounts of justice twisted into vengeance, a perfect example of a family who lived the whole law, letter and spirit.
CHAPTER ONE: THE JOURNEYS
The levirate law is found in Deut. 25:5-10, the first part of which is: "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her." If the brother refuses, the woman has the right to confront him in front of the city elders, who then defend her case, and if he still refuses, he is shamed, but the woman is left destitute. Tamar was one who was dealt a terrible injustice when this law was not administered to her. (See Gen. 38, and "Opposites" in a previous entry.)
In the first chapter of Ruth, we find a family of three women who all have been widowed: Naomi and her two daughters-in-law. Naomi was an Israelite living in the land of the Moabites, about 30-40 miles from her homeland (Old Testament Institute Manual, p. 262). The Moabite god was Chemosh or Molech, and his worship was the cruelest idolatry known, involving horrific child sacrifice (Institute Manual, p. 247). Clearly, Naomi's daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, were converts to the gospel, or she would have been appalled at her sons' marriages.
At the deaths of her sons and the end of the famine that had brought her to Moab, Naomi decided to return to her kinsmen where she hoped to be cared for by family as tradition dictated. She sent her daughters-in-law back to their families for their own welfare, since she had no other son for them to marry (vs. 11-13). Orpah went back to her family, but Ruth "clave" unto Naomi, with the beautiful words, "Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me" (vs. 16-17). By staying with her mother-in-law, Ruth knew that she may be condemning herself to death by poverty, but she wanted to watch over her mother-in-law. In addition, she was true to the gospel and likely wanted to live among the believers. And so together they traveled back to Bethlehem.
Ruth ignored the letter of the law, and kept the spirit of the law, loving the Lord her God, and her mother-in-law as herself.
CHAPTER TWO: THE GLEANERS
The law of welfare practiced by the Israelites is stated in Lev. 19:9-10: "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God."
Ruth and Naomi were "welfare cases" and therefore Ruth went to glean in the fields. Providently, she happened to glean in the fields of a near kinsman to her father-in-law named Boaz. Boaz asked his servant who she was, and the servant answered that she was the Moabite who had come back with Naomi. Boaz treated Ruth with great kindness, calling her "daughter," telling her to glean only in his fields, commanding his reapers to leave extra for her. In one day, she gleaned an ephah of barley, or 2/3rds of a bushel (Bible Dictionary). Stunned at Boaz's generosity, she asked his reason. Boaz replied that her reputation had preceded her, since she had been so unusually kind as to leave her ethnic homeland and care for her mother-in-law.
Boaz kept both the letter and the spirit of the law, motivated by the love he saw Ruth exercising toward Naomi.
CHAPTER THREE: PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
The law of the Moabite in the congregation stated that "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever: because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee...Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever" (Deut. 23:3-6). (See a previous post for the story of Balaam.)
So by her birth, Ruth was not just a second-class citizen in Israel, but was not allowed at all. The reasons were that not only did the Moabites refuse aid to Israel, they also led the Israelites into idolatry. Ruth, however, did the opposite of both of these: She aided Naomi at the peril of her own life, and she converted completely from idolatry. Boaz and the community all recognized this: "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust" (Ruth 2:12).
Naomi counseled Ruth to propose a Levirate marriage to Boaz, and Ruth boldly followed through. This turnabout was probably necessary, since the elderly Boaz was not the closest kinsman, and did not expect young Ruth to desire to be his wife. Boaz said, "And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman" (Ruth 3:10). The name Boaz meant "in him is strength, swiftness, quickness" (footnote to Ruth 2:1). Boaz lived up to his name, as Naomi testified, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day" (Ruth 3:18).
CHAPTER FOUR: REDEEMING
The levirate law was also called the law of the near kinsman (or go'el). The word levirate is taken from the Latin word levir, meaning "husband's brother." As stated above, the brother of a dead man was expected to marry his widow for the purposes of 1) saving her life, 2) returning her to her former status, and 3) providing seed to perpetuate her family. If there was no brother, the next nearest kinsman was to take the role. In the case of Boaz and Ruth, there was a closer kinsman, but Boaz emphasized that Ruth was a Moabitess (vs. 5) when approaching this man with her case, and the man rejected her, freeing Boaz to be her go'el. This word go'el literally translates to "redeemer," and was borrowed by the later prophets to describe Jesus Christ's role (Institute Manual, p. 230, 263).
Boaz acted as a true redeemer to Ruth and Naomi, and kept the whole law, letter and spirit, restoring to them all they had lost.
The community issued love and good wishes upon the marriage, hearkening back to their revered ancestors, Rachel, Leah, and Tamar (vs. 11-12). They said that Ruth was better to Naomi than seven sons (vs. 15). The number seven in Hebrew means perfection, so it really doesn't get any better than that.
The neighbors appropriately called Ruth Naomi's daughter-in-law, as did the narrator, but Naomi never did. Six times in the story she refered to Ruth as "my daughter," evidence of her great love for Ruth. Boaz did the same (except when downplaying her qualities in the presence of the other near kinsman).
CHRIST THE REDEEMER
The story of Boaz and Ruth is the story of Christ and us. Christ is our near kinsman, who 1) saves us from death, 2) raises us from our fallen state, and 3) gives us eternal increase. He is the family member who redeems us, the destitute.
Christ exercises both justice and mercy, the letter and spirit of the law.
We as Latter-day Saints have many commandments to obey. We could write an enormous, long list. But when Jesus was asked which of all the laws was most important, He quoted the shema: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:37-40). Paul explained further, "He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For [all the commandments are] briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:8-10). Christ (Jehovah) taught it; Paul explained it; Naomi, Ruth and Boaz lived it. As long as we act in love, we need not fear missing the spirit of any law.
John issued this injunction to us: "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:7-11).
Note: I chose to focus only on Ruth and cover Hannah and 1 Samuel in the next blog entry.
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