story of the rich man's hearty greeting. God was remembering His
handmaiden; He had not shut up His tender mercies. Through His favour
Boaz had been moved to kindness, and the house of Elimelech would yet be
raised from the dust. The woman's heart, clinging to its last hope, was
encouraged. Naomi was loud in her praises of Jehovah and of the man who
had with such pious readiness befriended Ruth. And the young woman had
due encouragement. She heard no fault-finding, no complaint that she had
made too little of her chance. The young sometimes find it difficult to
serve the old, and those who have come down in the world are very apt to
be discontented and querulous; what is done for them is never rightly
done, never enough. It was not so here. The elder woman seems to have
had nothing but gratitude for the gentle effort of the other. And so the
weeks of barley-harvest and of wheat-harvest went by, Ruth busy in the
fields of Boaz, gleaning behind his maidens, helped by their
kindness--for they knew better than to thwart their master--and cheered
at home by the pleasure of her mother-in-law. An idyl? Yes: one that
might be enacted, with varying circumstances, in a thousand homes where
at present distrust and impatience keep souls from the peace God would
give them.
But, one may ask, why did Boaz, so well inclined to be generous, knowing
these women to be deserving of help, leave them week after week without
further notice and aid? Could he reckon his duty done when he allowed
Ruth to glean in his fields, gave her a share of the refreshment
provided for the reapers, and ordered them to pull some ears from the
bundles that she might the more easily fill her arms? For friendships
sake even, should he not have done more?
We keep in mind, for one thing, that Boaz, though a kinsman, was not the
nearest relation Naomi had in Bethlehem. Another was of closer kin to
Elimelech, and it was his duty to take up the widow's case in accordance
with the custom of the time. The old law that no Hebrew family should be
allowed to lapse had deep root and justification. How could Israel
maintain itself in the land of promise and become the testifying people
of God if families were suffered to die out and homesteads to be lost?
One war after another drained away many active men of the tribes. Upon
those who survived lay the serious duty of protecting widows, upholding
claims to farm and dwelling and raising up to those who had died a name
in Israel. The stress of the time gave sanction to the law; without it
Israel would have decayed, losing ground and power in the face of the
enemy. Now this custom bound the nearest kinsman of Naomi to befriend
her and, at least, to establish her claim to a certain parcel of land
near Bethlehem. As for Boaz, he had to stand aside and give the goel his
opportunity.
And another reason is easily seen for his not hastening to supply the
two widows with every comfort and remove from their hearts every fear, a
reason which touches the great difficulty of the philanthropic,--how to
do good and yet do no harm. To give is easy; but to help without
tarnishing the fine independence and noble thrift of poorer persons is
not easy. It is, in truth, a very serious matter to use wealth wisely,
for against the absolute duty of help hangs the serious mischief that
may result from lavish or careless charity. Boaz appears a true friend
and wise benefactor in leaving Ruth to enjoy the sweetness of securing
the daily portion of corn by her own exertion. He might have relieved
her from toiling like one of the poorest and least cared for of women.
He might have sent her home the first day and one of his young men after
her with store of corn and oil. But if he had done so he would have made
the great mistake so often made now-a-days by the bountiful. An
industrious patient generous life would have been spoiled. To protect
Ruth from any kind or degree of insolence, to show her, for his own
part, the most delicate respect--this Boaz could well do. In what he
refrained from doing he is an example, and in the kind and measure of
attention he paid to Ruth. Corresponding acts of Christian courtesy and
justice due from the rich and influential of our time to persons in
straitened circumstances are far too often unrendered. A thousand
opportunities of paying this real debt of man to man are allowed to
pass. Those concerned do not see any obligation, and the reason is that
they want the proper state of mind. That is indispensable. Where it
exists true neighbourliness will follow; the best help will be given
naturally with perfect taste, in proper degree and without
self-sufficiency or pride.
A great hazard goes with much of the spiritual work of our time. The
Ruth gleaning for herself in the field of Christian thought, finding
here and there an ear of heavenly corn which, as she has gathered it,
gives true nourishment to the soul--is met not by one but by many eager
to save her all the trouble of searching the Scriptures and thinking out
the problems of life and faith. Is it wrong to deprive a brave
self-helper of the need to toil for daily bread? How much greater is the
wrong done to minds capable of spiritual endeavour when they are taught
to renounce personal effort and are loaded with sheaves of corn which
they have neither sowed nor reaped. The fashion of our time is to save
people trouble in religion, to remove all resistance from the way of
mind and soul, and as a result the spiritual life never attains strength
or even consciousness. Better the scanty meal won by personal search in
the great harvest field than the surfeit of dainties on which some are
fed, spiritual paupers though they know it not. The wisdom of the Divine
Book is marvellously shown in that it gives largely without destroying
the need for effort, that it requires examination and research,
comparison of scripture with scripture, earnest thought in many a field.
Bible study, therefore, makes strong Christians, strong faith.
As time went by and harvest drew to a close, Naomi grew impatient.
Anxious about Ruth's future she wished to see something done towards
establishing her in safety and honour. "My daughter-in-law," we hear her
say, "shall I not seek rest--a _menuchah_ or asylum for thee, that it
may be well with thee?" No goel or redeemer has appeared to befriend
Naomi and reinstate her, or Ruth as representing her dead son, in the
rights of Elimelech. If those rights are not to lapse, something must
be done speedily; and Naomi's plot is a bold one. She sets Ruth to claim
Boaz as the kinsman whose duty it is to marry her and become her
protector. Ruth is to go to the threshing-floor on the night of the
harvest festival, wait until Boaz lies down to sleep beside the mass of
winnowed grain, and place herself at his feet, so reminding him that if
no other will it is his part to be a husband to her for the sake of
Elimelech and his sons. The plan is daring and appears to us indelicate
at least. It is impossible to say whether any custom of the time
sanctioned it; but even in that case we cannot acquit Naomi of resorting
to a stratagem with the view of bringing about what seemed most
desirable for Ruth and herself.
Now let us remember the position of the two widows, lonely, with no
prospect before them but hard toil that would by-and-by fail, unable to
undertake anything on their own account, and still regarded with
indifference if not suspicion by the people of Bethlehem. There is no
asylum for Ruth except in the house of a husband. If Naomi dies she will
be worse than destitute, morally under a cloud. To live by herself will
be to lead a life of constant peril. It is, we may say, a desperate
resource on which Naomi falls. Boaz is probably already married, has
perhaps more wives than one. True, he has room in his house for Ruth; he
can easily provide for her; and though the customs of the age are
strained somewhat we must partly admit excuse. Still the venture is
almost entirely suggested and urged by worldly considerations, and for
the sake of them great risk is run. Instead of gaining a husband Ruth
may completely forfeit respect. Boaz, so far from entertaining her
appeal to his kinship and generosity, may drive her from the
threshing-floor. It is one of those cases in which, notwithstanding
some possible defence in custom, poverty and anxiety lead into dubious
ways.
We ask why Naomi did not first approach the proper goel, the kinsman
nearer than Boaz, on whom she had an undeniable claim. And the answer
occurs that he did not seem in respect of disposition or means so good a
match as Boaz. Or why did she not go directly to Boaz and state her
desire? She was apparently not averse from grasping at the result,
compromising him, or running the risk of doing so in order to gain her
end. We cannot pass the point without observing that, despite the happy
issue of this plot, it is a warning not an example. These secret,
underhand schemes are not to our liking; they should in no circumstances
be resorted to. It was well for Ruth that she had a man to deal with who
was generous, not irascible, a man of character who had fully
appreciated her goodness. The scheme would otherwise have had a pitiful
result. The story is one creditable in many respects to human nature,
and the Moabite acting under Naomi's direction appears almost blameless;
yet the sense of having lowered herself must have cast its shadow. A
risk was run too great by far for modesty and honour.
To compromise ourselves by doing that which savours of presumption,
which goes too far even by a hair's-breadth in urging a claim is a bad
thing. Better remain without what we reckon our rights than lower our
moral dignity in pressing them. Independence of character, perfect
honour and uprightness are too precious by far to be imperilled even in
a time of serious difficulty. To-day we can hardly turn in any direction
without seeing instances of risky compromise often ending in disaster.
To obtain preferment one will offer some mean bribe of flattery to the
person who can give it. To gain a fortune men will condescend to pitiful
self-humiliation. In the literary world the upward ways open easily to
talent that does not refuse compromises; a writer may have success at
the price of astute silence or careful caressing of prejudice. The
candidate for office commits himself and has afterwards to wriggle as
best he can out of the straits in which he is involved. And what is the
meaning of the light judgment of drunkenness and impurity by men and
women of all ranks who associate with those known to be guilty and make
no protest against their wrongdoing?
It would be shirking one of the plain applications of the incidents
before us if we passed over the compromises so many women make with
self-respect and purity. Ruth, under the advice of one whom she knew to
be a good woman, risked something: with us now are many who against the
entreaty of all true friends adventure into dangerous ways, put
themselves into the power of men they have no reason to trust. And women
in high place, who should set an example of fidelity to the divine order
and understand the honour of womanhood, are rather leading the dance of
freedom and risk. To keep a position or win a position in the crowd
called society some will yield to any fashion, go all lengths in the
license of amusement, sit unblushing at plays that serve only one end,
give themselves and their daughters to embraces that degrade. The
struggle to live is spoken of sometimes as an excuse for women. But is
it the very poor only who compromise themselves? Something else is going
on beside the struggle to find work and bread. People are forgetting
God, thrusting aside the ideas of the soul and of sin; they want keen
delight and are ready to venture all if only in triumphant ambition or
on the perilous edge of infamy they can satisfy desire for an hour. The
cry of to-day, spreading down through all ranks, is the old one, Why
should we be righteous over much and destroy ourselves? It is the
expression of a base and despicable atheism. To deny the higher light
which shows the way of personal duty and nobleness, to prefer instead
the miserable rushlight of desire is the fatal choice against which all
wisdom of sage and seer testifies. Yet the thing is done daily, done by
brilliant women who go on as if nothing was wrong and laugh back to
those who follow them. The Divine Friend of women protests, but His
words are unheard, drowned by the fascinating music and quick pulsation
of the dance of death.
To compromise ourselves is bad: close beside lies the danger of
compromising others; and this too is illustrated by the narrative. Boaz
acted in generosity and honour, told Ruth plainly that a kinsman nearer
than himself stood between them, made her a most favourable promise. But
he sent her away in the early morning "before one could recognise
another." The risk to which she had exposed him was one he did not care
to face. While he made all possible excuses for her and was in a sense
proud of the trust she had reposed in him, still he was somewhat alarmed
and anxious. The narrative is generous to Ruth; but this is not
concealed. We see very distinctly a touch of something caught in heathen
Moab.
On the more satisfactory side of the picture is the confidence so
unreservedly exercised, justified so thoroughly. It is good to be among
people who deserve trust and never fail in the time of trial. Take them
at any hour, in any way they are the same. Incapable of baseness they
bear every test. On the firm conviction that Boaz was a man of this kind
Naomi depended, upon this and an assurance equally firm that Ruth would
behave herself discreetly. Happy indeed are those who have the honour of
friendship with the honourable and true, with men who would rather lose
a right hand than do anything base, with women who would die for
honour's sake. To have acquaintance with faithful men is to have a way
prepared for faith in God.
Let us not fail, however, to observe where honour like this may be
found, where alone it is to be found. Common is the belief that absolute
fidelity may exist in soil cleared of all religious principle. You meet
people who declare that religion is of no use. They have been brought up
in religion, but they are tired of it. They have given up churches and
prayers and are going to be honourable without thought of God, on the
basis of their own steadfast virtue. We shall not say it is impossible,
or that women like Ruth may not rely upon men who so speak. But a single
word of scorn cast on religion reveals so faulty a character that it is
better not to confide in the man who utters it. He is in the real sense
an atheist, one to whom nothing is sacred. About some duties he may have
a sentiment; but what is sentiment or taste to build upon? For one to
trust where reputation is concerned, where moral well-being is involved
a soul must be found whose life is rooted in the faith of God. True
enough, we are under the necessity of trusting persons for whom we have
no such guarantee. Fortunately, however, it is only in matters of
business, or municipal affairs, or parliamentary votes, things
extraneous to our proper life. Unrighteous laws may be made, we may be
defrauded and oppressed, but that does not affect our spiritual
position. When it comes to the soul and the soul's life, when one is in
search of a wife, a husband, a friend, trust should be placed elsewhere,
hope built on a sure foundation.
May we depend upon love in the absence of religious faith? Some would
fain conjure with that word; but love is a divine gift when it is pure
and true; the rest is mere desire and passion. Do you suppose because an
insincere worldly man has a selfish passion for you that you can be safe
with him? Do you think because a worldly woman loves you in a worldly
way that your soul and your future will be safe with her? Find a fearer
of God, one whose virtues are rooted where alone they can grow, in
faith, or live without a wife, a husband. It is presupposed that you
yourself are a fearer of God, a servant of Christ. For, unless you are,
the rule operates on the other side and you are one who should be
shunned. Besides, if you are a materialist living in time and sense and
yet look for spiritual graces and superhuman fidelity, your expectation
is amazing, your hope a thing to wonder at.
True, hypocrites exist, and we may be deceived just because of our
certainty that religion is the only root of faithfulness. A man may
simulate religion and deceive for a time. The young may be sadly
deluded, a whole community betrayed by one who makes the divinest facts
of human nature serve his own wickedness awhile. He disappears and
leaves behind him broken hearts, shattered hopes, darkened lives. Has
religion, then, nothing to do with morality? The very ruin we lament
shows that the human heart in its depth testifies to an intimate and
eternal connection with the absolute of fidelity. Not otherwise could
that hypocrite have deceived. And in the strength of faith there are men
and women of unflinching honour, who, when they find each other out,
form rare and beautiful alliances. Step for step they go on, married or
unmarried, each cheering the other in trial, sustaining the other in
every high and generous task. Together they enter more deeply into the
purpose of life, that is the will of God, and fill with strong and
healthy religion the circle of their influence.
Of the people of ordinary virtue what shall be said?--those who are
neither perfectly faithful nor disgracefully unfaithful, neither certain
to be staunch and true nor ready to betray and cast aside those who
trust them. Large is the class of men whose individuality is not of a
moral kind, affable and easy, brisk and clever but not resolute in truth
and right. Are we to leave these where they are? If we belong to their
number are we to stay among them? Must they get on as best they can with
each other, neither blessed nor condemned? For them the gospel is
provided in its depth and urgency. Theirs is the state it cannot
tolerate nor leave untouched, unaffected. If earth is good enough for
you, so runs the divine message to them, cling to it, enjoy its
dainties, laugh in its sunlight--and die with it. But if you see the
excellence of truth, be true; if you hear the voice of the eternal
Christ, arise and follow Him, born again by the word of God which liveth
and abideth for ever.
V.
_THE MARRIAGE AT THE GATE_
RUTH iv
A simple ceremony of Oriental life brings to a climax the history which
itself closes in sweet music the stormy drama of the Book of Judges.
With all the literary skill and moral delicacy, all the charm and keen
judgment of inspiration the narrator gives us what he has from the
Spirit. He has represented with fine brevity and power of touch the old
life and custom of Israel, the private groups in which piety and
faithfulness were treasured, the frank humanity and divine seriousness
of Jehovah's covenant. And now we are at the gate of Bethlehem where the
head men are assembled and according to the usage of the time the
affairs of Naomi and Ruth are settled by the village court of justice.
Boaz gives a challenge to the goel of Naomi, and point by point we
follow the legal forms by which the right to redeem the land of
Elimelech is given up to Boaz and Ruth becomes his wife.
Why is an old custom presented with such minuteness? We may affirm the
underlying suggestion to be that the ways described were good ways which
ought to be kept in mind. The usage implied great openness and
neighbourliness, a simple and straightforward method of arranging
affairs which were of moment to a community. People lived then in very
direct and frank relations with each other. Their little town and its
concerns had close and intelligent attention. Men and women desired to
act so that there might be good understanding among them, no jealousy
nor rancour of feeling. Elaborate forms of law were unknown,
unnecessary. To take off the shoe and hand it to another in the presence
of honest neighbours ratified a decision as well and gave as good
security as much writing on parchment. The author of the Book of Ruth
commends these homely ways of a past age and suggests to the men of his
own time that civilization and the monarchy, while they have brought
some gains, are perhaps to be blamed for the decay of simplicity and
friendliness.
More than one reason may be found for supposing the book to have been
written in Solomon's time, probably the latter part of his reign when
laws and ordinances had multiplied and were being enforced in endless
detail by a central authority; when the manners of the nations around,
Chaldea, Egypt, Phoenicia, were overbearing the primitive ways of
Israel; when luxury was growing, society dividing into classes and a
proud imperialism giving its colour to habit and religion. If we place
the book at this period we can understand the moral purpose of the
writer and the importance of his work. He would teach people to maintain
the spirit of Israel's past, the brotherliness, the fidelity in every
relation that were to have been all along a distinction of Hebrew life
because inseparably connected with the obedience of Jehovah. The
splendid temple on Moriah was now the centre of a great priestly system,
and from temple and palace the national and, to a great extent, the
personal life of all Israelites was largely influenced, not in every
respect for good. The quiet suggestion is here made that the
artificiality and pomp of the kingdom did not compare well with that old
time when the affairs of an ancestress of the splendid monarch were
settled by a gathering at a village gate.
Nor is the lesson without its value now. We are not to go back on the
past in mere antiquarian curiosity, the interest of secular research.
Labour which goes to revive the story of mankind in remote ages has its
value only when it is applied to the uses of the moralist and the
prophet. We have much to learn again that has been forgotten, much to
recall that has escaped the memory of the race. Through phases of
complex civilization in which the outward and sensuous are pursued the
world has to pass to a new era of more simple and yet more profound
life, to a social order fitted for the development of spiritual power
and grace. And the church is well directed by the Book of God. Her
inquiry into the past is no affair of intellectual curiosity, but a
research governed by the principles that have underlain man's life from
the first and a growing apprehension of all that is at stake in the
multiform energy of the present. Amid the bustle and pressure of those
endeavours which Christian faith itself may induce our minds become
confused. Thinkers and doers are alike apt to forget the deliverances
knowledge ought to effect, and while they learn and attempt much they
are rather passing into bondage than finding life. Our research seems
more and more to occupy us with the manner of things, and even Bible
Archaeology is exposed to this reproach. As for the scientific comparers
of religion they are mostly feeding the vanity of the age with a sense
of extraordinary progress and enlightenment, and themselves are
occasionally heard to confess that the farther they go in study of old
faiths, old rituals and moralities the less profit they find, the less
hint of a design. No such futility, no failure of culture and inquiry
mark the Bible writers dealing with the past. To the humble life of the
Son of Man on earth, to the life of the Hebrews long before He appeared
our thought is carried back from the thousand objects that fascinate in
the world of to-day. And there we see the faith and all the elements of
spiritual vitality of which our own belief and hope are the fruit. There
too without those cumbrous modern involutions which never become
familiar, society wonderfully fulfils its end in regulating personal
effort and helping the conscience and the soul.
* * * * *
The scene at the gate shows Boaz energetically conducting the case he
has taken up. Private considerations urged him to bring rapidly to an
issue the affairs of Naomi and Ruth since he was involved, and again he
commends himself as a man who, having a task in hand, does it with his
might. His pledge to Ruth was a pledge also to his own conscience that
no suspense should be due to any carelessness of his; and in this he
proved himself a pattern friend. The great man often shows his greatness
by making others wait at his door. They are left to find the level of
their insignificance and learn the value of his favour. So the grace of
God is frustrated by those who have the opportunity and should covet the
honour of being His instruments. Men know that they should wait
patiently on God's time, but they are bewildered when they have to wait
on the strange arrogance of those in whose hands Providence has placed
the means of their succour. And many must be the cases in which this
fault of man begets bitterness, distrust of God and even despair. It
should be a matter of anxiety to us all to do with speed and care
anything on which the hopes of the humble and needy rest. A soul more
worthy than our own may languish in darkness while a promise which
should have been sacred is allowed to fade from our memory.