is pretty clear. He seems as anxious as Naomi herself that to him should
fall the duty of redeeming her burdened inheritance and reviving her
husband's name. Possibly without any public discussion, by consulting
with the nearer kinsman and urging his own wish or superior ability he
might have settled the affair. Other inducements failing, the offer of a
sum of money might have secured to him the right of redemption. But in
the light of honour, in the court of his conscience, the man was unable
thus to seek his end; and besides the town's people had to be
considered; their sense of justice had to be satisfied as well as his
own.
Often it is not enough that we do a thing from the best of motives; we
must do it in the best way, for the support of justice or purity or
truth. While private benevolence is one of the finest of arts, the
Christian is not unfrequently called to exercise another which is more
difficult and not less needful in society. Required at one hour not to
let his left hand know what his right hand doeth, at another he is
required in all modesty and simplicity to take his fellows to witness
that he acts for righteousness, that he is contending for some thought
of Christ's, that he is not standing in the outer court among those who
are ashamed but has taken his place with the Master at the judgment bar
of the world. Again, when a matter in which a Christian is involved is
before the public and has provoked a good deal of discussion and perhaps
no little criticism of religion and its professors it is not enough that
out of sight, out of court some arrangement be made which counts for a
moral settlement. That is not enough though a person whose rights and
character are affected may consent to it. If still the world has reason
to question whether justice has been done,--justice has not been done.
If still the truthfulness of the church is under valid suspicion,--the
church is not manifesting Christ as it should. For no moral cause once
opened at public assize can be issued in private. It is no longer
between one man and another, nor between a man and the church. The
conscience of the race has been empanelled and cannot be discharged
without judgment. Innumerable causes withdrawn from court, compromised,
hushed up or settled in corners with an effort at justice still shadow
the history of the church and cast a darkness of justifiable suspicion
on the path along which she would advance.
Even in this little affair at Bethlehem the good man will have
everything done with perfect openness and honour and will stand by the
result whether it meet his hopes or disappoint them. At the town-gate,
the common meeting-place for conversation and business, Boaz takes his
seat and invites the goel to sit beside him and also a jury of ten
elders. The court thus constituted, he states the case of Naomi and her
desire to sell a parcel of land which belonged to her husband. When
Elimelech left Bethlehem he had, no doubt, borrowed money on the field,
and now the question is whether the nearest kinsman will pay the debt
and beyond that the further value of the land so that the widow may have
something to herself. Promptly the goel answers that he is ready to buy
the land. This, however, is not all. In buying the field and adding it
to his estate will the man take Ruth to wife, to raise up the name of
the dead upon his inheritance? He is not prepared to do that, for the
children of Ruth would be entitled to the portion of ground and he is
unwilling to impoverish his own family. "I cannot redeem it for myself,
lest I mar my own inheritance." He draws off his shoe and gives it to
Boaz renouncing his right of redemption.
Now this marriage-custom is not ours, but at the time, as we have seen,
it was a sacred rule, and the goel was morally bound by it. He could
have insisted on redeeming the land as his right. To do so was therefore
his duty, and to a certain extent he failed from the ideal of a
kinsman's obligation. But the position was not an easy one. Surely the
man was justified in considering the children he already had and their
claims upon him. Did he not exercise a wise prudence in refusing to
undertake a new obligation? Moreover the circumstances were delicate and
dispeace might have been caused in his household if he took the Moabite
woman. It is certainly one of those cases in which a custom or law has
great weight and yet creates no little difficulty, moral as well as
pecuniary, in the observance. A man honest enough and not ungenerous may
find it hard to determine on which side duty lies. Without, however,
abusing this goel we may fairly take him as a type of those who are more
impressed by the prudential view of their circumstances than by the
duties of kinship and hospitality. If in the course of providence we
have to decide whether we will admit some new inmate to our home worldly
considerations must not rule either on the one side or the other.
A man's duty to his family, what is it? To exclude a needy dependant
however pressing the claim may be? To admit one freely who has the
recommendation of wealth? Such earthly calculation is no rule for a true
man. The moral duty, the moral result are always to be the main elements
of decision. No family ever gains by relief from an obligation
conscience acknowledges. No family loses by the fulfilment of duty,
whatever the expense. In household debate the balance too often turns
not on the character of Ruth but on her lack of gear. The same woman who
is refused as a heathen when she is poor, is discovered to be a most
desirable relation if she brings fuel for the fire of welcome. Let our
decisions be quite clear of this mean hypocrisy. Would we insist on
being dutiful to a rich relation? Then the duty remains to him and his
if they fall into poverty, for a moral claim cannot be altered by the
state of the purse.
And what of the duty to Christ, His church, His poor? Would to God some
people were afraid to leave their children wealthy, were afraid of
having God inquire for His portion. A shadow rests on the inheritance
that has been guarded in selfish pride against the just claims of man,
in defiance of the law of Christ. Yet let one be sure that his
liberality is not mixed with a carnal hope. What do we think of when we
declare that God's recompense to those who give freely comes in added
store of earthly treasure, the tithe returned ten and twenty and a
hundred fold? By what law of the material or spiritual world does this
come about? Certainly we love a generous man, and the liberal shall
stand by liberal things. But surely God's purpose is to make us
comprehend that His grace does not take the form of a percentage on
investments. When a man grows spiritually, when although he becomes
poorer he yet advances to nobler manhood, to power and joy in
Christ--this is the reward of Christian generosity and faithfulness. Let
us be done with religious materialism, with expecting our God to repay
us in the coin of this earth for our service in the heavenly kingdom.
The marriage of Ruth at which we now arrive appears at once as the happy
termination of Naomi's solicitude for her, the partial reward of her own
faithfulness and the solution so far as she was concerned of the problem
of woman's destiny. The idea of the spiritual completion of life for
woman as well as man, of the woman being able to attain a personal
standing of her own with individual responsibility and freedom was not
fully present to the Hebrew mind. If unmarried, Ruth would have
remained, as Naomi well knew and had all along said, without a place in
society, without an asylum or shelter. This old-world view of things
burdens the whole history, and before passing on we must compare it with
the state of modern thought on the question.
The incompleteness of the childless widow's life which is an element of
this narrative, the incompleteness of the life of every unmarried woman
which appears in the lament for Jephthah's daughter and elsewhere in the
Bible as well as in other records of the ancient world had, we may say,
a two-fold cause. On the one hand there was the obvious fact that
marriage has a reason in physical constitution and the order of human
society. On the other hand heathen practices and constant wars made it,
as we have seen, impossible for women to establish themselves alone. A
woman needed protection, or as the law of England has it, coverture. In
very exceptional cases only could the opportunity be found, even among
the people of Jehovah, for those personal efforts and acts which give a
position in the world. But the distinction of Israel's custom and law as
compared with those of many nations lay here, that woman was recognized
as entitled to a place of her own side by side with man in the social
scheme. The conception of her individuality as of individuality
generally was limited. The idea of what is now called the social
organism governed family life, and the very faith that was afterwards to
become the strength of individuality was held as a national thing. The
view of complete life had no clear extension into the future, even the
salvation of the soul did not appear as a distinct provision for
personal immortality. Under these limitations, however, the proper life
of every woman and her place in the nation were acknowledged and
provision was made for her as well as circumstances would allow. By the
customs of marriage and by the laws of inheritance she was recognized
and guarded.
Now it may appear that the problem of woman's place, so far from
approaching solution in Christian times, has rather fallen into greater
confusion; and many are the attacks made from one point of view and
another upon the present condition of things. By the nature school of
revolutionaries physical constitution is made a starting-point in
argument and the reasoning sweeps before it every hindrance to the
completion of life on that side for women as for men. Christian marriage
is itself assailed by these as an obstacle in the path of evolution.
They find women, thanks to Christianity, no longer unable to establish
themselves in life; but against Christianity which has done this they
raise the loud complaint that it bars the individual from full life and
enjoyment. In the course of our discussion of the Book of Judges
reference has been made once and again to this propaganda, and here its
real nature comes to light. Its conception of human life is based on
mere animalism; it throws into the crucible the gain of the centuries in
spiritual discipline and energetic purity in order to make ample
provision for the flesh and the fulfilling of the lusts thereof.
But the problem is not more confused; it is solved, as all other
problems are by Christ. Penetrating and arrogant voices of the day will
cease and His again be heard Whose terrible and gracious doctrine of
personal responsibility in the supernatural order is already the heart
of human thought and hope. There is turmoil, disorder, vile and foolish
experimenting; but the remedy is forward not behind. Christ has opened
the spiritual kingdom, has made it possible for every soul to enter. For
each human being now, man and woman, life means spiritual overcoming,
spiritual possession, and can mean nothing else. It is altogether out of
date, an insult to the conscience and common sense of mankind, not to
speak of its faith, to go back on the primitive world and the ages of a
lower evolution and fasten down to sensuousness a race that has heard
the liberating word, Repent, believe and live. The incompleteness of a
human being lies in subjection to passion, in existing without moral
energy, governed by the earthly and therefore without hope or reason of
life. To the full stature of heavenly power the woman has her way open
through the blood of the cross, and by a path of loneliness and
privation, if need be, she may advance to the highest range of priestly
service and blessing.
To the Jewish people and to the writer of the Book of Ruth as a Jew
genealogy was of more account than to us, and a place in David's
ancestry appears as the final honour of Ruth for her dutifulness, her
humble faith in the God of Israel. Orpah is forgotten; she remained with
her own people and died in obscurity. But faithful Ruth lives
distinguished in history. She takes her place among the matrons of
Bethlehem and the people of God. The story of her life, says one, stands
at the portal of the life of David and at the gates of the gospel.
Yet suppose Ruth had not been married to Boaz or to any other good and
wealthy man, would she have been less admirable and deserving? We
attribute nothing to accident. In the providence of God Boaz was led to
an admiration for Ruth and Naomi's plan succeeded. But it might have
been otherwise. There is nothing, after all, so striking in her faith
that we should expect her to be singled out for special honour; and she
is not. The divine reward of goodness is the peace of God in the soul,
the gladness of fellowship with Him, the opportunity of learning His
will and dispensing His grace. It is interesting to note that Ruth's son
Obed was the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David. But was Ruth
not also the ancestress of the sons of Zeruiah, of Absalom, Adonijah and
Rehoboam? Even though looking down the generations we see the Messiah
born of her line, how can that glorify Ruth? or, if it does, how shall
we explain the want of glory of many an estimable and godly woman who
fighting a battle harder than Ruth's, with clearer faith in God, lived
and died in some obscure village of Naphtali or dragged out a weary
widowhood on the borders of the Syrian desert?
Yet there is a sense in which the history of Ruth stands at the gates of
the gospel. It bears the lesson that Jehovah acknowledged all who did
justly and loved mercy and walked humbly with Him. The foreign woman was
justified by faith, and her faith had its reward when she was accepted
as one of Jehovah's people and knew Him as her gracious Friend. Israel
had in this book the warrant for missionary work among the pagan nations
and a beautiful apologue of the reconciliation the faith of Jehovah was
to effect among the severed families of mankind. The same faith is ours,
but with deeper urgency, the same spirit of reconciliation reaching now
to farther mightier issues. We have seen the Goel of the race and have
heard His offer of redemption. We are commissioned to those who dwell in
the remotest borders of the moral world under oppressions of heathenism
and fear or wander in strange Moabs of confusion where deep calleth unto
deep. We have to testify that with One and One only are the light, the
joy, the completeness of man, because He alone among sages and helpers
has the secret of our sin and weakness and the long miracle of the
soul's redemption. "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to
the whole creation: and lo, I am with you." The faith of the Hebrew is
more than fulfilled. Out of Israel He comes our Menuchah, Who is "_an
hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land_."
INDEX.
Achsah, 20.
Adoni-bezek, 12.
Adventurer, the, 211.
Agnosticism, 156.
Altars, local, 338.
Amalek, 78.
Amorites, 64.
Angel of Jehovah, 147.
Ascendency of races, 14.
Astarte, 52.
Baal, 52.
Baal-berith, the modern, 221.
Baal-peor, 51.
Balaam, 70.
Barak, the Lightning Chief, 99;
agreement with Deborah, 122.
Barbarism, the new, 140.
Bethlehem, 364.
Canaan, its population, 6;
central position, 6;
degeneracy of its people, 8;
god of, 52.
Character, national, 205;
of Arabs, 239;
decision of, 378.
Charity, careless, 399.
Christ, the Strengthener, 42, 43;
and the inquirer, 124;
and the church, 152, 177;
critics of, 154;
personal pledge to, 160, 383;
enemies of, 181;
priesthood of, 208;
kingship of, 228;
sacrifice of, 251, 332;
manliness of, 264;
the temple, 343;
His teaching as to wealth, 388.
Christianity secularized, 330.
Church, the opposition to, 79, 82;
leaders in, 123;
custody of truth by, 124;
world in, 133;
elation of, 139;
right spirit of, 152;
confusion in, 171;
national, 176;
attacks upon, 186;
perpetual duty of, 353.
Completeness of life, 416.
Compromise, 88, 402;
with heathens, 98.
Concentration, 175;
and breadth, 275.
Conscience, correlative of power, 303;
and life, 353, 354;
insanity of, 357.
Conversion, 27, 159;
imperfect, 41;
helped by circumstances, 158;
complete, 160;
Ruth's, 381.
Co-partnery, with the world, 220;
between Hebrew and Philistine, 284.
Creed, the old, 172.
Culture, 20, 88;
affecting religion, 228.
Cushan-rishathaim, 69.
Custom, old, why recorded, 408.
Danite migration, 340.
Date of Book of Ruth, 409.
Deborah, 91;
inspiration of, 96, 102, 108;
her wisdom, 100;
not unmerciful, 117;
her judgeship, 135.
Dependents, duty to, 414.
Dependence, ignoble, 297.
Divine judgment, 11;
of Meroz the prudent, 132.
Divine Vindicator, the, 394.
Doubt, religious, 26.
Earth-force in man, 149.
Ecclesiasticism, 167, 201.
Education, 273.
Ehud, 83.
Emigration, 366.
Entanglements, base, 301.
Equipment for life, 184.
Evil, despotic, 287.
Evolution, spiritual, 4, 85, 109.
Ezra, 38.
Faint yet pursuing, 191.
Faith, development of, 4;
conflicts of, 27;
link between generations, 49;
army of, 128;
recuperative power of, 141;
power through, 203;
ebb and flow of, 233;
saves, not doing, 300;
courage forced on, 347.
Fidelity depends on religion, 405.
Fittest, survival of, 9.
Fleece, Gideon's, 169.
Freedom, cradle of faith, 85, 86, 90;
right of the rude, 258.
Free-lance, 304.
Gibeah, crime of, 348
Gideon, 144;
his fleece, 169;
his three hundred, 173;
kingship refused by, 196;
his caution, 197;
desire for priesthood, 198;
his ephod-dealing, 202;
a storm of God, 204.
Gilead, its vigour, 235.
God with man, 146.
Goel, duty of, 398.
Gospel, at the gates of, 420.
Heathenism, rites of, 53.
Hebrews, language of, 31;
intermixture with Canaanites, 68;
national spirit of, 234.
Heroism, 149.
History, key to, 5, 295.
Hittites, 65.
Honey from the carcase, 289.
Humanity, priesthood of, 208.
Ideal, of life, 29;
for Israel, 48, 242.
Idolatry, 33;
unpardonable, 49.
Intolerance, moral, 354.
Israel, mission of, 13;
oppressed by Cushan-rishathaim, 72;
by Jabin, 92;
by Midianites, 137;
tribes of, 97, 132, 167;
its idea of Jehovah, 107, 118;
superiority of, 55, 69, 90.
Jael, 103, 134;
her tragic moment, 105.
Jealousy, tribal, 255.
Jebusites, 28.
Jephthah, the outlaw, 235;
chosen leader, 236;
his peaceful policy, 240;
his vow, 243;
his daughter, 247.
Jerusalem, 15.
Joash of Abiezer, 156.
Joshua, 45.
Jotham's parable, 214.
Judges, their vindication, 57.
Justice, passion for, 58;
human effort for, 104;
should be open, 412.
Kenites, 24.
Kingship, refused by Gideon, 196.
Kiriath-sepher, 18.
Leaders, uncalled, 163.
Leadership, incomplete, 161.
Levites, 338.
Life, the law of, 294, 299;
hindrances to, 296;
fear hindering, 297;
complete, 314.
Literature, 19;
Danites of, 345, 346.
Love, 380.
Luz, 28.
Marriage, 20;
a failure? 24;
rash experiments in, 284.
Marriages, mixed, 38.
Master-strokes in providence, 158.
Meroz, 132.
Micah, 335.
Midianites, 137, 195.
Missionary spirit, 137.
Moab, 77, 367.
Moderatism, 166.
Monotheism, 32.
Moral intolerance, 354.
Moses, 13, 19.
Motherhood, 268.
National church, 176.
Nature, God revealed in, 111-15;
and supernatural, 266.
Nature-cult, 42, 418.
Nazirite vow, 276.
Nomadism, religious, 25.
Opportunism, 166.
Organized vice, 179.
Orpah, 376.
Othniel, 22, 73.
Parentage, 271.
Past, the, returning, 71;
lessons of, 410.
Pastors, unspiritual, 344.
Patriotism, religious, 226.
Personal ends engrossing, 136.
Personality, 15;
in religion, 379.
Pessimism, 230.
Pharisaism, 39;
danger of, 356.
Philistines, 26, 62.
Philistinism, 310, 329.
Phoenicians, 63.
Polygamy, 21, 351.
Polytheism, its development, 54.
Prayer, 142, 143, 231.
Predestination, 269.
Priesthood, Gideon's desire for, 198;
true, 206;
Roman Catholic, 246.
Prophets, unrecognized, 162;
their preparation, 270.
Prosperity, misunderstood, 388.
Providence, imperfect instruments of, 58, 84.
Public office, 216.
Purity, 350.
Reconciliation, religion always for, 395.
Reformer, his character, 153.
Reformation, the true, 155.
Religion, emotional, 130;
and the state, 36, 75.
Remnant, the godly, 126, 131.
Repentance, imperfect, 40.
Responsibility, 300;
in advising, 370.
Retribution, 138.
Rich, obligations of, 390.
Rights and duties, 30, 256.
Ruth, her choice, 377;
conversion of 381;
goodness commending her, 392;
her danger, 401;
her marriage, 416.
Sacred places, 33.
Salvation, personal, 151.
Samson, his loneliness, 279;
boyhood of, 280;
character of, 281;
his marriage, 290;
his riddle, 291;
no reformer, 308.
Schism, 342, 345.
Science, dogmatism of, 112;
Danites of, 345.
Self-respect, 312.
Self-sacrifice, 249, 331, 333.
Self-suppression, 16, 251, 375.
Self-vindication, 358.
Separations in life, 383.
Shechem, 210.
Shibboleths, of reform, 262;
allowable, 263;
Christ used none, 264.
Sibboleths, of egotism, 260;
of bad habit, 260;
of literature, 261.
Sisera, 101.
Spiritual brotherhood, 151;
strength, 321, 324;
service, 369;
pauperism, 400.
Strength and character, 193.
Struggle, the law of existence, 10.
Success, sanctified, 80;
succeeding, 189.
Succoth and Penuel, 190.
Supernatural in human life, 267.
Temptation, 287;
process of, 317.
Theocracy, 3, 46;
Jotham's idea of, 214, 218.
Tribal religion, 328.
Truth and charity, 228.
Unscrupulous helpers, 133.
Veracity of the narrative, 359.
Vicarious suffering, 355.
Voluntary churches, 176.
Wars of conquest, 5.
Women, treatment of, 21;
their freedom, 22;
duties of, 125;
social bondage of, 372;
helpless, 373;
submission preached to, 375;
problems in their life, 416, 418.
Wrong never strong, 182.
Zephath, 25.