7) Worthy Of Fame

We left off in Ruth 4 where Boaz has contracted to marry Ruth in order to continue her departed husband’s lineage, and to redeem Elimelech’s property for Naomi. We saw that a nearer kinsman had been willing to redeem the property when he thought there was some profit in it for him. But when he realized that he would also have to raise up an heir to inherit the dead husband’s property instead of himself getting it, he lost all interest in the deal.

Which was perfectly fine with Ruth and Boaz, since they had come to appreciate each other as kindred spirits. Boaz did for love what the other would have only done for money.

And now the assembled crowd that has witnessed this drama are praising and celebrating how things have turned out for Ruth and Boaz – and especially for their widowed friend Naomi.

And at the end of verse 11, they told Boaz – be famous in Bethlehem.

11 And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem:

All the people gathered around that day had a sense of what was going on. No one objected that Ruth as a Moabite couldn’t marry Boaz. Why? Because as Boaz himself had explained back in Ruth 3:11, all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. They understood that she was no typical Moabite. They knew of her faith in the Lord God of Israel. They knew that a woman like this would build the house of Israel. Look at what they said: the Lord make her like Rachel and like Leah – both former Gentile women who did build the house of Israel. They built it with their character. They built it as they recited the Shema to their nursing infants so that Jewish children literally absorbed the Words of God with their mothers’ milk. And they built it physically as the Lord opened their wombs to bring new little Israelite sons and daughters into the growing nation. Remember that at one time or another both Rachel and Leah’s wombs were shut up by the Lord so that they could not bear – just as Ruth’s had been back in Moab.

And the people said to Boaz, do thou worthily... and be famous. Boaz had done a worthy deed – literally, in the sense that it had just cost him a serious portion of his net worth. But the people are praying that God will now enable him to do worthily enough to more than make it back up to him.

And they said, be famous. Had Boaz not performed this worthy deed, we would have known no more of him than of the nearer kinsman who was unwilling to make the sacrifice. But now his name and his deed are recorded in the everlasting Word of God. All because he was willing to look past the fact that Ruth was a stranger from the cursed land of Moab. We are all saved from the wrath of the law by faith in God’s amazing grace.

They said, do thou worthily in Ephratah. As we mentioned earlier in our study of Ruth, Ephratah was the original name of this town before the Israelites took it over and renamed it Bethlehem. The name Ephratah means “fruitful”, apparently because it was fertile for agriculture, as reflected in the new Hebrew name Bethlehem – “house of bread”. They are praying for Boaz to be fruitful in the fruitful place as a reward for his generosity toward Naomi and Ruth.

Now, without looking back, does anyone remember the name of Ruth’s dead husband whose lineage is going to be preserved? If not, then don’t feel bad, because his name is only found four times in this book, while Boaz’ name is found 20 times. And his name is never found again in any other place in the Bible, while Boaz’ name is mentioned in other books in both Testaments. So between Boaz and Mahlon, it’s obvious that Boaz has certainly become the more famous of the two!

But now, this brings up a question. Verse 10 says that Boaz is doing this to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren. But in every genealogy – at the end of this chapter, in I Chronicles 2, in Matthew 1 and in Luke 3 – the child is always listed as the son of Boaz, never Mahlon.

There appear to be a couple of factors here that have been suggested by both Jewish and Christian theologians.