Ruth 4:13-17
Better to You Than Seven Sons
13So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And when he had relations with her, the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
14Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a kinsman-redeemer. May his name become famous in Israel.
15He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
16And Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became a nurse to him.
17The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Berean Standard Bible
Boaz takes Ruth and she becomes his wife, and the wedding and the marriage and the birth of a son all fit inside one verse. The book took its time over a property negotiation at a town gate and gives the happy part a single sentence. What it does put in is who was behind the pregnancy.
And when he had relations with her, the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
Back in 1:6 the narrator said the LORD had attended to his people by giving them food. Between that line and this one the story has been men and women making decisions, walking roads, gleaning fields and arguing at gates, and God has been working through all of it without the narrator stopping to say so.
Then the women of Bethlehem arrive, and they do not go to Ruth. They go to Naomi. They bless the LORD for not leaving her without a kinsman-redeemer this day, and they ask that his name become famous in Israel. The last time these women spoke, they said, can this be Naomi, and she told them to call her Mara because the Almighty had dealt bitterly with her. Same town, same women, and they have come back to her.
For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.
Naomi lost two sons. The women of Bethlehem tell her, to her face, that the Moabite girl who walked home with her counts for more than a houseful of them. Nobody argues with her old speech. Nobody says I told you so.
Then she takes the child, puts him on her lap and becomes a nurse to him. The woman who said she came back empty is sitting with a baby on her lap, and the book makes no comment on it at all. It sets the two pictures beside each other and moves on.
The neighbor women name him Obed and say a son has been born to Naomi, which is not literally true and every woman standing there knows it. Then the last line arrives without any ceremony.
He became the father of Jesse, the father of David.
The famine, the funerals, the road out of Moab, the gleaning, the night at the threshing floor, the sandal at the gate. All of it lands in the grandfather of David, and the book says so in one line and stops.
How We Know
The women's line in verse 15 answers Naomi's own words, and the book sets them up to be heard together.
In 1:21 she told these same women that she went away full and the LORD brought her back empty, and in 1:5 the narrator had already told us she was left without her two sons. In 4:15 the women tell her that Ruth is better to her than seven sons.
The reply lands on the exact loss. Not on her poverty and not on her bitterness. On the sons.
Then verse 17 does something odd. The neighbor women say a son has been born to Naomi, and name him. He is not her son. He is Ruth's, by Boaz, and Boaz's stated purpose at the gate was to preserve Mahlon's name and inheritance. The book records what the women said rather than correcting it, and then runs the line straight on to Jesse and David. That is strong support for an ending built deliberately, though deliberate is our word for it and not the book's.
Questions
1 How much room does the book give the wedding and the birth?
AnswerOne verse. After a whole chapter of legal negotiation at the town gate, the marriage and the pregnancy and the birth all happen inside a single sentence.
2 Who do the women of Bethlehem talk to, and what did they say to her last time?
AnswerNaomi. The last time these women spoke they said, can this be Naomi, and she told them to call her Mara because the Almighty had dealt bitterly with her. Same town, same women, and now they are blessing the LORD in front of her.
3 Who has been better to this family than they had any obligation to be? Naomi lost two sons. What do the women tell her about Ruth?
AnswerThat she loves Naomi and is better to her than seven sons. They do not comfort her about money and they do not argue with her bitterness. They aim straight at the thing she lost.
4 What is the last line of the story, and why does it matter?
AnswerThat Obed became the father of Jesse, the father of David. A famine, three funerals, a foreign widow and a barley field end up in the family David came from, and the book mentions it almost in passing.
What This Means for Us
She said empty, and the book ends with a baby in her lap. Nobody in this scene reminds Naomi of what she said in the street that day, and there is no correction and no lecture about her theology in chapter 1. The women bless God, they praise Ruth, and somebody hands her a child. The answer the book gives her is a person.
So where somebody in this house has said something bitter about God in a hard season, nobody is under orders to argue them out of it. Keep feeding them, and wait. The answer can come as a person rather than as an explanation.
Prayer
Father, you did not argue Naomi out of her bitterness. You put a child in her arms. Thank you that you answer some of our complaints with people rather than with reasons. Be patient with the ones we love who are still in chapter one. Amen.