Bible Study - Book of Ruth Part 5 - Ruth 4:11-12, 17-22

Last week we heard the good news of the marriage of Boaz and Ruth and the restoration of their land in Israel to the family of Naomi and Elimelech. From this marriage, in a few generations, came David, King of Israel. We want to look at other people mentioned at the end of this story and the genealogy given here and how this all relates to the coming of our Lord Jesus, many centuries later.

We began with Ruth 4:11, where the elders and people at the gate of Bethlehem asked God’s blessings upon Boaz and Ruth, and that Ruth would be “like Rachel and Leah” of old, in “building up the house of Israel,” with children as heirs. Last week we heard that Jacob, who cheated his brother, was also cheated and tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rachel, the wife he wanted. Jacob then ended up marrying Rachel, as well, having two wives.

This was very much against the will of God, who had set up marriage as between one man and one woman in a lifelong commitment (Genesis 2:18-24). We see, however, that after the fall into sin in Genesis 3, already in Genesis 4:19,23-24, a man had taken two wives for himself. This happened with too many people, including Jacob. Whenever such things happened, the Scriptures also described much trouble. Read Genesis 29:30-30:13. Leah and Rachel could not get along and created problems for Jacob with much jealousy and hatred. They compounded the problems by offering their servant girls to Jacob to have more children by them. There were 12 sons of Jacob, but a very troubled family, as well. This was a very messy, sinful situation. God did not approve, but He still worked through all this, through very weak, sinful people, to continue His line of promise for the future.

There are other stories like this in the Old Testament, which are not even appropriate to teach children, in all the details we hear. Remember though, that these are “descriptions” of sinful people, as we are, too, at times, but are not “prescriptions” of how we ought to live or what is OK for us to do. (Here is where people like Joseph Smith and some Mormons went very wrong and approved of and practiced polygamy and wrote this approval and many other wrong things into their new “scriptures.”)

Go back to Ruth 4:12, where the people of Bethlehem wished also that Boaz and Ruth’s “house would be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” This is another earlier messy, sinful story, which you can read about in Genesis 38. This probably is mentioned because Tamar was a widowed non-Jewish woman in a situation similar to that of Ruth, and yet Tamar was in the line of promise for the coming King David and our Savior Jesus, too. (See Genesis 49:8-10, where there is a prophecy that a kingly ruler would come from the line of Judah - a reference to King David and later on to Jesus, the King of Kings and “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Revelation 5:5).)

Go now to Genesis 38. We don’t have time to go through this story in detail, but note that Judah had two wives also, again in violation of God’s will. And again, there was only trouble. Tamar was chosen as the wife of one of Judah’s sons, Er. Er was very wicked and was put to death, and Tamar was left as a widow. This was another sort of “kinsman-redeemer” situation, where family could help provide an heir for Tamar, but everyone refused to do so. Tamar was so desperate that she pretended to be a prostitute and had a child by her father-in-law, Judah himself. It is another terrible story with so many wrong things going on, and Judah finally had to admit, “Tamar is more righteous than I” (Genesis 38:26).

The child born to Tamar is identified in v.29 as Perez, and Perez is listed first in the genealogy of David in Ruth 4:18 -22. Once again, this story is a description of sinful people doing much wrong in their lives, and not a prescription of what anyone should be doing. Some died in their wickedness, as we heard of Er. But God in His mercy also kept His promises and worked through this sinful mess to bring eventually King David and the “Son of David,” our Lord Jesus.

Some of the Lutheran commentators also note that the listing of the genealogy in Ruth 4:18-22 includes two groups of 5 descendants. Perez to Nahshon belong to the 430 years of the time the descendants of Jacob were in Egypt. Salmon to David belong to the 476 years between the exodus from Egypt to Israel and on to the death of David. In other words, this is likely not a complete genealogy and not everyone is listed, as happens at times in other Biblical genealogies. The number 10, though, was a number of completeness, and shows that God knew exactly what He was doing, working out His perfect saving plan through very imperfect people, over long periods of time.

This is also an indication that we do not need to rely on genealogies to figure out just when the earth was created, as Bishop Ussher and others have tried to do. We do believe what Genesis says about God as Creator of the universe and this earth and the first people in just six days. We do not believe in evolution from nothing to man over billions of years. This is clearly a very young earth, but we do not need to figure out exactly how old it is.

We turn now to the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:1-17. We don’t have time to go through this in detail, either, but notice again the symmetrical form of the genealogy, three sets of 14 generations, showing God’s perfect and merciful carrying out of His plan of salvation, from Abraham to Jesus, even through messy and confusing and sinful stories of God’s Old Testament people.

Matthew followed the listing in Ruth of the generations there (with not everyone seemingly included). Matthew does mention several women, too, though women were usually left out of Jewish genealogies. The women listed were not the famous women like Sarah and Rachel. Three of the four were not even Jewish, and all had bad reputations, other than Ruth, the faithful Moabite wife of Boaz and daughter-in-law of Naomi.

“The ancestry of Christ tells the story of Israel’s failures and of God’s mercy for both Jews and Gentiles,” Dr. Franzmann says, and the coming of Jesus to do His saving work for all. This gives hope for all people in Christ Jesus. He came to bring forgiveness and salvation to sinners - which we all are. Read, for example, what Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:12-16. He considered himself the “chief” - the “worst of sinners" - and if God could have mercy on him, God could have mercy on anyone. How comforting that is for us all, in our own struggles.

One last thought. Dr. Franzmann points out that if you count the list of names in the third list of generations, coming right up to Jesus, there are only 13 generations listed, not the usual 14. Franzmann says, “Perhaps Matthew is hinting that there is still one generation to come - the generation of the church,” all those who have come to believe in and trust in Jesus as Savior, including you and me, who are simply waiting for Jesus to return one day and take us also to eternal life, along with others we can tell about Jesus our Lord. It is His perfect life and death for our sins and resurrection from the dead which gives us this hope and confidence and mission in life.