‘Hesed’ love is committed
Ruth and Orpah, Naomi’s two daughters-in-law, want to go back to Bethlehem with Naomi but she tells them to return to their own homes. Orpah turns back but Ruth refuses. ‘Hesed’ love is stubborn. Ruth has decided to pledge herself to Naomi, in spite of the cost to herself. In doing so, she was – humanly speaking – throwing away any possibility of marriage.
Ruth looks after Naomi on the long way back to Bethlehem – and her kindness is shown to a woman who is embittered by her grief. When they get back to Bethlehem and the townswomen gather round Naomi and Ruth, Naomi tells the women she has come back home empty – but Ruth is standing beside her! Naomi is so preoccupied with the circumstances which have led to her return home that she doesn’t seem to think about what Ruth’s needs might be, as a foreigner arriving in a land and a culture which would feel very strange to her.
But, undeterred, Ruth decides to go out to the fields to gather the grain which the OT Hebrews were required to leave at the edges of the fields for the widows, the orphans, the foreigners and the poor. (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22; Deut.24:19). She was determined to provide for Naomi and here was the way to do it.
One scholar says this:
Ruth took on the uncertain future of a bitter widow in a land where she knew no one, enjoyed few legal rights, and – given the traditional Moabite-Israelite rivalry – faced possible ethnic prejudice….She gave up a marriage to a man to devote herself to an old woman – in a world dominated by men.
This is the stubborn commitment of ‘hesed’ love.
Ruth and Naomi needed to find a way to survive – so Ruth did the obvious thing. She went out and looked for work. It wasn’t glorious, there was no fanfare, she had no one to make introductions for her in high places. ‘Hesed’ love always works itself out in practical ways – it looks for ways to express itself. And Ruth found a way.
Picture Ruth bending down and collecting individual stalks of grain in the midday sun – unthanked, unprotected and unknown. This is the face of ‘hesed’. Paul Miller.
She was just being helpful – finding a way to make ends meet, doing what she could. Somehow we don’t think that ‘being helpful’ is noteworthy.
To be helpful is to be free – of messianic delusion, of pride, of condescension, of despair, of impossible burdens, of selfish withdrawal. Helpfulness is humble, caring, forgiving, and constructive in innumerable small ways. And ‘helpful’ is the very best we can be for each other. David Powlison
Ruth doesn’t give up. Eventually, of course, the love story unfolds and it becomes clear that the owner of the field, Boaz, is one of Naomi’s relatives and, as such, someone who could possibly redeem her and thus reverse the direction of her life completely by buying everything that belonged to Elimilech, Mahlon and Chillion and by marrying Ruth.
Ruth courageously goes to the threshing floor at night and lies at the feet of Boaz. When Boaz realises that she is asking him to be their redeemer instead of choosing a younger man, he recognises her loving kindness:
“May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness (‘hesed’ love) greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich.” Ruth 3:10
The stubborn commitment of ‘hesed’ love made a way for Ruth and Naomi.
‘Hesed’ love is costly
As Paul Miller puts it: in ‘hesed’ love we enter into the dying-resurrection life of Jesus.
Ruth dies to her own desires for marriage, a family, a normal life. In committing herself to Naomi, she commits herself to the unknown and keeps on loving a woman who has been embittered by life’s circumstances. Ruth tells Naomi “your God will be my God” and later Boaz recognises that she has taken shelter “under the wings of God” (2:12). Her faith was in God, not in Naomi. This is the nature of ‘hesed’ love – it depends on God, not on the object of its love, as it dies to self and commits to keep on loving, in spite of the cost.
When the pressure of love builds, we think that somehow we showed up for the wrong life. This isn’t what we signed up for. But no, this is the divine path called love. Paul Miller
And we know that through death comes new life. Through death comes glory. The moment when you think everything has gone wrong is exactly the moment when the beauty of God is shining through you. True glory is almost always hidden – when you are enduring quietly with no cheering crowd….Walking into Bethlehem alone, a foreigner, without a male protector – with only Yahweh – that is Ruth’s glory.
In going out alone to search for work, Ruth was putting herself at enormous risk. She has no one to protect her, she is a woman, and she is a foreigner. Libbie Groves explains:
The presence of a male represented more than protection. If a male was with Ruth, it declared her status and said that she was properly fitted into a family structure and was a respectable woman. She should be treated as such. If she was unaccompanied, it signalled that she was not a respectable woman. It was fine to treat her any way you chose.
Yet Ruth takes this risk and puts herself in danger for the sake of love. She was a courageous woman who loved God and followed his ways even when it was costly.
‘Hesed’ love doesn’t look for love in return. ‘Hesed’ love just keeps on loving. That is the sacrifice it makes.
‘Hesed’ love is committed and ‘hesed’ love is costly.
Nurturing Growth, Encouraging Rest 