Keith Miller wrote a book called "The Second Touch."  I bought it in the sixties, but loaned it out and of course, it's gone.  It's worth reading.  It covers the verses I wrote about yesterday.

I started a study of the book of Ruth last night at church, and was reminded of something I had forgotten concerning Boaz.  Ruth was a Moabite.  The Jews hated them because they were the descendants of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his two daughters.  (Remember that Lot was the nephew of Abraham.  And Abraham is the father of the Jews.)  The descendants of Abraham considered themselves to be "Purebloods."

When Naomi's husband and both her sons died, her daughter-in-law Ruth chose to follow Naomi back to Bethlehem.  Being a Moabite, she probably was not accepted by the people there.  But Ruth cared for Naomi.  Ruth went to glean to see that the two of them had grain. The field she chose belonged to a man named Boaz.  Ruth later married Boaz.

Remember when Joshua sent two spies into Jericho and they were hidden by the harlot Rahab?  Well, she was spared when they took the land, and was rescued by the Jews.  She lived her life with the Jews and had a son.  Boaz.  That is what I had forgotten.

It makes it more understandable that Boaz wouldn't have looked down on Ruth--because his own mother was a Gentile.  And an unclean one at that. (In the eyes of the Jews.)

But Boaz's mother Rahab had chosen to cast her lot with the Jews and with their God.  Ruth did the same.  She told Naomi, "...Intreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall be my people, and your God my God."  God is not a respecter of persons.  We shouldn't be either.