The Hebrew Messiah

How flirtatiously and romantically Ruth bathes, douses herself with perfume, disguises herself in finery, and sneaks in, in the dead of night. She lies down at the feet of Boaz. Her heart is tachycardic, pounding with all the Gentile female sexual urges of intense desire and loaded with the enthralling enticements of a woman seeking the ravenous love of a man, like a heat-seeking missile:

Then she went over stealthily and uncovered his feet and lay down. In the middle of the night, the man gave a start and pulled back – there was a woman lying at his feet.

He recoils, but then recognizes her desperate need. She pleads:

Spread your robe over your handmaid, for you are a redeeming kinsman

So he covers her with his robe and says,

Lie down till the morning.
(Ruth 3, emphasis added)

The trembling electric sexuality of this scene is startlingly exciting and titillating. But for those whose sensibilities are immersed in the pathos of the human condition and who feel the great desire God has to reclaim us to His bosom in primal devekut (Edenic communion with God), what a marvelous messianic scene this is! Here we are in our poverty and bereavement, gleaning in the field the morsels carelessly dropped. We long to be in the bosom of our God, who is rich in the glory of His infinite mercy. In the darkness of our blackest night without a glimmer, we approach in the stealth of our undeserving condition, trying to be attractive to our Lord by having our ritual baths and wearing the threadbare and smelly finery of the filthy rags of our benevolent acts. We uncover the nakedness of His condescension into our debased world and plead for Him to cover our broken and fallen condition. And He graciously covers us with His righteous robe till the morning of our redemption. The Messiah of eternity must recoil, for He is very God indeed and is faced with redeeming us from death. His omnipotent majesty recoils because His humanity must be crushed in the suffering He must go through in that condescension. But He does it most abundantly! (Ps. 22; Isa. 53; see Bavli: Sanh 38b, Suk 52a, BerR 1:4, 75:6; also see Qumran Fragments 4Q 491, 541.) We lie down with Him in the darkness, now full of the promise of His suffering sacrificial love. His robe and His loving arms are firmly around us. We thrill in the ecstasy of our glorious redemption. In the morning of His eternal kingdom He pays off all other claims on us, taking the blame for our inglorious past. He buys the barren fields of Naomi’s dead husband and sons, and marries us, the bride He has been fantasizing about since the fall in Eden. In His marvelous redemption we are forgiven and healed and restored to His bosom. This is the messianic message of Ruth. This is the reason the Sanhedrin included this love story in the sacred canon. This is the stupendous portrayal of God’s majesty, mystery, and unfathomable love, so powerful in our redemption.