2 I would lead thee, and bring thee into bais immi [T.N. see 3:4]. Thou wouldest instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of spiced yayin and the nectar of my pomegranate.

3 His left hand should be under my rosh, and his right hand embrace me.

4 I charge you, O banot Yerushalayim, that ye arouse nor awake HaAhavah (the Love) till it pleases [i,e., until its own time, T.N. see 2:7; 3:5] .

5 Who is this that cometh up from the midbar, leaning upon her beloved? Under the tapuach (apple tree) I awakened thee; it was there thy em conceived thee; there she who brought thee forth conceived thee.

6 Set me as a chotam (seal) upon thine lev, as a chotam upon thine zero'a (arm); for ahavah is strong as mavet (death); kinah (jealousy) as unyielding as Sheol; the flames thereof are flames of eish, the flame of Hashem.

7 Mayim rabbim (many waters) cannot quench HaAhavah, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the wealth of his bais for ahavah, it would be utterly scorned.

8 We have an achot ketannah (little sister), and she hath as yet no breasts. What shall we do for achoteinu (our sister) in the day when she shall be spoken for?

9 If she be a chomah (wall), we will build upon her a pinnacle of kesef; and if she be a delet (door), we will enclose her with panels of cedar.

10 I am a chomah (wall), and my breasts, like migdalot; then was I in his eyes like one that findeth shalom.

11 Sh'lomo had a kerem (vineyard) at Baal-Hamon; he gave over the kerem (vineyard) unto caretakers; each had to pay a thousand pieces of kesef for the p’ri (fruit) thereof.

12 My kerem (vineyard), which is mine, is at my own disposal [T.N. see 7:13 (12)]; thou, O Sh'lomo, the thousand are for thee, and two hundred for those that tend the p’ri thereof!

13 Thou that dwellest in the ganim (gardens), the chaverim are listening for thy voice; cause me to hear it.

14 Make haste, dodi (my beloved), and be thou like to a gazelle or a young deer upon the mountains where spices grow. WHY NOT PRAY THESE WORDS FROM THE TANAKH: I BELIEVED; THEREFORE HAVE I SPOKEN. 1 O HASHEM, SAVE MY NEFESH. 2 I ADMIT I HAVE SINNED, NOT ONLY IN WHAT I HAVE DONE, 3 I BUT IN WHAT I AM, ABHOR MYSELF 4 AND MY IDOLS WITH G-DLY SORROW FOR MY SIN, TURNING IN TESHUVAH 5 TO MY MELITZ YOSHER IN HEAVEN 6, MOSHIACH ADONEINU 7; YOUR BANNER, OVER ME, HOLY MOSHIACH, IS LOVE 8; YOU CARRIED MY SIN AWAY ON THE TREE AS THE SA'IR L'AZAZEL YOM KIPPUR SCAPEGOAT KAPPORAH TO SATISFY THE TORAH.9 YOU REMOVED MY FILTHY ROBES 10 AND SEATED ME AT YOUR BANQUETING TABLE. 11 I TRUST YOU AS HASHEM'S PESACH KORBAN FOR MY REDEMPTION 12. I OPEN THE LATCH AND INVITE YOU TO COME THROUGH THE DOOR OF MY HEART AS MY GO'EL AND MOSHI’A 13 AND KOHEN 14 AND KAPPORAH 15 FOREVER. IN THE NAME OF HA’AV 16, HABEN 17, AND HARUACH HAKODESH 18. OMEIN. 1 Ps 116:10a 2 Ps 116:4 3 Ps 51 4 Job 42:6 5 Isa 44:22 6 Job 33:23 7 Mal 3:1 8 Song 2:4 9 Isa 53:11-12; Lv 16:20-22 10 Zech 4:3-5; 3:8; 6:11-12 11 Song 2:4 12 Isa 53:7 ; Ruth 3:12 13 2Sm 22:3; Dan 3:25 14 PS 110:4 15 Isa 53:8 16 Jer 3:19 17 Prov 30:4; 8:30 18 Psa 51:11 [T.N. The Book of Ruth is arguably the greatest short story ever written, though of course, it is history and not fiction. Judges and Ruth are so different in tone that it is amazing that they take place during the same time period. In contrast to the murder and lust of Judges, there is the the mountains where spices grow. www.afii.org/ruth.WMA wonder of how much Ruth endeared herself to people who should have been strangers. A miracle quietly transpires in this story, and people who might have considered Ruth an enemy because of her Moabite ancestry, were instead drawn to her by the cords of G-d's love. Love is a wonderful thing. The story of Ruth is saying, look how G-d's love binds people together, with a bond that even death cannot sever, for G-d is the G-d of the living, and even the dead are not beyond his protective, redemptive hand. See 1C 15:3-4. Look at Ruth's story. Ruth's husband Mahlon is dead; he left her no son, Naomi he left no grand- children. Mahlon's property is languishing untilled in Bethlehem. All seems hopelessly lost. Who can help Naomi? Who can help Ruth? Who can reclaim the land and bring a harvest of prosperity again? Who can redeem the dead? No one, it seems. The land has seen famine, the dead are gone. But is anything too hard for Hashem? Read the story and watch G-d go into action! Watch him redeem the lost property and put the deed of ownership back into the name of the deceased. All right, you say, G-d can redeem the land perhaps. But can G-d redeem the dead? Can a corpse have a child? As we read the whole story, we find that not only can a child be given to the corpse, but also that in this child is the promise of a Moshiach who himself will be raised from the dead with the ultimate promise that every corpse sleeping in the grave will be raised from the dead, even the corpse in this story, Mahlon, the deceased husband of Ruth! Now the story is saying, after all that, you, reader, should believe that G-d is the G-d of the living, who can redeem the world and the land and who can make alive even the dead. Ruth had neither a Jewish mother nor a Jewish father! But she has entered Ideal Israel (Yeshuron Yisroel, meaning "upright one or "law-upholding one", a poetic name for the true Israel --see Isaiah 44:2; Deut. 32:15; 33:26; 33:5) by faith alone (Gal.2:15-21), by an individual choice to turn away from the former heathenish direction she was going and by making a personal decision to turn back and join the people of G-d and to take their G-d as her G-d in true teshuva (1:16-17). (Moab symbolizes for Naomi a heathenish neglect of G-d's people and G-d's House, because Bethlehem means "House of Bread," and Naomi has felt the covenant curses of famine, death, and childlessness as a result of her moving in a heathenish direction that neglects G-d's House--Dt 28:18, 21, 24). But Ruth has become a "supernatural Jew" through the new birth identity in Hashem, entering "Upright" Israel by what alone made her upright, that is, emunah (Hab. 2:4; Gn 15:6; Psalm 106:31; Gal. 2:16), and Ruth has entered Upright Israel ahead of those who say they are Jews but are still spiritually uncircumcised, still blindly heathen at heart, as Naomi seems to be in Moab until she is provoked to jealousy by seeing G-d bless in Bethlehem one of the Gentiles, her daughter-in-law Ruth (contrast Ruth 1:15 and Ruth 2:20). Ruth's regenerated, circumcised heart made her part of the true circumcision, and we who are regenerated in the Brit Chadasha kehillah have also entered Yeshurun Israel with Ruth the Moabitess and with Rahab in order to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy, to turn them back to the true G-d, the G-d revealed in the Holy Bible. The point that the story is leading to is how great G-d's blessing is on this non-Jewish woman--more than she could ever see in her lifetime. Ruth became a direct ancestor of King David and, through him, Ruth became a direct ancestor of the promised Moshiach! The irony of G-d's hand on a Gentile's life in the midst of Jewish people is a theme of the story. Hashem's providential care for her, the way her footsteps are literally ordered by the L-rd (Ps 37:23), the gracious way her faith is answered by His provision --these are all highlighted by the fact that she is an outsider, alone, a widow, a non-Jew, a foreigner, a member of the excluded, (cursed by the Law-- Dt 23:3) Moabite people, a pagan who had known only death and a false religion and was now poor and helpless in a strange land. G-d's special providential care toward those on their way to salvation is a theme of Ruth. Everywhere this Gentile widow turns, she is blessed, because she has been given a heart to bless G-d's people (Gn 12:2). Just as she does not forget her mother-in-law, G-d does not abandon His chesed (covenant- keeping loving kindness) with Ruth and with both the living and the dead (Ruth 2:20). G-d makes everything work together for good for Ruth, even a famine, even a death in the family, even three deaths in the family (Ro 8:28). G-d uses the famine in Israel to get Ruth's future mother-in-law Naomi to move from Bethlehem to where Ruth could meet her in Moab, making Naomi an unwitting "Jonah to the Ninevites," a light to the nations. G-d uses the death of Ruth's husband to free Ruth to begin a spiritual pilgrimage that is nothing short of salvation. G-d, who withdraws the rain, now brings the early rain and the later rain to end the famine and bless the land with the harvest, which is a reward for covenant-obedience (Dt 28:4). But, here is where the wonder really begins. G-d leads the two widows back to Bethlehem for a harvest greater than they could ever imagine, a world harvest led by the Moshiach (Mt 28:19-20), the world Harvester "to whom the nations belong (Gen.49:10)." (Notice carefully the Goel redeemer son of Judah at the threshing floor in Ruth 3:2). The World Harvester, the Moshiach will be born there in Bethlehem a thousand years later (see Mic 5:1-2). G-d gives Ruth a strange and marvelous love. G-d gives Ruth a supernatural love for her mother-in-law and for the people of G-d. G-d gives her the courage to say good-bye to her heathen sister and to go to Israel with her mother-in-law. Then G-d brings her to a very special man, a man of substance, a man of destiny, the most wonderful husband she could ever have dreamed of, in fact a husband far beyond her imagination, an absolutely unique man of royal blood, the only man in the world who was Ruth's contemporary and was at the same time destined to become a direct ancestor of King David and of the Moshiach. And the wonder is that G-d led this Gentile woman Ruth to find favor in his sight and become related to him in holy covenant love. For this man (Boaz) from the Messianic tribe of Judah became Ruth's kinsman Go'el (redeemer), protecting the family, the dead as well as the living. This man from the tribe of the Moshiach married Ruth and redeemed (bought back) the land of Ruth's dead husband and raised up an heir to carry on the dead man's name. So the dead man's inheritance was not wiped out. G-d is the G-d who saves the living and the dead (1C 15:51; 1Th 4:15-17) through a Redeemer from the tribe of Judah. Here it is important to remember that the PEDUT (the payment of ransom for geulah redemption as in Ro 3:24) comes about through the Go’el Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Had Moshiach not paid the ransom of his korban Pesach blood (Isa 53:7) as our Go'el (Redeemer), we could never have been bought back from sin and death and judgment. Our plight would have been more hopeless than Ruth and Naomi, these two tragic almanot. In the Bible, G-d is also the protector of almanot. In Bible times, a woman without the covering of a husband was in danger of exploitation or of sexual molestation or even being carried off. Because of our sin nature and our sin practices, we were carried off and on the slave market auction block of sin. We needed a redeemer to buy us back. Moshiach Ben Dovid is rich and can do that because Moshiach is free from a sin nature tie to Adam [Gen 3:15; Isa 7:14) and rich in mercy. If we humble ourselves like a poor widow and turn to him to redeem us, he will put the wings of his garment over us and protect us from all doom and loss. Moshiach will be to us what Boaz was to Ruth and Naomi. This book of the Bible is extremely important because it shows the tribe of Judah and a coming redeemer of the Jews and Gentiles, the Moshiach, who will fulfill Gen. 49:10. The secret of Ruth's blessing was her faithfulness. She continued working where G-d placed her. She refused to leave her mother-in-law, she remained with her in life and refused to leave her in death (1:16-18). Ruth remained in faith where G-d placed her. She remained in Boaz's field. Boaz said, "Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain," (2:21) and she obeyed him. Ruth didn't go to the field of someone else where she might have been harmed (2:22). If we stay close to the harvesters, and refuse to leave the harvest field where G-d has placed us, we will be blessed like this lowly and loving and faithful mevaseret (lady evangelist) Ruth who won a Jewish lady to the L-rd (Ro 11:11; Ruth 1:15).]