Welcome and thank you for taking a bible break to test your knowledge of God's word. This week's question:

Throughout history of this earth God has preserved some of the most beautiful, and sometimes difficult love stories in the bible from Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel.

We begin our search in the Old Testament about one of the most tender love stories preserved in a book named after the one who is our lead character and answer to our question. The name of the book will be referred to only by chapter and verse until the answer is given. A great famine was in the land of Israel and Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons leave Judah and travel into the land of Moab to make a living there. Soon Naomi's husband dies and the two sons marry and continue to live their about ten years, when the two sons also die. Naomi has now lost not only her husband but her two sons as well in a foreign land and she is determined to return to Judah and then tells her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to your mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May the Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband." (1:8-9).

After some soul searching and much weeping, Oprah decides to return to her people and the idols they worship. But the other daughter-in-law tells Naomi, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me." (1:16-17).

Naomi, seeing the determination of her, said no more and they traveled together to Judah and the town of Bethlehem. Naomi had a kinsman of her husband of great wealth named Boaz and as it was the beginning of the barley harvest, the daughter-in-law asked to glean the field after the reapers, which was permitted and she soon caught the eye of Boaz who inquired about her and was told by his servant in charge of the reapers, "She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab." (2:6). When Boaz tells her, "Listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field; furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw." (2:8-9). And when she inquires why he did these things, he told her, "All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know. May the Lord reward your work, and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge." (2:11-12).

After he had given her food, she went back to the fields to glean and Boaz commanded his servants to pull some grain out of the bundles and drop them that she may glean more. When The Moabite woman reported to Naomi her days work in the field of Boaz, Naomi was encouraged as Boaz was a close relative, possibly the closest, and as the closest, he would have the first right as redeemer to Naomi's husband to repurchase the land and to help provide an heir for him (Leviticus 5-28).

Naomi then instructs her daughter-in-law after the harvest to wear her best clothes that evening as Boaz would be winnowing the barley at the threshing floor. After Boaz had finished the work, and had eaten and drank, and goes to lie down for her to uncover his feet and lie down. Then Boaz would tell her what to do. So she did as she was instructed and in the middle of the night, Boaz woke up, probably because his feet became cold, and he was startled to find a woman at his feet! When he inquired who she was, she told him she was his maid and that he was a "close relative" (3:1-9).

Boaz understood the meaning, and blessed her for not searching for a young man either rich or poor, but informed her that there was a closer relative to her than himself and then said, "Remain this night, and when morning comes, if he will redeem you, good; let him redeem you. But if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as the Lord lives. Lie down until morning." (3:13).

So she lay at his feet until morning and before anyone could recognize faces at dawn, she was given six measures of barley and went back into the city and reported this all to Naomi. Naomi knew that Boaz would settle the redemption before that day was done. Then Boaz went to the gate of the city and asked the close relative and ten elders of the city to join them as witnesses to the proceedings. Boaz asks the close relative if he wanted to redeem the land of Naomi's late husband and their brother. And he tells Boaz, "I will redeem it." (4:4). One would think the heart of Boaz would break at these words, but "the game is still afoot"! Boaz then tells the close relative that if he redeems the land he must also acquire the Moabite woman "in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance." (4:5).

The close relative then said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, because I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Redeem if for yourself; you may have the right of redemption, for I cannot redeem it." (4:6). It worked well for Boaz to know the laws of the land for inheritance and then as was the custom of the land the closest relative removed his sandal and gave it to Boaz as a sign of the attestation (4:7-8). Then Boaz told the elders and the people gathered, "You are witnesses today that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon. Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased will not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birth place; you are witnesses today." (4:9-10).

So there we have the answer to our question as the wife of Boaz is Ruth, the Moabitess who loved her mother-in-law and Naomi's God so much that she followed her into a foreign land to live and die in the same place. And God saw that this great love story is preserved for eternity in a book called "Ruth"! Amazingly enough, these two people have a son named Obed and Naomi becomes his nurse. Now Obed is the father of Jesse, the father of David, who are all in the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 1:1-17)! What an amazing ending to that story! May we love the Lord, His people and our own as much as Ruth did love.