A Full Reward

The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.

Wings. Hold the picture, because the book is built on it.

A bird covering its young is not decoration in Hebrew. It is what a bird does when there is a hawk. And the word Boaz uses, kanaph, means wing and it also means the corner of a garment, the hem a man spread over a woman to claim her and take responsibility for her. Boaz says it about God while Ruth is still a Moabite widow gleaning at the edge of somebody else's field, still legally nobody's, still the foreigner everyone in Bethlehem is being careful around.

Then watch the image come back. A chapter later, on the threshing floor at night, Ruth asks him to spread his skirt over his handmaid, and it is the same word he used about God. She takes the metaphor out of his mouth and asks him to make it flesh. He does not tell her to feel more at home. He goes to the gate at dawn, sits down in front of ten elders, and settles the legal question before breakfast.

That is the promise, and it has nothing to do with her managing to feel sheltered. Shelter under the wings of God was not a mood she achieved at the edge of a field. It was a covering that came looking for her and then held: a foreigner from a hated nation ends the book holding a son, and that son's grandson is David. The reward was full and it was long. What has been spread over you is not going to be lifted in the night to see how you get on without it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 135 is Doers of the Word (James 1:22).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna