Messiah in Shavuot Chapter 7
- The Chesed of Ruth
- The Seven Laws
The Chesed of Ruth:
The Scroll of Ruth is a story of redemptive love and devotion (chesed). Ruth is traditionally read during Shavuot. The narrative of Ruth is read aloud on Shavuot because the story of Ruth takes place during the time of the ‘spring’ harvest. Ruth is a picture of the missionary faith of our people (Israel). It is our destiny as the firstborn (spiritual) nation to one day lead all of the Gentile nations and peoples of the world into true faith in our Messiah.
Ruth was a Gentile who became a Jew. By Ruth putting her trust in the faith of her Jewess mother-in-law Naomi, she not only became a convert to Judaism, she later became the Great Grandmother of King David, whose most royal descendant is the Messiah Yeshua. The redemptive narrative of Ruth begins at the onset of the barley harvest, with the last part of our redemptive narrative concluding at the wheat harvest.
Throughout the redemption of Ruth she embraced faith in Adonai Eloheinu (the LORD our God) all because of Naomi’s love for her. This led to Ruth responding in love to Naomi. Ruth came to love Adonai because He first loved her through His the love of His daughter Naomi. Due to Naomi’s loving-kindness (chesed) the Gentile Ruth became an adopted member of the family of the Holy One of Israel. Love brought Ruth to faith in our God. Love preceded faith and not the other way around.
The Seven Laws:
While the narrative of Ruth’s story is straightforward—that faith should be rooted and grounded in the love of Adonai—to fully understand the many meanings of the spiritual narrative we must also become familiar with several laws of the Torah that are referenced in the Story of Ruth, including:
Law #1. The laws of our redemption (Leviticus 25:32-55).
Law #2. The laws of Shemitah and our Jubilee years (Leviticus 25:4, 10, 23).
Law #3. The laws of our family inheritances (Numbers 27:8-11).
Law #4. The laws of yibbum or “levirate marriage” (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).
Law #5. Various farming laws regarding our leaving food for the poor and the stranger (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19).
Law #6. The laws of warfare for our taking possession of the land.
Law #7. And the Holy One’s often stated commandment that we must be all be holy (be separated-devoted solely to Him).
We are commanded not to let our children be assimilated into the surrounding Gentile (pagan) cultures (Exodus 3:12; Deuteronomy 7:1-6; 14:2). This restriction applied not only to the seven Canaanite nations (Deuteronomy 7:1; 20:17-18), but also to the descendants of Lot (i.e., Amnonites and the Moabites), since they showed enmity to us when we first came to eretz Israel (Deuteronomy 23:4-6).