Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 94
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IMMERSE
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KINGDOMS
the resources and gifts he provides, including the help of other people
living in God’s Story.
This book also plays a part in the story of God’s covenant faithfulness. Simply stated, like Judges, the book of Ruth supports the right of
David’s house to rule in Israel. But there’s a problem. As the genealogy
at the end of the book reveals, David is the great-grandson of Ruth
the Moabite. Because the Moabites refused to provide the Israelites
with food and water when they escaped from Egypt, a declaration was
made in the Law of Moses that none of their descendants should be
accepted into the Israelite community for ten generations. David was
a fourth-generation descendant of a Moabite. So how could he legitimately be Israel’s king?
The book of Ruth shows that David’s Moabite ancestor was a woman
of true faith in the God of Israel. Beyond this, she did provide a desperate Israelite (Naomi) with the help she needed, and in this way Ruth
effectively redressed the wrongs of her ancestors. At the end of the
book, the women of Bethlehem accept Ruth and pray that she will be
another great ancestor for the community “like Rachel and Leah, from
whom all the nation of Israel descended!” Those prayers are answered
when she becomes a mother in the royal line of David. Significantly,
the genealogy at the end of the book lists ten generations leading up
to King David, showing the old prohibition regarding the Moabites to
be overcome in the wider purposes of God to bring blessing to all the
nations of earth.