Boaz's Mom

It seems in reading the Bible that many of its key figures were marginalized in one way or another: Moses was adopted by an Egyptian princess, Joseph was hated by his many brothers, Esau was cheated out of his birthright by his brother Jacob, among many examples. Even Jesus was born to a young Hebrew girl who was without a husband initially. The latest example occurred when I was reading from my daily devotional book the other day in the book of Ruth. I guess I had always wondered why Boaz was so kind to a foreign woman who was in his fields of wheat without permission. Boaz was the one who instructed his workers to let wheat intentionally fall as they threshed it so that Ruth could gather enough to feed herself and her mother-in-law Naomi. Ruth was definitely marginalized, but then again, so was Boaz from the beginning of his life no doubt.

Boaz's mother was Rahab, a harlot. She was the one mentioned in the book of Joshua who assisted the Hebrew spies in their quest for the Promised Land by hanging a scarlet cord outside her window as a signal. As a harlot, she would have no doubted been quite marginalized by the proper wives and mothers of her culture. As the mother of Boaz, she would have been shunned by the other women in her attempt to rear him properly. Perhaps it was this marginalization of Boaz and his mom that gave him the empathy for another woman similarly without country or friends.

The irony, of course, and the end of the story is that Ruth and Boaz married each other. But there's more: Rahab was one of a very few women listed in Matthew 1 as an ancestor of Christ. God indeed is the God of mercy, grace, and forgiveness.