Thr 76 - Ruth 1–2 · Acts 3 - FeedTheGoodHorse
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Day 76: Ruth 1–2 · Acts 3 · Commentary · Commentary² · Audio
The Bible text is included for reading continuity; it is accurate in substance, aligned with major modern translations, and may be read alongside any Bible you prefer.1
Special Note about the following Bible text: The following translation uses the Hebrew terms tamé (טָמֵא) and tahor (טָהוֹר) instead of the traditional “unclean” and “clean.” These terms describe ritual status in relation to sanctuary access, not moral fault, shame, or physical dirtiness. A fuller explanation will follow in a dedicated article.
Ruth 1
In the days when the judges governed, a famine came over the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah went to stay in the fields of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They came into the fields of Moab and remained there.
Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she remained with her two sons. They took wives from the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and without her husband.
She rose, she and her daughters-in-law, and returned from the fields of Moab, because she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had attended to his people by giving them bread. She went out from the place where she had been, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they walked on the road to return to the land of Judah.
Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal with you in faithful kindness, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May the Lord grant that you find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted their voices and wept.
They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”
Naomi said, “Return, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Do I still have sons in my body, that they could become your husbands? Return, my daughters, go, for I am too old to belong to a husband. If I said I have hope, even if I belonged to a husband tonight and even bore sons, would you wait for them until they grew? Would you keep yourselves from belonging to a husband for them? No, my daughters. It is far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.”
They lifted their voices and wept again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law.”
But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you, to turn back from following after you. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, and more besides, if anything but death separates me from you.”
When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her about it.
The two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came into Bethlehem, the whole town stirred because of them, and the women said, “Is this Naomi?”
She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, because the Mighty One has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why would you call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Mighty One has brought calamity upon me?”
Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the fields of Moab. They came into Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Ruth 2
Naomi had a relative of her husband, a capable man from the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz.
Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go into the field and gather among the ears of grain after the one in whose eyes I find favor.”
Naomi said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
She went and came and gathered in the field after the harvesters, and she happened to come upon the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the family of Elimelech.
Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, “The Lord be with you.”
They said to him, “May the Lord bless you.”
Boaz said to his young man who was set over the harvesters, “Whose young woman is this?”
The young man who was set over the harvesters answered and said, “She is the Moabite young woman who returned with Naomi from the fields of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me gather and collect among the bundles after the harvesters.’ So she came and has remained from morning until now, except for a short rest.”
Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go to gather in another field, and do not pass from here, but stay close by my young women. Let your eyes be on the field where they harvest, and go after them. Have I not instructed the young men not to touch you? When you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn.”
She fell on her face and bowed to the ground and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
Boaz answered and said to her, “It has fully been told to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband, how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people whom you had not known before. May the Lord repay your work, and may your reward be complete from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.”
She said, “May I find favor in your eyes, my lord, because you have comforted me and have spoken to the heart of your servant, though I am not like one of your servants.”
At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here, and eat from the bread, and dip your piece in the vinegar.”
She sat beside the harvesters, and he passed to her roasted grain. She ate and was satisfied and had some left over.
When she rose to gather, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her gather even among the bundles, and do not shame her. Also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it, so that she may gather, and do not rebuke her.”
She gathered in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gathered, and it was about an ephah of barley.
She lifted it and came into the town, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gathered. She also brought out and gave to her what she had left over after she was satisfied.
Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you gather today? Where did you work? May the one who noticed you be blessed.”
She told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, who has not abandoned his faithful kindness to the living and to the dead.”
Naomi said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours; he is one of our redeemers.”
Ruth the Moabite said, “He also said to me, ‘Stay close by my young men until they finish all my harvest.’”
Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, so that in another field they do not harm you.”
So she stayed close to the young women of Boaz to gather until the barley harvest and the wheat harvest were finished, and she lived with her mother-in-law.
Acts 3
Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. A man who had been unable to walk from birth was being carried there. Every day they placed him at the temple gate called Beautiful so that he could ask for gifts from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for a gift.
Peter looked directly at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” So he paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you: in the name of Jesus the Messiah of Nazareth, walk.” Then he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles became strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God.
All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple asking for gifts. They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
While he was holding on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the covered walkway called Solomon’s Portico, completely astonished. When Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why are you staring at us as though by our own power or devotion we made him walk?
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—the God of our ancestors—has honored his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the holy and righteous one and asked for a man who had committed murder to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
And by faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. The faith that comes through him has given him this complete health in the presence of all of you.
Now, siblings, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your leaders did. But this is how God fulfilled what he had announced beforehand through the mouths of all the prophets—that his Messiah would suffer.
So change your mind and turn back, so that your wrongdoings may be wiped away, so that times of relief may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the one appointed for you—the Messiah, Jesus—whom heaven must receive until the time of restoration of all things that God spoke about long ago through the mouths of his holy prophets.
Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your siblings. You must listen to him in everything he tells you. And it will be that every person who does not listen to that prophet will be completely removed from among the people.’
And all the prophets who spoke, from Samuel and those who came after him, also announced these days. You are the children of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.’
When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you away from your wrongdoings.”
Commentary - Day 76
Ruth 1–2 · Acts 3
Summary:
Famine drives Naomi’s family from Bethlehem into Moab, where death leaves her without husband or sons. Hearing that bread has returned to Judah, she sets out for home. Orpah turns back, but Ruth clings and travels with Naomi into Bethlehem at the start of barley harvest. Ruth gathers leftover grain and comes into the portion belonging to Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s family. He allows her to remain among his workers, protects her, and ensures that grain is left for her to gather. Ruth returns to Naomi carrying provision, and Boaz is named as a redeemer from among their kin.
At the temple gate, a man unable to walk from birth is raised to his feet and enters walking, drawing a crowd that recognizes him. Peter redirects their attention away from human ability and toward the God long known to their ancestors. He speaks of earlier rejection, calls the listeners to turn from past actions, and frames the healing as a sign pointing toward restoration promised through generations of prophets, urging a change of direction that allows renewal to begin.
Ruth 1 begins in the days when the judges governed, when famine presses movement outward from Bethlehem into the fields of Moab. Elimelech travels with Naomi and their sons, crossing into foreign land to remain there. Death interrupts settlement: first the husband falls, leaving Naomi with her sons; later the sons themselves die after taking wives from among the Moabites. The household that once entered Moab as a family becomes reduced to three widowed women. News of bread returning to Bethlehem reaches Naomi in Moab, and movement reverses direction. She rises to leave the fields of Moab and begins the journey home with her daughters-in-law walking beside her. Speech interrupts the road as Naomi urges them to return to their mother’s houses, naming her own emptiness and the absence of sons who could restore their future. Tears accompany the decision point. Orpah turns back toward her people and her gods, but Ruth remains, fastening herself to Naomi through spoken commitment that binds her future to Naomi’s people, land, and burial place. The journey resumes with two women instead of three, and their arrival in Bethlehem stirs recognition among the townspeople. Naomi renames herself Mara, marking bitterness in place of fullness, and the chapter closes with their entrance at the beginning of barley harvest, placing scarcity and provision side by side at the threshold of return.
Ruth 2 shifts from arrival to labor. Naomi names a relative from the family of Elimelech, a man of standing called Boaz. Ruth requests permission to gather among the leftover grain after the harvesters, seeking favor in fields not her own. She moves into the field and happens upon land belonging to Boaz, placing her labor inside the territory of kin without planning the encounter herself. Boaz arrives and notices her presence among the workers. Questions identify her as the Moabite woman who returned with Naomi, and the report of her actions toward Naomi becomes known before she speaks for herself. Boaz directs her to remain within his field, to gather behind the women, and to drink from vessels prepared by his workers. Her response lowers her posture to the ground, acknowledging foreignness while receiving favor. Words spoken over her name refuge under the wings of the God of Israel, linking her movement from Moab to protection within Israel’s fields. At mealtime she sits among the harvesters and eats from what is passed to her, leaving satisfied with food remaining. Further instructions follow: the workers are told to leave grain deliberately within reach so that gathering may continue without shame. The day closes with Ruth returning to Naomi carrying measured grain and leftover food, placing visible provision inside the household that had returned empty. Naomi names Boaz as a redeemer from among their kin, and Ruth continues to gather through the barley and wheat harvests, remaining close to Naomi in sustained labor across changing seasons.
Acts 3 begins at the temple gate called Beautiful, where a man unable to walk from birth is placed daily to ask for gifts from those entering. Peter and John approach at the hour of prayer, and the man directs his request toward them, expecting silver or gold. Attention shifts when Peter calls him to look directly at them. Words follow that replace expected currency with command, spoken in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Contact accompanies speech as Peter takes the man by the hand and raises him upward. Strength enters the limbs that had never supported weight, and standing becomes movement. The man enters the temple walking and leaping, visible to those who had long recognized him seated at the gate. Recognition spreads through the crowd as astonishment gathers around the place where he had once begged. The gathering shifts toward Solomon’s Portico, where the healed man remains attached to those who raised him. Peter speaks into the attention directed toward them, redirecting the source of the event away from personal power and toward the God named through the ancestors. The speech recalls rejection and death, then names resurrection witnessed among them. The visible strength in the healed man becomes testimony spoken aloud before those who see him standing. The call moves toward turning and restoration, connecting the present act to promises spoken through prophets and carried forward from earlier generations.
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