Closing the Circuit

God never intervenes in the book of Ruth the way we expect: no theophany, no miracle, no deus ex machina. To the extent the characters see him at work, it is only at a great distance: they are starving and grieving in Moab, but hear of others celebrating a plentiful harvest in Israel. Yet the book shows us that in fact God is at work all over, using the faithfulness of ordinary people to accomplish redemption. We see this in chapter three, when the components of God’s plan to save Naomi and Ruth begin to come together in one of the most astonishing marriage proposals in all literature. Erik described this using an analogy with an electrical circuit:

Redemption couldn’t happen if God wasn’t at work here, there, everywhere. It reminds me of an electrical circuit, where you have an energy source with two lines going out, one carrying positive charges and the other carrying negative charges. On their own, neither line does anything. But when those two lines connect and close the loop, those charges become an electrical current and that electricity becomes light and power. It’s similar with God’s providence in this story: only when what God is doing in Moab and what God is doing in Bethlehem meet—when the circuit is closed—can you finally see the flash of redemption!