What Goes Around
“May the Lord reward your work, and may your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” Ruth 2:12 NASB
Reward – It’s such a shame that the translation of this Hebrew word into English leaves us without all the deep connections it should imply. Take a look at the English verse. You will find “reward,” “requite,” “repay,” “recompense,” and “wages be full.” Not once do any of these versions tell you that the root is šālēm, which, of course, is the root for šālôm. Much more than quid pro quo is involved here. But the true meaning isn’t the only thing we need to understand. Note the comment by authors Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer Kensky:
“Calling upon Israel’s God (twice in this sentence) and asking for divine protection of Ruth, Boaz invokes the theological hope that Ruth herself articulated on the road to Bethlehem. Yes, as the story unfolds, he himself undertakes the task he now ascribes to God, namely, protection, when he acts to secure Ruth’s welfare.”[1]
The authors continue, pointing out that the Hebrew phrase yeshallem po’oleikh . . . maskoret has parallels in Jeremiah 31:16 (Rachel crying for her children where the reward is their return) and in Isaiah 40:10 and 62:11 where the reference is to God Himself as reward. They make the point that recompense and wages are both indicated by the same Hebrew root. For our purposes, the crucial connection isn’t to any specific form of payment. It’s the connection to šālôm. Boaz doesn’t just tell Ruth that God will find a way to repay her. He tells Ruth that God is interested in her complete well-being, and because God is interested in her šālôm, Boaz takes it upon himself to do all that he can to make God’s concern a reality.
It seems to me that there is an important lesson about prayer in this pericope. Anthony Bloom writes: “It is absolutely pointless to ask God for something which we ourselves are not prepared to do.”[2] When Boaz invokes God’s protection, he is willing to do precisely what he asks God to do. He doesn’t wait with hopeful anticipation for a miracle to fall from the sky. He gives her grain. He doesn’t sit back expecting God to send a prophet to strike the rock. He gives her water. He does all that is within his power to make a “miracle” happen. And it does happen, even if we never actually see God show up in the story.
Prayer is like that. Consider the things that are really on your heart. What are those deepest troubles, those overwhelming joys, those unmitigated anxieties that circle around your pedestrian prayers, floating in the air like great balloons ready to burst? Take the pin from your bag of here-and-now actions and prick them. Let them collapse on to you, so that you are the active agent of divine intervention. Be Hannah in intensity, Boaz in action. Perhaps we need to add The Boaz footnote to James’ famous verse, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16), especially when he does something about it.
Topical Index: Boaz, šālôm, reward, recompense, prayer, James 5:16, Ruth 2:12
[1] Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer Kensky, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth, p. 38.
[2] Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray, p. 64.
