ENDURING BLESSING Interactions between Israelites and Moabites illustrate that earned blessing will endure and be fulfilled at God’s choosing irrespective of other events that may occur in its path. Moabites incurred God’s anger by showing themselves to be a source of temptation to alternative worship and presenting enmity when prior relationships called on them to be friendly. God frowned on their behavior and prohibited Israelites from intermingling with them. Yet he granted them protected territory and selected Moabite daughter Ruth to become a grandmother along the lineage of the Messiah, which fulfills blessing that the ancestral father of the Moabites earned by following Abraham on a mission to establish homeland for Christ’s ancestry.
We continue our study series on Ruth by looking back at interactions between Moabites and Israelites prior to her time. The interactions illustrate that earned blessing will endure and be fulfilled at God’s choosing irrespective of other events that may occur in its path. Moabites incurred God’s anger at various times. They were a source of temptation because they worshiped other gods and lured their friends into their form of worship. Furthermore, they failed to honor friendship that they owed to Israelites on account of relationships between their ancestors. Instead, they sought war against Israelites: invoking a diviner to weaken them with a curse or taking up arms against them when they could. Despite all these, God granted Moabites a protected territory and, several generations later, chose a Moabite daughter Ruth to become grandmother along the lineage of Christ.
These interactions help our understanding that earned blessing and incurred punishment are parallel promises from God that may coexist for a person and be fulfilled separately at God’s choosing. Furthermore, they do not off-set or trade off against each other.
Continue reading “Enduring Blessing—Lessons from Israelite-Moabite Interactions”
