Ruth, Book

Through subtle echoes of other biblical narratives, the book of Ruth recasts women not as rivals competing for men, but as partners bound by loyalty and kindness.

Does Naomi appreciate Ruth? Is she embraced by the women of Bethlehem? How does the narrator of the Book of Ruth regard her? And why, at the end of the story, is Ruth effectively erased, and her child appropriated by Naomi?

In Persian Yehud, as Deuteronomy’s covenant with YHWH was championed as the new path to national security and blessing, the book of Ruth countered with a conservative vision—one in which the survival and well-being of two vulnerable widows are secured not through covenantal fidelity, but through traditional values and customary law.

Why are the Books of Ruth and Esther so much alike?

Lot’s older daughter gets him drunk and conceives the forefather of the Moabites. Tamar, Boaz’s foremother, conceals her identity from her father-in-law, Judah, to bear his child. Although Naomi encourages Ruth to seduce Boaz, Ruth reveals her identity to him, thereby correcting the legacy of her foremothers, including that of the daughters of the Moabites, who seduced the Israelites into apostasy.

The story has a comic undergirding as Naomi and Ruth teach the staid patriarch Boaz a humanitarian lesson.

When Boaz sees Ruth gleaning in the field, and learns who she is, he offers her protection from his own workers’ predatory behavior, giving us a glimpse at what poor women, gleaning in the field, had to contend with.

Despite its name in tradition, the story revolves around Naomi—her feelings and her needs.

With its sensitively portrayed characters and quotidian contexts, the story of Ruth and Naomi underscores questions about the good path in life, the choices we make, and especially the role of the deity who controls all. The narrative also touches upon a wide array of issues concerning gender, economic deprivation, the status of the migrant, and other matters.

Chesed, lovingkindness, is a major theme in the book of Ruth. And yet, the rabbis have little sympathy for Orpah. To the contrary!

Boaz’s speech to the unnamed kinsman (Ruth 4:5) is difficult. By interpreting one element as an enclitic mem, as found in Eblaite, and by making use of the alternative textual option known as the ketiv, a new meaning for Boaz’s claim emerges.

Ruth’s consumption of barley and wheat gleaned from the field of Boaz was an integral step in her transformation from a “foreigner” who arrived from the fields of Moab to a “daughter” in Judah.

The agricultural allocations for the poor outlined in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are a series of negative commandments, in which God forbids Israelite householders from gathering some of their produce and requires them to leave it for the poor. The rabbis took these laws a step further, granting the poor property rights over the allocations even before they are gathered.

The book of Ruth presents a different model of justice from that afforded by statute, custom, and precedent, one that seeks restorative as opposed to retributive justice.

The book of Ruth tells the story of David’s great grandmother Ruth, a Moabite woman who attaches herself to a Judahite family. Could this have been designed as a positive spin for a persistent, problematic tradition about David’s foreignness—a tradition so controversial that it was excised from the rest of the Bible?

The mistaken exchange of the letter gimel for a vav corrupted the meaning of a key verse in Ruth.

A look at Naomi’s theology, as expressed in her poem, and how it carries her through her grief and back into productive engagement.

By comparing the aggressive approach of Nehemiah towards the foreign wives of the Judahites with the positive role of Ruth as a Moabite woman who married into an Israelite family, we can attempt to uncover the core messages about Jewish identity that the two texts have in common.

A tale of chesed and chutzpah