The Story of Ruth

The Story of Ruth

Reading the Book of Ruth
Adele Berlin
July 16, 2021
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Depending on whether you ’ re using a jewish or christian interpretation, the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and Samuel or between the Song of Songs and Lamentations. But wherever it appears in your bible, you will want to find it and study it again after you read “ Ruth—Big Theme, Little Book, ” primitively published in the August 1996 issue of Bible Review. In this article, Adele Berlin argues that Ruth illuminates the main theme of the Hebrew Bible : the continuity of God ’ mho people in their land. —Ed.

Ruth—Big Theme, Little Book

By Adele Berlin

In unlike Bibles, the Book of Ruth is put in different places. In christian Bibles it is slipped in between Judges and Samuel, among the historic books. In the Hebrew Bible it ’ second in an wholly unlike topographic point, in the third section, known as the Writings. It does not seem to fit neatly into the sequence of biblical books. If this suggests that the Book of Ruth is an anomaly, I propose to show that, on the contrary, its thematic connections with the perch of the Bible are a lot stronger than we broadly perceive .
On its face, the Book of Ruth is a inadequate self-contained story, unconnected to the narrative sequence from Genesis through Kings. The narrative begins not in Israel or Judah but in Moab, where the Israelite Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, and her two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, went during a famine in Judah. There her husband died, and her sons married Moabite women named Ruth and Orpah .
When the story opens, Naomi ’ s sons have good died. Thrice-bereaved of any provider, Naomi decides to return to Judah, having heard that the Lord had given food to her people in Bethlehem. She urges Ruth and Orpah to remain in Moab with their parental families. Orpah agrees, but Ruth refuses with the make noise words :
Wherever you go, I will go ; wherever you lodge, I will lodge ; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. frankincense and more may the Lord do to me if anything but death partially me from you .
Ruth 1:16, 17
together they journey to Naomi ’ s former home in Bethlehem .

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In the Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, top scholars discuss the historical Israelites in Egypt and archaeological attest for and against the historicity of the Exodus. But once there they have to provide for themselves. Since it ’ s meter for the barley harvest, Ruth decides to glean from a airfield. Although she doesn ’ triiodothyronine know it, the field she chooses belongs to a affluent kinsman of Elimelech named Boaz. When Boaz visits the field and hears of Ruth ’ s commitment to his akin Naomi, he instructs his workers to allow her to glean unmolested and even to leave extra grain in her path .
meanwhile, in seeking to find a conserve for Ruth, Naomi advises her to go to the threshing floor on the night Boaz winnows barley, to wash and prepare herself, and to uncover Boaz ’ second feet and lie future to them while he sleeps. This Ruth does. When Boaz awakes, startled to find Ruth at his feet, she asks him to spread his robe over her—a symbolic act of espousal—because Boaz is a “ redemptive kinsman, ” that is, one who has a correct to redeem Elimelech ’ s property and at the lapp time to marry his son ’ mho widow so a “ to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate ” ( Ruth 4:5 ). Boaz, impressed that Ruth has chosen him, an older man, out of kin loyalty, agrees with exuberance to have her, so long as the one serviceman in Bethlehem who is a closer redeeming kinsman does not want Ruth for himself .
The count is soon settled. When Boaz and the eligible kinsman meet at the city gate, the other homo says to Boaz, “ You take over my right of redemption, for I am unable to exercise it ” ( Ruth 4:6 ). And as was the custom in Israel, Boaz takes off his sandal to validate the transaction of his becoming redeemer and says to the witnesses :
today I am acquiring from Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and to Chilion and Mahlon [ his sons ]. I am besides acquiring Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, as my wife, so as to perpetuate [ Mahlon ’ s ] name upon his estate, that [ his ] name may not disappear from among his kinsmen .
Ruth 4:9, 10
So they were married and had a son, Obed, who “ was the church father of Jesse, father of David ” ( Ruth 4:17 ) .
That the Book of Ruth is read in the synagogue on the festival of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah ( the Five Books of Moses ), alerts us to the book ’ s possible connections with the Torah. But alas, both the common explanation ( that Shavuot celebrates the spring granulate reap, which forms the dress for the book ) and versatile lesser-known explanations ( that David, a great-grandson of Ruth, died on Shavuot or that Ruth ’ s loyalty to Naomi symbolizes Israel ’ s loyalty to the Torah ) touch only upon superficial connections or are clearly midrashic 1 efforts to forge a connection .
I propose a much more fundamental and far-reaching link between Ruth and the Torah—indeed, with the entire Bible—a link that goes to the identical heart of the overarching subject of the Bible .
The composition that unites the books from Genesis through Kings and informs much of the Prophets and the Writings is the state and the people. God ’ s covenant with Abraham lies at its heart. God says to Abraham :
Raise your eyes and look out from where you are, to the north and confederacy, to the east and west, for I give all the land that you see to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring besides can be counted.

genesis 13:14–16
The early chapters of Genesis are a prologue to this covenant, describing the universe of all the nation in the world and of all of its peoples, until the narrative focuses on one particular family : Abraham ’ randomness. The rest of Genesis concentrates on the emergence of this family ( the “ people ” ) as they move from Haran to Canaan, to the Negev, to Egypt, to Hebron, to Dan and to Beersheba. By the end of Genesis the extensive family is settled in Egypt .
Abraham ’ second family is first called a people in Exodus : A “ new king get up over Egypt, ” and he said : “ ‘ Look, the Israelite people ( am bnei israel ) are much excessively numerous for us ’ ” ( Exodus 1:8, 9 ) .
The narrative from Exodus to Deuteronomy relates the hark back of this people from Egypt to the land they have been promised. The section known in jewish custom as the Former Prophets ( Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings ) details the vicissitudes of the people in the promise land, until, at the goal of Kings, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquers the territory of Judah and sends its people into expatriate. Ezra / Nehemiah recount the people ’ s render to the land and the restoration of the community in it .
Read more about women in the Bible, including Lilith, Jezebel, Judith, and Lydia and Tabitha .
The Book of Ruth, besides, is about exile and return, state and people. Like Abraham, and like the family of Jacob ( see the fib of Joseph ), the family of Elimelech was forced by famine to leave its home in the land of Israel and to preserve itself in a extraneous land. When the dearth abates, Naomi returns to Bethlehem. far from being a casual move, the importance of returning is emphasized in chapter 1 by the repetition of the root shuv, “ come back, ” twelve times as Naomi bids her daughter-in-law render to their families in Moab and as she returns to Judah with Ruth. technically Ruth can not return to Bethlehem, since the Moabite woman has never been there. Her return is actually Naomi ’ randomness return ; Ruth is known in Bethlehem as “ the one who returned with Naomi ” ( Ruth 2:6 ) .
Land plays a big character in the Book of Ruth. First, Ruth establishes a physical connection with her newly adopted land as she gleans in Boaz ’ sulfur playing field. Second, and more complicate, Naomi offers for sale or redemption a parcel of land that once belonged to her husband, Elimelech .
This transaction raises legal questions, but more importantly, the proper inheritance of land has extra meaning in the Bible. Land was not to be alienated from its original owner or from his descendants. This principle lies behind many of the Bible ’ s laws and narratives—from the division of property between Lot and Abraham, when Lot chooses the knit of the Jordan River and Abraham remains in the land of Canaan ( Genesis 13:9–12 ) ; to the claims of the daughters of Tzelofchad, who gained the right to inherit the kingdom when their father died without sons ( Numbers 27 ) ; to the laws of the jubilee years when the land returns to its master owner ( Leviticus 25 ) ; and to the judgment that falls on King Ahab and Queen Jezebel for having Nabot killed then they could get his vineyard ( 1 Kings 21 ) .
Central to the Book of Ruth is the initiation of the goel, the “ jesus ” whose duty, according to Leviticus 25:25, is to buy back any land sold by his kinsman out of economic necessity. Seen against this background, the references to land in the Book of Ruth not only provide the setting for a pastoral romance, they besides link the history to the covenant theme of land—whether private or national .
however, the family and people separate of the covenant root is more outstanding than the country separate in the Book of Ruth. At first it would seem that the ties that bind Naomi, Ruth and Orpah after the deaths of their husbands do not make them a family in any customary common sense. They have no legal debt instrument to one another and can offer each early no common auspices or support. More to the bespeak, none of them seems to be able to restore the syndicate by producing an successor. It is consequently wholly appropriate that Orpah accedes to Naomi ’ s suggestion that she remain in Moab with her parental class. Ruth ’ sulfur response is extraordinary, for she is under no duty to care for Naomi, just as Naomi, with her own extraordinary response, is under no obligation to provide for Ruth. Ruth ’ s poetic words, “ Wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge, I will lodge, ” are rightly celebrated, both for their beauty of expression and for their sentiment. “ Your people shall be my people, and your God my God ” is a radical idea because it signals that Ruth is changing her identity in a world where that was about impossible. The ancient universe had no mechanism for religious conversion or transfer of citizenship ; the very notion was unthinkable. religion and peoplehood defined one ’ s cultural identity, and this could no more be changed than the color of one ’ south skin. A Moabite was always a Moabite, wherever he or she lived. And indeed, Ruth is referred to throughout the floor as “ the Moabitess. ” But from Ruth ’ s point of view, she is becoming an Israelite. She is joining herself to Naomi not only on the private class grade, but besides on the national peoplehood flat .
In this coming together of class and peoplehood, we are again reminded of the stories of the patriarch, in which the family represents the people. In the patriarchal stories the main concern was the establishment of the family line—the quest for an heir whom God will designate as the one through whom the people of Israel will be born. The amazing thing about these accounts is that, although lineage is defined through the males, it is the women who take duty for the continuity of the family and the guardianship of its lineage. It is the women, often despite their husbands, who ensure the birth of the adjacent generation and who direct the proper line of inheritance. Sarah, at first barren, provides a surrogate mother ( Hagar ) for Abraham, and by and by, when she bears her own son, Isaac, sees to it, with God ’ s approval, that he—not Ishmael—is the designated heir. Isaac ’ s wife Rebekah besides guides the line of descent away from Esau and toward Jacob, as God had wanted. In the stories of Jacob ’ mho wives, Leah and Rachel, the write out is no longer which son will be the heir, for they are all “ the children of Israel. ” Rather, the emphasis is on the collection of offspring. Rachel, initially barren, is jealous of Leah ’ s ability to bear children and therefore supplies her maid Bilhah to Jacob for this purpose ( as Sarah had done for Abraham ). Leah, during a hiatus in her childbearing, does the lapp by giving her maid Zilpah to Jacob as a concubine. Leah and Rachel ’ s readiness to bear children for Jacob is again emphasized when they argue over who shall use the aphrodisiac mandrakes found by Leah ’ s son ( Genesis 30:14–16 ). In all, Leah and Rachel provide Jacob with 12 sons ( and one daughter ), who will in turn father the 12 tribes—the people of Israel .

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Ruth ’ s explicit connect to Rachel and Leah occurs in the blessing of the town as they witness Boaz ’ sulfur redemption of Ruth and of the land of Elimelech and Mahlon : “ May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Israel ” ( Ruth 4:11 ). In the bless, the town add a specific citation to Judah, the fall through of Boaz ’ s tribe : “ May your theater be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah ” ( Ruth 4:12 ) .
The history of Tamar and Judah is besides a narrative of kin continuity achieved by the decision of a charwoman. Tamar bears twins, Perez and Zerah, after she masquerades as a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law, Judah, who had failed to fulfill his promise to give her his youngest son Shelah as a husband after his two older sons had died while married to her ( Genesis 38 ) .
The references in the Book of Ruth to Rachel, Leah and Tamar serve not only to welcome Ruth into the Judahite community by linking her with the mothers of that residential district, they specially lead us to view Ruth in the mold of the heroic verse women who ensured the preservation of the people of Israel. Thanks to Ruth, the family of Naomi ( queerly, the text does not put it in terms of Elimelech or Mahlon ) survives. The child born to Ruth and Boaz is “ a son…born to Naomi ” who will “ renew her life. ” For Naomi, Ruth is better than seven sons ( Ruth 4:15 ), for she produces what Naomi ’ s sons failed to, an successor .
An heir implies an inheritance, and in the Bible that means kingdom. At the end of the Book of Ruth, the themes of kingdom and family come together. Boaz reunites the family with its land by redeeming Elimelech ’ s state and by marrying Ruth, the widow of Elimelech ’ s son, Mahlon. The report comes full circle : The syndicate that left its land and had no descendants returns to its fatherland and acquires an heir and a birthright .
This would be uplifting even on the flush of an individual family ; but like the patriarchal stories, the Book of Ruth speaks to the national level angstrom well. This is no anonymous family that is restored—this is the kin into which King David will be born. Just as Ruth ’ second adoption of both Naomi ’ mho people and God raises their return key to Bethlehem from the personal to the national grade, so the genealogies at the end of the book lift the narrative to the national level. One genealogy begins with Obed, son of Boaz and Ruth, and culminates three generations later in David ; the second goes second to Perez, the son of Judah and Tamar, then leads to Salmon, father of Boaz, and after ten generations besides culminates in David .

In the free eBook
In the Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, acme scholars discuss the historical Israelites in Egypt and archaeological attest for and against the historicity of the Exodus. David, as Israel ’ s greatest king, founded the Davidic dynasty, the one to which God promised an ageless kingdom. David represents both the United Monarchy at its stature and the promise of its ageless being. The covenant with David, like the covenant with Abraham, is an emblem of God ’ s promise to Israel. The fib of Ruth provides for David the same model that produced the patriarchal line and the line of Judah—namely, the prolongation of the family through the deeds of women—and it thereby joins the covenant with David to the covenant with Abraham. The promise to Abraham of offspring and land is renewed in the promise to David of the dynasty and the kingdom. The theme of family continuity becomes the theme of national continuity. The Book of Ruth is the bridge between the era of Israel as family or tribe and Israel as nation. Far from being peripheral to the main narrative sequence of the Bible, Ruth dramatizes its principal theme : the continuity of this people in their domain .
Adapted from Reading Ruth, edited by Judith Kates and Gail Reimer ( ©1994 ), Ballantine Books, a division of Random House.

“ Ruth—Big Theme, Little Book ” by Adele Berlin originally appeared in Bible Review, August 1996 .
Adele Berlin was the Robert H. Smith Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Maryland before retiring. A groundbreaking literary critic, her 1994 book Poetics and Interpretation in Biblical Narrative is a seminal textbook. She is one of the few women to serve as the President of the Society of Biblical Literature. Her many publications include Zephaniah ( Doubleday, 1991 ), biblical Poetry Through Medieval Jewish Eyes ( Indiana Univ. Press, 1991 ) and The JPS Commentary : Esther ( jewish Publication Society, 2001 ) .

Notes:

1. Midrashic rendition departs from the plain sense or context of a bible passing in order to fill in gaps, invent links with early parts of the Bible, or teach ethical and religious values .