Ruth's Loyalty

Ruth 1:16-17 (KJV)

¹⁶ And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
¹⁷ Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: theLord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

The Book of Ruth is one of the Bible's shortest books, telling its story in only 4 chapters. Its main character is a Moabite woman named Ruth, the daughter-in-law of a Jewish widow named Naomi. It's an intimate family tale of misfortune, crafty use of kinship ties, and ultimately, loyalty.

Not only is the Book of Ruth short, it's in an odd place, since it interrupts the grand sweep of history found in the books around it. These "history" books include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. They're called the Deuteronomistic History because they all share theological principles expressed in the Book of Deuteronomy. Specifically, they're based on the idea that God had direct, intimate relationships with the descendants of Abraham, the Jews, and was involved directly in shaping Israel's history.

So what about Ruth?

So how does the protagonist of the Book of Ruth become an important ancestor of David and Jesus? In brief, her story goes like this:

During a famine, a man named Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, east from their home in Bethlehem in Judea to a country called Moab. After their father's death, the sons married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. They lived together for about 10 years until both Mahlon and Chilion died, leaving their mother Naomi to live with her daughters-in-law.

Hearing that the famine was over in Judah, Naomi decided to return to her home, and she urged her daughters-in-law to return to their own mothers in Moab. After much dispute, Orpah acceded to her mother-in-law's wishes and left her, weeping. But the Bible says Ruth "clung to" Naomi and uttered now-famous words: "Where you go I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).

Once they reach Bethlehem, Naomi and Ruth seek food by gleaning grain from the field of a kinsman of Naomi's named Boaz. As they do so, Boaz sees Ruth gleaning, so he introduces himself and tells her that his workers will protect her and share their provisions with her. Ruth thanks Boaz, but then she questions why she, a foreigner, should receive such kindness. Boaz replies that he has learned of Ruth's faithfulness to her mother-in-law, and then he prays the God of Israel to bless Ruth for her loyalty.

Hearing of Boaz's interest in Ruth, Naomi then contrives to get Ruth married to Boaz by invoking her kinship with him. She sends Ruth to Boaz at night to offer herself to him, but Boaz, being an upright man, refuses to take advantage of her. Instead he helps Naomi and Ruth negotiate some rituals of inheritance, after which Boaz marries Ruth. Soon they have a son, Obed, who fathered a son named Jesse, who was the father of David, who became king of a unified Israel.

The Reasons Behind the Story

Ultimately, the reasons behind the story of Ruth are twofold. First, unlike the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that demanded Jews divorce foreign wives, Ruth shows that outsiders who profess faith in Israel's God can be fully assimilated into Jewish society. The Book of Ruth's original placement next to Ezra and Nehemiah would have served to emphasize how petty and short-sighted a policy of racial purity would have been for the Jews.

Second, and more important, Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of Israel's heroic king, David. This means that not only could a foreigner be completely assimilated, but he or she might be God's instrument for some higher good. Thus the Book of Ruth becomes one of the first calls for universality rather than tribalism in Judaism.

The latter concept also lies behind connecting the ancestry of Jesus to the House of David. David was Israel's greatest hero, a messiah (god-sent leader) in his own right. Jesus' lineage from David's family in both blood through his mother Mary and legal kinship through his foster father Joseph gave him royal credence among his followers as the messiah who would liberate the Jews. Thus for Christians, the Book of Ruth represents an early sign that the Messiah would liberate all of humankind, not solely the Jews.

Her story is one that continues to inspire Jewish and Christian believers today. It has always been an inspiration to me. As LGBT Christians, we are often seen as outsiders, just as Ruth was because she was a Moabite; however, our loyalty to God and our faith is what liberates us.

Sources

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version (Oxford University Press, 1994).

The Jewish Study Bible, TANAKH Translation (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, The Old and New Testaments (Avenel Books, 1981).