The Book of Ruth

Ruth is a breath of fresh air after all the chaotic violence of Judges. This is more a sitcom at times.

During the time of the Judges, a severe famine ravaged Israel. A family moves from Bethlehem to the Moabites to escape the famine. In the land of the Moabites, the sons of the family marry Moabite women. Then, the father and both sons die, leaving three widows. Meanwhile, the famine in Israel is over, and Noami (the wife of the father) decides to return to Bethlehem. One of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, goes back with her.

There in Bethlehem, Ruth works the fields as a poor person harvesting the leftover crops. She is noticed by the field's owner, Boaz who lets her work the fields alongside his main harvester and take the grain back on her own. Boaz, as it turns out, is a relative of Naomi's late husband. If we remember, male relatives of the deceased were supposed to marry their widows.

Eventually, Naomi can see that Boaz has a thing for Ruth, so she hatches plan to take it to the next level. She tells Ruth to bathe, wear her best clothes, put on perfume, and then sleep at Boaz's feet. This would be quite forward even in America today.

Boaz wakes up, sees Ruth, and we can only imagine what's in his mind. He agrees that he will redeem (marry in the sense of marrying a widow of a relative) Ruth, but there is a closer male relative to the deceased man, who has the right of first refusal of Ruth.

Boaz then hatches a plan to tie the marriage of Ruth with the purchase of the field of the man who died. If the other relative wants to buy the field, he must also redeem Ruth. I am not quite sure how exactly that works, but the other relative declines the field because marriage to Ruth would mess up his estate planning. That I understand.

So then Boaz buys the field and marries this hot Moabite woman, Ruth. They become ancestors of King David.

The story of Ruth provides some necessary comic relief coming off the book of Judges. It also seems to function as a transition from the Judges, which ends with "there was no king in Israel" to a story of the ancestors of Israel's two greatest kings David and Solomon, and hence Jesus.

The story also gives us some indication of what everyday life was like during the time of Judges. We also see several Mosaic laws in action that are critical to the story - poor people collecting leftovers and "redeeming" widows of relatives.