Ruth & Naomi

A Famine and Three Deaths

“In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land” (Ruth 1:1). Elimelech of Bethlehem in Judah took his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to live for a while in Moab (Ruth 1:1–2). Elimelech died. The two sons married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, and “they lived there about ten years” (Ruth 1:4). Then Mahlon and Chilion died too, and “the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband” (Ruth 1:5).

Scripture does not say whether Elimelech was right to go to Moab, nor why the men died.

Your God, My God

In Moab, Naomi heard “how the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread” (Ruth 1:6), and set out for home. She urged her two daughters-in-law to go back, saying, “the LORD’s hand has gone out against me” (Ruth 1:13). Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, “but Ruth stayed with her” (Ruth 1:14).

Ruth said, “where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). She bound herself with an oath in the LORD’s name: “May the LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me” (Ruth 1:17).

The two of them came to Bethlehem, and the whole town was stirred. Naomi said, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1:20–21). They arrived “in the beginning of barley harvest” (Ruth 1:22).

Gleaning

Ruth said to Naomi, “Let me now go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I find favor” (Ruth 2:2). Scripture says that “she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech” (Ruth 2:3).

Boaz had heard about her. Ruth bowed to the ground and asked him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take knowledge of me, since I am a foreigner?” (Ruth 2:10). Boaz answered that he had been told what she had done for her mother-in-law, and how she had “come to a people that you didn’t know before” (Ruth 2:11). He said, “May the LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given to you from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (Ruth 2:12).

Boaz told his young men to leave extra grain for her (Ruth 2:15–16). When Ruth came home and Naomi heard the name Boaz, she said, “The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen” (Ruth 2:20). Ruth gleaned in his field “to the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and she lived with her mother-in-law” (Ruth 2:23).

The Night at the Threshing Floor

Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?” (Ruth 3:1). Ruth did as her mother-in-law told her and went down to the threshing floor at night. At midnight Boaz woke and asked who she was. She answered, “I am Ruth your servant. Therefore spread the corner of your garment over your servant; for you are a near kinsman” (Ruth 3:9).

Boaz said, “all the city of my people knows that you are a worthy woman” (Ruth 3:11). He also said, “Now it is true that I am a near kinsman. However, there is a kinsman nearer than I” (Ruth 3:12). If that man would not do a kinsman’s part, Boaz swore that he would (Ruth 3:13). Naomi said to Ruth, “Wait, my daughter, until you know what will happen” (Ruth 3:18).

At the City Gate

Boaz went up to the city gate. The nearer kinsman came by, and Boaz had him sit down with ten of the elders (Ruth 4:1–2). The man was willing at first to redeem Naomi’s land, but when he heard that Ruth came with it, he said, “I can’t redeem it for myself, lest I endanger my own inheritance” (Ruth 4:6).

Boaz told the elders and all the people that he had bought “all that was Elimelech’s, and all that was Chilion’s and Mahlon’s, from the hand of Naomi” (Ruth 4:9), and that he had taken “Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon” as his wife, “to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance” (Ruth 4:10). The people said, “We are witnesses” (Ruth 4:11), and blessed him.

Obed

“So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and he went in to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she bore a son” (Ruth 4:13). The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you today without a near kinsman” (Ruth 4:14). They said the child was born to the daughter-in-law who loved her, “who is better to you than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15).

“Naomi took the child, laid him in her bosom, and became nurse to him” (Ruth 4:16). Her neighbors named him, saying, “A son is born to Naomi”. They called him Obed: “He is the father of Jesse, the father of David” (Ruth 4:17).

The Family Line

The book of Ruth ends with a family line from Perez to David (Ruth 4:18–22). Its last words are “and Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse became the father of David” (Ruth 4:22). The foreign widow who lost her husband in Moab became David’s great-grandmother.

In the New Testament

The genealogy of Jesus Christ at the start of Matthew reads: “Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse” (Matt 1:5).

The book of Ruth bears her name; Scripture does not say who wrote it.