Ruth
Grief, loyalty and a foreigner who becomes family.
Who wrote it: Anonymous. Jewish tradition credits Samuel. The story is set in the time of the judges, and the final genealogy assumes readers know who David is, so it was written at least after his reign. Some date it to the early monarchy; others to after the exile, when the question of foreign wives was fiercely argued.
What it is
A famine drives a family from Bethlehem to Moab, a country Israel did not think well of. The father dies. The two sons marry Moabite women, then they die too. Naomi, the mother, is left with two daughters-in-law and nothing else, and decides to go home. She tells the young women to stay in Moab and remarry. One does. The other, Ruth, refuses in words people still read at weddings, and walks into Bethlehem beside a woman who tells the neighbors to call her Bitter.
What follows is small-scale. Ruth goes to pick up leftover grain in a field, as the poor were allowed to do, and the field belongs to Boaz, a relative of Naomi's dead husband, who notices her and quietly makes sure she is safe and well fed. Naomi sees a chance. She sends Ruth at night to the threshing floor where Boaz is sleeping, to lie down at his feet and ask him to act as a redeemer, a relative who takes responsibility for a family's land and widow. It is a risk, and the chapter knows it. Boaz says yes, sorts out a nearer relative the next morning, and marries her. They have a son. The neighbors say a son has been born to Naomi.
Then the last four verses drop the surprise: that son is Obed, the grandfather of David. The foreign widow who walked into Bethlehem with nothing is the great-grandmother of Israel's greatest king, and, in Matthew's gospel, an ancestor of Jesus.
There are no miracles in Ruth and God never speaks. What you see instead is ordinary kindness: a field owner following the law about gleaning and going past it, a daughter-in-law who will not leave, a mother-in-law who plans. The book treats these as the way God works. Naomi says the LORD has emptied her, and by the end she is holding a baby; the text lets you notice that God was in the arrangements the whole time without ever saying so.
Verses worth keeping
- Ruth 1:16–17WEB
16Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsRuth said, 'Don't push me to leave you or to stop following you. Where you go, I'll go. Where you stay, I'll stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die, I'll die, and that's where I'll be buried. May the LORD punish me, and worse, if anything but death separates us.'
Said by a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law, not by a bride. It is a vow of loyalty to a grieving woman with nothing to offer.
- Ruth 1:20–21WEB
20She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsShe said, 'Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I left full and the LORD has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought this pain on me?'
Naomi blames God to his face, in public, and the book does not correct her. Grief gets to talk like this here.
- Ruth 2:12WEB
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.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsMay the LORD repay you for what you've done. May you be fully rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you've come for shelter.
Boaz blessing Ruth. By the end of the book he is the one God uses to answer his own prayer.
- Ruth 4:14–15WEB
14The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you today without a near kinsman. Let his name be famous in Israel. 15He shall be to you a restorer of life and sustain you in your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsThe women said to Naomi, 'Blessed be the LORD, who hasn't left you without a family redeemer today. May his name be famous in Israel. He'll bring your life back and look after you in your old age, because your daughter-in-law who loves you, who's better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.'
Better than seven sons, in a culture that counted sons as everything. The women of Bethlehem get the last word on Ruth.
Read Ruth
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Ruth 1
1In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons. 2The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab and lived there. 3Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons. 4They took for themselves wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years. 5Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband. 6Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread. 7She went out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her. They went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9May the LORD grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices, and wept.
10They said to her, “No, but we will return with you to your people.”
11Naomi said, “Go back, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12Go back, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, ‘I have hope,’ if I should even have a husband tonight, and should also bear sons, 13would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for the LORD’s hand has gone out against me.”
14They lifted up their voices and wept again; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stayed with her. 15She said, “Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.”
16Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
18When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. When they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was excited about them, and they asked, “Is this Naomi?”
20She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” 22So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
Questions about Ruth
What actually happened at the threshing floor in chapter 3?
Naomi tells Ruth to wash, dress, wait until Boaz has eaten and lain down, then uncover his feet and lie there. He wakes in the night, finds a woman at his feet, and she asks him to spread his garment over her because he is a redeemer. The scene is deliberately charged, and 'feet' can be a euphemism in Hebrew, so readers have wondered for a long time. What the text says is that Boaz calls her a worthy woman, tells her to stay until morning so she is not walking home in the dark, and sends her off before anyone can see, with grain. Nothing sexual is described, and Boaz's concern is her reputation. The chapter reads as a proposal, made by the woman, at real risk, and accepted honourably.
What is a kinsman-redeemer?
In Israel's law, if a family fell into poverty and lost its land, or a man died without a son, the nearest relative had the right and duty to step in: buy back the land, or marry the widow so the dead man's name and property continued. The Hebrew word is 'goel', usually translated redeemer. Boaz is not the nearest one, which is why chapter 4 has him settling it at the town gate first. The New Testament later uses the same word family for what Jesus does, and Ruth is a large part of why that image made sense.
Why is a story about a Moabite in the Bible at all?
Deuteronomy 23 bars Moabites from the assembly of Israel for ten generations, so Ruth's very presence is a provocation. The book seems to know that. Its hero is introduced as 'Ruth the Moabitess' over and over, and she is the one who shows the loyalty Israel was supposed to show. Whether it was written in David's time to explain his ancestry or later as an argument in a debate about foreign marriages, the message is the same: belonging to God's people is about where you stand, not where you were born.