In the Hebrew Canon the book of Ruth occupies the second place among the " Five
Rolls," a group of short books which follows the longer poetical books,
Psalms, Proverbs, job, and thus belongs to the third section of the Bible.
It tells a story of the days of the judges, which has a bearing on the ancestry
of David.
A certain man of Bethlehem was compelled by famine to take refuge in Moab,
together with his wife and two sons.
The sons married Moabite women, and both they and their father died, leaving
the three widows.
Hearing a good account of conditions in Bethlehem, the mother-in-law, Naomi,
decided to return there, and one of the daughters-in-law, Ruth, insisted
on going with her (ch.i).
The two women reached Bethlehem at the beginning of the harvest, and Ruth
went to glean in the fields of a certain Boaz, a kinsman of the family into
which Ruth had married, and was kindly treated (ch.ii).
At the end of the harvest, on the advice of Naomi, Ruth sought out Boaz by
night in his threshing-floor, and he agreed to see the family fortunes restored,
acting in the capacity of " Go'el," or representative of the dead
(ch.iii).
This he did, purchased Naomi's land, and married Ruth, thus fulfilling the
family duty, both in the matter of land and of posterity.
Ruth bore Boaz a son, who was the grandfather of David.
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The story is very simply and beautifully told, and there is no doubt but that it was written as a complete work in practically the form in which we now have it. Possibly the genealogical note at the end is a later addition, intended to bring home the fact that a Moabitess was reckoned in David's ancestry.
The tale is obviously told as one of the distant past. The old custom of taking off the shoe to confirm a bargain (iv.7) was still in use when Deuteronomy was written, and it is worth observing that the meaning of the act is no longer fully understood.
In D it was a symbol of reproach;
in Ruth it has become merely the ratification
of a bargain.
The refusal of the second kinsman to marry Ruth lest he should "mar
his own inheritance", i.e. fail to continue his family line, is intelligible
only in an age when monogamy was the rule, for otherwise he might have had
another wife through whom he could have maintained his family.
Incidentally it may be observed that the genealogies trace the descendants
of Ruth, not as the posterity of her former husband, but as the children
of Boaz.
Finally, we may note that in the language of the book there are several indications
of a comparatively late date-Aramaisms, one or two late forms, and some fairly
obvious archaisms.
There can be little doubt that the book was composed after the Exile.
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The book itself gives us our only clues as to the conditions in which it
was written.
It stresses, apparently, the Moabite element in the ancestry of David.
His Moabite connexions are suggested in i Sam. X.3f., where David, taking
refuge himself in the cave of Adullam, commits his parents to the care of
the king of Moab.
Here the desire is, as it seems, to make the claims of Moab on Israel yet
stronger.
This suggests an age in which the Moabite was regarded with some hostility,
and a broad-minded Israelite sought to mitigate this feeling by reminding
his countrymen that the greatest of all Israelites since the days of Moses
had Moabite blood in his veins.
This would indicate a period in the latter half of the fifth century, when,
under the influence of Nehemiah, an attempt was being made to eliminate Moabite
connexions altogether from Israel.
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The text is well preserved, and there are very few passages where there
is any real doubt, as to the reading.
The versions do not differ greatly from the MT.
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