Ruth
History · Old Testament · Book 8 of 66- Author
- Unknown; tradition says Samuel
- Written
- c. 1000 BC
- Time covered
- c. 1150–1100 BC, in the days when the judges ruled
- Where
- Moab, and the fields of Bethlehem
- Written to
- Israel under David’s line, told where that line came from
- Genre
- Narrative history
- Chapters
- 4
“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:”Ruth 1:16 KJV
Download this book:KJV PDF, 95 KBBSB PDF, 105 KB
Overview
Ruth is four quiet chapters set in the loudest, ugliest period of Israel’s history. A famine, three funerals, and two widows walking back to Bethlehem with nothing.
What follows is ordinary kindness doing extraordinary work: a foreign woman gleaning in a field, a landowner who notices her, and a legal custom that lets a near kinsman redeem both the land and the widow. The last line reveals why the story was kept — their great-grandson was David.
Background
Under the law, the corners of a field and whatever the harvesters dropped were left for the poor and the stranger. Ruth is living off that provision when the story opens.
A kinsman-redeemer could buy back family land and marry a childless widow to keep a dead man’s name alive. Boaz follows the procedure carefully, including giving a nearer relative first refusal at the gate.
Key themes
- Loyal love — Ruth to Naomi, Boaz to both, and God behind all of it.
- God’s providence works through ordinary days and ordinary decency.
- A foreigner is welcomed into the covenant people and into the Messiah’s line.
- Redemption costs the redeemer something, and he pays it gladly.
- Bitterness can be answered: Naomi goes out empty and comes home full.
Outline
- Loss, and a decisionChapter 1
Famine, Moab, three deaths, and Ruth’s refusal to leave Naomi.
- GleaningChapter 2
Ruth happens on the field of Boaz, who tells his men to leave handfuls on purpose.
- The threshing floorChapter 3
Naomi’s plan, and Ruth asking Boaz to spread his skirt over her.
- RedeemedChapter 4
The nearer kinsman declines at the gate, Boaz buys the land and marries Ruth, and Obed is born.
Key passages
- Ruth 1:16-17 Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
- Ruth 1:20-21 Call me not Naomi, call me Mara.
- Ruth 2:12 A full reward be given thee of the LORD, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
- Ruth 3:9 Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.
- Ruth 4:9-10 Boaz buys all that was Elimelech’s, and takes Ruth to wife.
- Ruth 4:17 They called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Christ in Ruth
Boaz is the kinsman-redeemer: related to those he redeems, able to pay, and willing. Matthew names Ruth in the genealogy of Jesus — a Moabite woman in the King’s line, which is the gospel in miniature long before it is preached.
Reading it
- Read it in one sitting; it is a short story and works like one.
- Watch Naomi’s words about God change from chapter 1 to chapter 4.
- Read Deuteronomy 24:19-21 and Leviticus 25:25 to see the laws the plot turns on.