I put three question marks in the title because very few people off-hand know anything about this little four-chapter story buried deep in the Old Testament. Ruth is a kind of love story set in the land of Judah “in the time of the Judges”. A famine arose in the land and so Naomi and her family left the Bethlehem area for the land of the Moabites in hopes of finding a better place. Things did not go well and in a few years the men died, and Naomi decided to return to Judah and try her luck there.
One of the widows of Naomi’s sons decided to stay on in Moab, but the other, Ruth, pledged herself to live wherever Naomi chose to live and to join her people in Bethlehem. It is important to note that the Hebrew people of Judah would have had very strong negative feelings toward a Gentile woman from Moab. Nevertheless, Ruth remained with Naomi’s family and began to work as a gleaner in the barley harvest. Gleaners were allowed to follow behind the harvesters and gather left-overs from their efforts. This was a long-standing practice among Jewish farming people.
As things would have it, Ruth chose to work in the fields of one Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi. Slowly one thing led to another and after a good deal of the traditional rig-a-ma-roll necessary in such cases, Ruth became betrothed to Boaz. It is important that we readers be aware of the complex Hebrew traditions regarding courtship and marriage because this is only the beginning of an important story in what was to become the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth. For these same folks appear in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.
In short, Jesus was in the lineage of David and is said to have been born in Bethlehem, the very town where Ruth and Boaz met. As interesting and romantic as the story of Ruth marrying Boaz is, for our specific purposes here what matters more are the socio-political ramifications of the connections between these two main characters of our story. It turns out that this gentle and romantic story has much to tell us about the socio-political drama of those days.
To begin with, it is highly significant that Ruth was a Moabite, a race much hated by the Hebrew people for the way they had been treated by the Moabites down through the centuries of Jewish history. Secondly, this story shows that Moabites were in Jesus’ lineage, a rather radical thing in its own right. Moreover, here we have a story of an inter-racial marriage, one lying at the very heart of the lineage of Jesus himself. Thirdly, this story clearly explores Jewish marriage and engagement customs in a more realistic yet sensitive manner than one might have expected.
Finally, all of this drama is said to have taken place in “the time of the Judges”, a time which according to the book of Judges itself was a chaotic and war-torn period in Israel’s history. This fact has caused some scholars to suggest that the events in the Book of Ruth have really been misplaced and belong to a later, more peaceful time. Be that as it may, the fact remains that this little book has endured just as it is for centuries seemingly without causing any scholarly or religious upheaval.
In conclusion, I can only conclude that this beautiful little story carries more than its weight with respect to the genealogical heritage of Jesus himself. When Matthew and Luke both connect these facts pertaining to Jesus’ heritage to his Davidic and messianic heritage it would seem that the book of Ruth itself must be included in whatever one uses to form a full picture of that time and of the Jesus story.