I have started attending a weekly Bible study at a church near my home. The gathering is a collection of “rabbi’s” who are well versed in the Scriptures. They are masterfully led by two clergy who are gifted teachers and exegetes themselves. A true blessing in this new chapter of my life.
We recently concluded a short study on the Book of Ruth. It had been a while since I had taken the time to read through this extraordinary and delightful text which is full of raw human emotion, feminine wit and complicity, sexuality, the acceptance of interracial marriage, loyalty, happy endings, and a royal lineage for Israel. It is a charming tale from beginning to end.
The story is set in “the days when the Judges ruled.” But in truth, this narrative has nothing in common with the horrific bloodshed and tribal warfare vividly described in the Book of Judges that precedes it. Some scholars hold fast in the belief that the Book of Ruth was placed in the middle of the Deuteronomistic History because of its opening line. The Septuagint, for example, places Ruth placed between Judges and Samuel. This is also true for the Christian authorized order of the Bible.
But as Robert Alter writes in his commentary: “Style is actually the clearest evidence of the lateness of Ruth. The writer took pains to create a narrative prose redolent of the early centuries of Israelite history, but it is very difficult to execute such a project of archaizing without occasional telltale slips… there are at least a dozen terms that reflect distinctive Late Biblical usage (Aramaic) - as, for example, the verbs used for taking a wife (1:4), for wait or hope (1:13), for removing a sandal (4:7), and another ten idiomatic collocations occur that never appear in earlier biblical texts.”[1]
From my point of view, the Book of Ruth is a post-exilic text dating from the fourth or fifth century BCE. It belongs to a collection of narrative genres that exploded out of, and characterized, the Late Biblical period. Ruth does not read like the Book of Judges, First and Second Samuel, or First and Second Kings, written during the First Temple Period. You will find in those early texts’ pastoral settings for sure. But those stories are often punctuated by violence which you do not find in Ruth. The Hebrew Bible, in its collection of texts, is more faithful to this post-exilic notion by placing the Book of Ruth in the Ketuvim between the Song of Songs and Lamentations.
The idyll nature of the story should also not be overlooked. These are ordinary people trying to find their way in a world that is not always fair nor easy. Bethlehem is more of a small town than a city and the second and third chapters of the book take place outside of town in the fields and on the threshing floor. Boaz and his workers greet one another in the name of the Lord and with blessings. Traditional customs such as leaving unpicked ears of grain for the poor and levirate marriage are observed and held up as right ways of living out one’s faith. These are all good people who are examples of righteous living.
At the center of the story is the Ruth, the Moabite. This is most unusual that the central character is not only a woman – she is not even an Israelite! For biblical Israel, the Moabites were seen as a perennial enemy. The Moab nation is first mentioned in Genesis 19 as coming into being by an act of incest between Lot and his eldest daughter. Deuteronomy 23:3-7 states: “No one misbegotten shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of his descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of their descendants, even in the tenth generation shall ever be admitted into the congregation of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt…. You shall never concern yourself with their welfare or benefit as long as you live.”
If that was not bad enough, the idolatrous Moabites meet a horrible end as recalled in Numbers 25. You can read that passage at your leisure!
The story of Ruth presents a Moabite in a different light. Ruth is a woman who is loyal, virtuous, and converts to worship the God of Israel. She is highly rewarded for these actions, becoming the great-grandmother of one of the greatest Israelites of all, King David.
Robert Alter believes: “It is hard not to see in the boldly iconoclastic invention of this plot an argument against the exclusionary policy on foreign wives propagated by Ezra and Nehemiah. This would also make the fifth century BCE, at the moment when intermarriage was an urgent issue, a plausible time for the composition of the book.”[2]
A good place to stop. Next time, we will examine the importance of names in this ancient text. I hope you will join me as we continue our study of The Book of Ruth.
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible A Translation with Commentary, page 621.
[2] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible A Translation with Commentary, page 622.
