The Big Picture

A small story with a big ending

Ruth is one of the shortest books in the Bible. You can read all four chapters in about fifteen minutes. There are no miracles in it, no battles and no prophets. Instead there is a funeral, a long walk home, a barley harvest, a night at a threshing floor and a meeting at the town gate.

Yet by the last page, a grieving widow is holding a grandson, a foreigner has found a home among God's people, and the family of Israel's greatest king has begun. Ruth shows how God works in ordinary days, through loyalty, hard work, kindness and quiet faithfulness.

Ruth at a glance

• Setting: Moab and Bethlehem, "in the days when the judges judged" (1:1)
• Main characters: Naomi, an Israelite widow; Ruth, her Moabite daughter-in-law; and Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi's late husband
• Key idea: loyal love that goes beyond what duty requires
• Key verse: Ruth 1:16
• About the quotations: they come from the World English Bible, which uses God's personal name, Yahweh, where many English Bibles print "the LORD"

Who wrote it, and when?

The book doesn't tell us who wrote it. An old Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud, names the prophet Samuel. Many scholars think it was written somewhat later. The family tree at the end stops with David and doesn't mention Solomon, so a good number date the book to David's reign or soon after, around 1000–900 BC. Others place it several centuries later, after Israel's exile in Babylon, in the 500s or 400s BC.

Either way, the writer was looking back from a distance. In 4:7 the story pauses to explain a custom from "former time in Israel" that readers no longer practiced.

The events themselves happened during the time of the judges, the unsettled years after Joshua and before Israel had a king. Since Boaz was King David's great-grandfather, the story probably took place about a century before David became king (around 1010 BC).

The world of the story

Judges, the book just before Ruth in our Bibles, describes a dark time. Israel kept drifting from God, and the book ends by saying that everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25). Ruth opens in that same era, with a famine in Bethlehem. That is ironic, because Bethlehem means "house of bread."

To survive, an Israelite named Elimelech takes his family east to Moab, on the high plateau beyond the Dead Sea. Moab and Israel had a painful history. The Moabites descended from Abraham's nephew Lot (Genesis 19:36–37). A Moabite king once hired a prophet to curse Israel (Numbers 22–24). Moabite women drew Israelite men into worshiping their gods (Numbers 25), and God's law barred Moabites from "Yahweh's assembly" (Deuteronomy 23:3). In the days of the judges, a Moabite king named Eglon ruled over Israel for eighteen years (Judges 3:12–14). For an Israelite family, moving to Moab was a desperate step. For a Moabite woman, becoming part of Israel was almost unthinkable.

The first readers were Israelites who knew David's name well. For them, Ruth answered a question: where did our king's family come from? The surprising answer was that his great-grandmother was a Moabite. If the book was written after the exile, it would also have spoken to a community asking who truly belonged among God's people.

Why was it written?

Ruth does several things at once:

• It tells how David's family began. God was preparing a king long before anyone knew it (4:17–22).
• It shows God's law lived with a generous heart. Boaz doesn't just keep the rules about caring for the poor. He goes far beyond them.
• It shows God's welcome for outsiders. A Moabite widow who trusts the God of Israel is welcomed and honored.
• It comforts anyone who has felt empty. Naomi moves from bitter loss to joy, and God is at work the whole time, even when no one can see it.

Key themes

Loyal love

The Hebrew word hesed (say it KHEH-sed) is at the heart of Ruth. It is hard to translate. English Bibles use words like "kindness," "loyal love," "steadfast love" and "mercy." It means love that keeps its promises when that is costly, and does more than it has to. Ruth shows it to Naomi, Boaz shows it to Ruth, and behind them both stands God, whose loyal love never quits. The word itself appears only three times (1:8; 2:20; 3:10), but the idea fills every page.

God's quiet providence

Providence means God's care and guidance over everything that happens. In Ruth, God never speaks from heaven. Instead, the story says Ruth "happened to come" to the field of Boaz (2:3), and readers are meant to smile. It was no accident.

Redemption

In Israel, a "redeemer" was a close relative who stepped in to rescue family members in trouble. He might buy back land a poor relative had been forced to sell (Leviticus 25:25), or help carry on the name of a man who had died without children (compare Deuteronomy 25:5–6). Boaz becomes this redeemer for Naomi and Ruth, at real cost to himself. The Old Testament also calls God the Redeemer of his people (for example, Isaiah 43:14).

A welcome for outsiders

The story keeps calling Ruth "the Moabitess," as if we might forget she is a foreigner. Yet she is noticed, protected and honored. God had promised Abraham that "all the families of the earth" would be blessed through his family (Genesis 12:3). Ruth is an early taste of that promise coming true.

From empty to full

When she gets home, Naomi says, "I went out full, and Yahweh has brought me home again empty" (1:21). By the end, her arms are full again, holding a grandson (4:16). Famine turns into harvest, and bitterness turns into praise.

Where Ruth fits in God's big story

In our Bibles, Ruth sits between Judges and 1 Samuel, and it works like a bridge. Judges ends with Israel in chaos and no king. 1 Samuel tells how Israel got its kings. Ruth connects the two, and the very last word of the book in Hebrew is "David."

The story also looks back to Abraham, who left his country and his father's house to follow God (Genesis 12:1). Ruth did much the same thing (Ruth 2:11), and she joined the family God had promised to bless.

How Ruth points to Jesus

Ruth is first of all a true story about real people, not a puzzle full of hidden symbols. But it plays a real part in the story that leads to Jesus.

• Ruth is in Jesus' family tree. Matthew names her in the list of ancestors that opens his Gospel.
• Bethlehem matters. The town where Ruth made her new home became David's hometown, and the prophet Micah said a ruler would one day come from there (Micah 5:2). Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:4–7).
• Boaz is a picture of a greater Redeemer. Boaz willingly paid the price to rescue a family that could not rescue itself. The New Testament says God sent his Son "that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as children" (Galatians 4:5).
• The outsider is welcomed. A Moabite widow brought into the family of the king is a preview of the good news, which welcomes people from every nation into God's family.

Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse.

A simple outline

1. Emptiness (chapter 1). Loss in Moab and a loyal choice on the road home.
2. Kindness (chapter 2). Ruth gathers grain in the field of Boaz.
3. Hope (chapter 3). A bold request at the threshing floor.
4. Redemption (chapter 4). Boaz redeems the family, and a son is born in the line of David.