The book of Ruth begins with Naomi, her husband Eimelech and their two sons Mahlon and Chilion fleeing the famine in Bethlehem and going to the land of Moab. While in the land of Moab, Eimelech dies and her sons marry two Moabite women, Oprah and Ruth. Shortly after her two sons die as well and they are all returning to Bethlehem, the land of Naomi’s lineage when she tells them to return to their families. Oprah does as she asks seeing no viable reason to stay, but it is Ruth who obstinately replies “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you will go, I will go….Where you die, I will die and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the Lord do to me. If anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:16-17).
Ruth refuses to leave her downcast mother in law despite the fact that there is nothing besides loyalty that binds Ruth to Naomi. She did not know what would become of Naomi if she were to leave her. She was a widowed woman forced to leave the land she fled to at the death of her husband who did not have any family in that land. She had no children, no wealth, and she was reaching the age where she could no longer bear children. Essentially she had no viable use to anyone and would have been forced to become a member of the poor if Ruth had left her. It is her loyalty and unswerving devotion to her mother in law that are qualities of admiration the narrator wants the reader to admire.
Ruth is called several names throughout the book. She is called daughter by Naomi and eventually her future husband Boaz. The term daughter used by Naomi could be interpreted to express the close emotions of love, devotion and sense of responsibility are felt between both Ruth and Naomi equally, while Boaz uses the term to express the generational difference between them. Ruth is praised for her devotion, loyalty, and stamina and perseverance while working in the field. Ruth faces several challenges being a foreigner. For one the Hebrew laws of slave ownership do not apply to her and if she weren’t under the protection of the Lord then she would have probably been someone’s slave for many years. Also, were she not the wife of a native of Bethlehem then she would have found it very difficult to find another husband. She does not accept her ascribed status as “other” in Bethlehem. She asks the permission to work in the field, not just behind the harvesters as was custom of the poor, but actually alongside them. She takes the initiative working within the system and speaks to the owner of the field herself, asking his permission to take some of the harvest for her mother-in-law, also his relative. She is also the one who proposes marriage and claims the rights to the land owned by Eimelech.
The benedictions in the fourth chapter of Ruth work to push against the dominant cultural values related to women in comparing Ruth to the mothers of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was Rachel and Leah along with their handmaids, that bore the twelve sons of Jacob that went on the head the twelve tribes of Israel. It was the efforts of Rachel and Leah, with the blessings of the Lord that built the House of Israel. The reference says that Ruth is “better than seven sons” in that she did not leave her mother in law when she needed her the most (Ruth 4:15). And it is through Ruth’s son Obed that King David originated from.
In conclusion, Ruth was admired for her strength, loyalty, devotion, and sense of responsibility at least in relation to her mother in law Naomi. She did not ascribe to her “other” status and in fact rose above it by working through the system and harvesting the wheat on Boaz’s land with his explicit permission. She was called daughter by both her future husband and her mother in law demonstrating the generational difference and the close relationship she had with Naomi respectively. Ruth did something she did not have to, even giving herself to the much older Boaz on Naomi’s behalf, to ensure that Naomi was cared for. For all her good deeds God blessed her with a child in the form of Obed who begot through a long line of succession, David. And God rewarded Naomi for all her tribulations in the form of her daughter in law Ruth, who was better than “seven sons”.
Works Cited
The Jewish Study Bible. Ruth 1.16-4.15. New York, NY: Oxford P, 1986. 1579-589.
