WOMAN OF MOAB

Copyright, August, 2003, Kenneth W. Phifer

The book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible tells a charming and delightful story. Uncharacteristically for the Jewish sacred scriptures, it is a strongly optimistic, often radiantly cheerful tale. There are no wicked people in the book. God does not punish sinners for their failures. Indeed, God is, again un-typically for the Hebrew Bible, not an active character in Ruth and is mentioned only in perfunctory ways.

In Ruth, women matter, family matters, the stranger matters.

Ruth is a tale about some very ordinary people living in the days of the Judges, between the time of the twelve Tribes entering the land of Israel and the beginning of the monarchy, roughly between 1200-1050 BCE (Before the Common Era, formerly BC, or Before Christ). It is a Hebrew folk-tale, a short story with a moral that attempts to entertain as well.

Ruth was probably written sometime during the monarchy, perhaps as early as 900 BCE, but more likely during the eight or seventh centuries, the time of the classical prophets. Ruth, gently and lovingly and without any theological pretensions, attempts to answer one of the same fundamental questions with which the prophets struggled and that was later to engage the anguished figure of Job: how are we to explain and to cope with suffering?

The importance of this book for Jews is revealed in its placement in the liturgical calendar. Ruth is read on Shavuot, the holy day commemorating the Giving of the Law. In ancient times, Shavuot marked the second spring harvest. The first harvest was Passover, at which time the Song of Songs was read.

Both these books highlight the theme of marriage. The Song of Songs does so in a youthful, vigorous, and physically passionate way. The book of Ruth does so in a mature, practical, gentle way.

Marriage, which begins in yearning and endures and prospers through loyalty and commitment, is frequently used as an analogy to the covenant relationship between God and Israel. In the Hebrew Bible, that relationship begins in yearning and survives only because of loyalty and commitment.

The Hebrew Bible is divided into three main sections: the Law, which is read in its entirety every year; the Prophets, portions of which are read in connection with the Law; and a collection of books that do not fit neatly into any category called the Writings. Ruth is one of the Writings and is found together with the others at the end of the Hebrew Bible.

The Christian Old Testament follows the Greek text of the Hebrew Scriptures translated around 200 BCE, placing Ruth in historical sequence after Judges and before Samuel.

Whether Ruth is history or not is not known. It is likely that one element of the story of Ruth is factual: that the great King David had an ancestor from Moab. This region is located east of the Dead Sea, what is now Jordan. The people who inhabited that region were often bitter enemies of the ancient Israelites. It makes no sense to have invented such an unpalatable fact. Neither storyteller nor audience would have accepted that. However, if it is true, then there is no choice but to include it in the story.

The organization of this little book can be understood in several different ways.

The chapters provide an outline by locale. First there is Moab. Then there are the scenes in the fields near Bethlehem. The third chapter takes place on the threshing floor, and the fourth chapter at the public gate.

Another way of outlining the text is by the central elements of the plot: the idyllic family scene in the opening verses, the dreadful misfortune visited on the family in the next several verses, the time and actions of strain and then comfort that consume almost the rest of the book, and the restoration that occupies the last few verses.

Edward Campbell has divided the tale into six units and an appendix.

The first unit is the introduction to the story, the first five verses of the book.

Here we learn that a man from Bethlehem named Elimelech has taken his wife and two sons to live in Moab because of a famine in his own land. The two sons marry Moabite women. Then all three men die!

Women had no means of supporting themselves in those days. They had to be attached to a father, a brother, a husband, a son, or some other man for their own survival. Naomi and her daughters-in-law, childless widows, were in perilous circumstances.

The second unit of the book is about Naomi’s journey home, where she can get help from her relatives. Her daughters-in-law go on the road with her, but she begs them to turn back to their native villages. Their chances of survival and remarriage are better in Moab than as aliens in the land of Judah. Orpah reluctantly does turn back, not because she is a bad or a weak woman, but because she sees the wisdom of what Naomi has suggested. Orpah is a good but conventional woman.

Ruth is a good and unusual woman

Ruth clings to her mother-in-law, speaking words of love and loyalty, of faith and trust, that have echoed beautifully throughout the ages.:

Do not press me to abandon you,

To turn back from following you.

For wherever you go, I will go;

Where you lodge, I will lodge.

Your people become my people;

Your God is now my god.

Where you die, I shall die

And there be buried.

Thus may Yahweh do to me,

And this may he add,

If even death will separate

Me from you.

Naomi is speechless before this expression of kindness. She gratefully accepts Ruth’s companionship. The two women make their way to Judah.

Arriving in Bethlehem, Naomi cries aloud her bitterness and sorrow at the terrible misfortune that has befallen her. Bereft of her husband and two sons, she moans to her fellow villagers of a decade earlier, " I was full when I went away, and empty has Yahweh brought me back."

Later Biblical authors like Jeremiah, Jonah, and Job will issue complaints against God as Naomi does here: what have I done to deserve such treatment? Why does God allow such things to happen?

At the beginning of the third unit, which concerns events in the fields, Naomi is still so shattered by her losses that she is unable to focus on practical matters. It is Ruth the Moabitess, the stranger in Bethlehem, who learns of the ancient custom embedded in Israelite law of leaving some part of every field un-harvested so that the poor will have something to gather for themselves.

Ruth goes out among the poor to glean these leftovers for herself and Naomi.

In time she comes to the fields of Boaz. Although she does not have to ask permission to glean his fields--it is the law of the land that she be allowed to do this--nonetheless she does make the request. As a foreigner, she must be scrupulous about observing the local customs. In this way she protects not only herself but the mother-in-law for whom she feels responsible.

Boaz not only gives her permission. He encourages her for safety’s sake to work with the hired female hands. He tells her he has instructed the men to leave her alone, and that she is free to drink the water from his well.

Ruth is overcome with gratitude at these thoughtful gestures. Boaz tells her that he wants to return in some way her kindness to Naomi. She has left her parents and friends and native land to come with her mother-in-law and give her comfort in her time of anguish.

Boaz then asks her to share his meal and some wine. After they eat, he tells her to go directly into the fields and that his hired men will be sure she gets a full load.

Naomi, when she learns of the kindness of Boaz, is moved by it. She tells Ruth that Boaz is a relative. These will be good fields to continue working in, and Ruth does so until the end of the harvest. Life gradually becomes

more bearable for her and for Naomi.

The fourth unit of the story takes place at the threshing floor. Naomi has instructed Ruth to go there under cover of darkness, having washed and anointed herself to look beautiful. When Boaz has finished winnowing his barley and gone into a corner to sleep, Ruth is to "go and uncover his legs and lie down" with him. Then, Naomi says, she is to do what Boaz tells her to do.

Ruth only follows part of her instructions. She waits for Boaz to lie down and go to sleep. Then she uncovers his legs and lies down with him. When he awakens later in the night, he feels a warm presence near him and asks who it is. Rather than wait for him to tell her what to do, Ruth tells him her name and asks for his protection, declaring to him that "you are a redeemer."

Ruth is referring to a custom by which men cared for the unfortunates who were members of their families: those who had to sell themselves into slavery, those whose property had been taken from them, those who were widowed or orphaned.

Though this goes beyond what Naomi has told Ruth to do, it brings good results. Boaz is thrilled that this beautiful woman has asked him, an older man, a bachelor, to consider taking her as his wife.

He is agreeable to doing this, but points out that there is a male relative closer in kinship to Naomi and Ruth who must be given first opportunity to act as redeemer. Boaz is a man devoted to lawful procedure. He wants to do the right thing morally and legally, in this case arrange for a correct levirate marriage.

The custom of the levirate marriage—described in Deuteronomy 25: 5-10—required the nearest male relative of a widow without sons to take on the property of her deceased husband to keep it in the family, and to take on as well the woman as his wife so that she might produce sons who would be accounted to the dead man and thus continue his line.

Both the idea of redemption and the practice of levirate marriage were grounded in the principle of the moral importance of protecting the weak, the vulnerable, the helpless.

For the remainder of the night, Boaz acts with propriety and consideration for Ruth. He invites her to stay the night, but not for sexual purposes. Of few other men in the Hebrew Bible can it be said that they resisted sexual temptation, but Boaz does. If nothing else, and given his respect for law and custom there is very likely much else, he realizes how exhausted Ruth must be after such a dramatic and courageous act on her part. He urges her to rest.

Early in the morning he sends her home while it is still dark, to protect her reputation. With her he sends six measures of barley, saying, "You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law."

Naomi, who had come back empty from Moab, now finds her life filling up.

Boaz’s behaviour contrasts favorably with that of Judah, one of Jacob’s 12 sons, whose daughter-in-law, Tamar, lost her husband. The next oldest brother marries her, and he dies. The third brother is withheld from Tamar by Judah so the marriage obligation cannot be carried out. Judah fears for his life. Judah is then tricked by Tamar into the levirate marriage she is owed.

Many students of the Hebrew Bible believe that in part Boaz is repenting for Judah’s bad behaviour, demonstrating how this law can be carried out with courtesy and respect for all parties. (see Genesis 38)

The setting of the fifth unit of the story, in contrast with the darkness, mystery, and intimacy of the events at the threshing floor, takes place in the full light of day in the public plaza in the city gate. This is where debates were held, business was conducted, and judgments were rendered in ancient Israel. Here Boaz comes to meet with the relative who is nearer in kinship to Ruth than he is.

He offers this unnamed man a chance at the property that would come with Ruth and Naomi. The man agrees to take it on. When Boaz informs him that with the property come a wife and her mother-in-law, he demurs. Nothing in the text suggests that he does so out of a sense of wanting to shirk his obligation. The implication is that he simply could not carry out his responsibilities to his existing family and take on Ruth, Naomi, and whatever children he might have with Ruth.

Boaz then swears before ten elders gathered there that he will gladly marry Ruth and assume responsibility for her and Naomi.

As was the case with Orpah, so with the unnamed relative, neither is considered bad or weak for not doing what Ruth and Boaz choose to do. Each is apparently a decent person, but unable to do the extraordinary things that Ruth and Boaz are able to do. Such deeds mark them out as people a cut above the normally good.

The final unit of the book of Ruth describes the marriage of Ruth and Boaz, and then the birth of a son. This son is accounted as the son of Boaz and as the son of Ruth’s late husband, Mahlon. Naomi, whose bitter questions hurled at the heavens on her return to Bethlehem are never answered, finds joy to replace her anguish in becoming the infant’s nurse.

The appendix lists the lineage from Perez through Boaz to Obed to Jesse to David, who was to become the mightiest king in Israel’s history, a conqueror, a uniter, a later image for the messiah.

There are a variety of meanings to be found in the tale of Ruth.

One of the points of the story is that suffering is not meted out just to the wicked. It comes also to otherwise good and decent people, often, as in this story, for no reason that we ever learn.

The three widows grieved deeply, but the teller of the tale does not suggest that they were in any way responsible for their suffering. Suffering can be but is not always linked to sinfulness. Sometimes bad things happen and we just do not know why. That is the way of things in our world.

Some people find this a hard truth to accept, but the alternative is worse: that we feel guilty as well as feeling pain about suffering that is just not related to anything we have done or left undone.

The book of Ruth reminds us that even the virtuous know pain and woe. It tells us that sometimes there are no answers to the question of why we suffer.

A second message found in this book is the importance of doing one’s duty. Not only is this the best way to live in order to minimize suffering, it can also be a joyful experience.

Ruth is a widow in a strange land, but she is there because she feels that she is doing the right thing for her mother-in-law. She is determined to act without lament or complaint, and in doing so she comes to find a new and happy life with Boaz. Her actions are not caused by her "pursuit of happiness" but by her devotion to duty.

Boaz is thrilled to be able to carry out his duty as a redeemer and a partner in a levirate marriage. He is after all an older man who has never married. Ruth is a younger woman, undoubtedly quite attractive, and she proposes marriage to him! But Boaz is scrupulous in abiding by the law. He offers another man the chance to take on the responsibility of marriage with Ruth before he himself becomes her husband, and therein finds great happiness as the father of a son.

This little tale tells us of the importance of being faithful to our duty and loyal to our commitments. This is an honorable way to live and it can be a very rewarding way to live. What salvation is found in this story comes out of people meeting their commitments, doing their duty, living lives of integrity.

Another important theme of Ruth is trust.

When Ruth made the decision to go down the road with her mother-in-law out of Moab, she did so trusting that all would be well as she left her native land. When on the road Naomi tried to send her back, Ruth affirmed that trust that going to Judah would work out well for her by insisting that Naomi not send her back home.

Anyone who has ever left home, especially those who have left a homeland with all the familiar ways of language and custom, family and friends, knows how much trust is required in the future, in those with whom we travel, in the people to whose land we are going to live.

Ruth had that trust because she knew Naomi. Naomi was a good woman. Therefore, Ruth thought, the people of Bethlehem must also be good people. This was an act of trust, not a sure thing based on lengthy investigation and certain knowledge.

Ruth extended that trust when the women arrived in Bethlehem. She went to the fields as she was instructed to do. More than that, when she was told by Naomi to go under the cover of darkness to the threshing floor and there uncover Boaz’s legs and lie down with him, she trusted that Naomi knew what she was talking about. To engage in such an intimate act with a man she barely knew on the word of her mother-in-law reflects a deep sense of confidence that she was not being misled by either the ignorance or the malice of her dead husband’s mother. She trusted Naomi.

Naomi must have had great trust in her relative, Boaz, to have sent Ruth to him. Naomi was dependent on Ruth for help in getting enough food to eat. Had she been wrong about how Boaz would react, she and Ruth could both have been in a worse situation than before. But she trusted Boaz to be an honorable man, faithful to the laws and practices of the people of Judah. Her trust was well placed.

Boaz was also a trusting man. He awakens in the middle of the night to find this lovely, hard-working woman lying very close to him, having uncovered his legs, a very intimate act. Was she there to harm him? There are tales of female assassins in the Hebrew Bible, tales Boaz might have known, and he could well have been frightened for his life by this unusual behaviour.

Or was she there to deceive him, him an older man who had never married? Why would she care at all about him? Was her interest merely pecuniary?

Boaz could not be sure, but he trusted her and trusted his relative, Naomi, for having sent her. He responded in the most honorable way possible in the situation. He did not take advantage of her sexually. He did not immediately promise to marry her. He enabled her to leave before daylight so that her reputation would not be harmed. He was a trusting man, and that trust was in time rewarded with great happiness for him and the two women.

One final kind of trust associated with this little book is its inclusion by Jewish religious leaders in the Biblical canon. Amongst a people for whom pure lineage was a very important consideration, these Jewish religious leaders chose to honor a tale whose main figure is a woman from Moab—not just an outsider but an outsider from a land mostly regarded as an enemy.

That suggests a deep trust in the peculiar paths that life takes, even when it means embracing people outside our own. Sometimes we may not understand the way life is, but we must trust the flow of life. Jews have done that by placing Ruth in their Bible.

Of all the lessons that we might draw from this tale, though, none has more importance than the enormous value of kindness. Kindness on the part of the ordinary people who are the characters in this story is what turns a possibly grim tale into a very happy one.

Orpah goes part-way with her mother-in-law to a foreign land. Ruth goes all the way.

Ruth gleans for Naomi and Boaz treats Ruth generously.

The un-named male relative is willing to take up part of the obligation of the levirate marriage law. Boaz is willing to do all that is required.

Ruth shares the joy of her son with Naomi.

Everybody speaks without anger, malice, or hurtfulness. The words these people speak are for the most part gentle, courteous, loving words.

The moral is simple: it is human kindness not dramatic acts by God that ease pain, help us start over, find a way to deal with nasty situations, help us initiate and then sustain relationships, make life worth living.

Ruth is a memorable character primarily because of her kindness.

Her kindness helps Naomi to make the hard journey home to Bethlehem. Her kindness helps Naomi to survive when her grief is overwhelming.

Her kindness in going beyond Naomi’s instructions for the scene on the threshing floor enables the shy Boaz to hear and accept her proposal for a levirate marriage. She surely must have known he was smitten with her. Remember how he treats her when she comes to glean, inviting her for a meal, feeding her, and giving special instructions for the men in the field to be sure she has a full load. But she knew Boaz was a long-time bachelor and probably lacked the courage to ask a much younger woman to marry him. She makes that possible.

Boaz himself notes Ruth’s character when he comments that it was her kindness in leaving her homeland with Naomi that launched all the other deeds of kindness. Acts of kindness have a rippling effect, just as acts of cruelty do.

A midrash (commentary) on Ruth puts it this way: "This scroll…tells us nothing either of cleanliness or uncleanliness, either of prohibition or permission. For what purpose was it written? To teach how great is the reward of those who do deeds of kindness."

Ruth teaches us that we have a responsibility to help those who suffer, not to lecture them on their sins or analyze their pain.

Ruth teaches us that we can live kindly if we are determined to do so. To live that way is to brighten not only our own life but the lives of all those around us.

Imagine what a better world it would be if every person were truly devoted not to pride or ego, not to power or wealth, but to kindness!

We can be kind when we learn that suffering is part of everyone’s life and there is not always a reason for it.

We can be kind by doing what we are supposed to do, doing our duty.

We can be kind if we learn to trust, to trust other people and to trust life itself.

Ruth was a kind woman, a woman of loyalty and commitment, of faith and hope, hard-working, strong, and loving.

The way Ruth lived is a good way to live. May her story inspire in us a new dedication to such a worthy way of life.