People of the Bible

Ruth

Faith in trial · The time of the judges · Appears in The book of Ruth

Ruth is the Moabite widow who left her own land and gods to follow her mother-in-law Naomi and Naomi's God, saying, Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Through her faithfulness she was redeemed by Boaz and became the great-grandmother of King David, and so an ancestor of Jesus.

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:Ruth 1:16 (KJV)

Loss in a foreign land

Ruth's story begins in sorrow. In the days of the judges a famine drove an Israelite family from Bethlehem to the land of Moab, where the two sons married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Then death came three times over: the father Elimelech died, and afterward both sons, leaving three widows with no husbands, no sons, and no security in a hard and unforgiving world. Naomi, the mother-in-law, was left bitter and empty, far from home, with nothing but grief.

Hearing that the LORD had visited Bethlehem with food again, Naomi resolved to return home, and urged her two daughters-in-law to go back to their own people and gods and find new husbands. Orpah, weeping, kissed her and turned back. But Ruth clung to her. When Naomi pressed her to follow her sister-in-law, Ruth answered with words that have echoed ever since: Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. She bound herself to a grieving old woman and to the God of Israel, come what may.

Gleaning in the fields of Boaz

The two widows came to Bethlehem poor and destitute at the beginning of the barley harvest. To keep them alive, Ruth went out to glean, gathering the leftover grain behind the reapers, the provision the law of Moses made for the poor and the stranger. By the providence of God she came to the field of Boaz, a wealthy and godly man who happened to be a relative of Naomi's dead husband. Boaz noticed the diligent young foreigner and asked about her.

He had heard how Ruth had left her own father and mother and homeland to care for Naomi, and he blessed her, praying that the LORD, under whose wings she had come to trust, would reward her. He told her to glean only in his fields, to drink from his vessels, and to stay close to his young women for safety, and he made sure extra grain was left for her. Ruth's humble faithfulness had been seen, and kindness answered kindness, and Naomi, hearing whose field it was, began to see the hand of God at work and to hope again.

The kinsman-redeemer

In Israel there was a provision called the kinsman-redeemer, a near relative who could rescue a family from poverty and loss by buying back its land and marrying the widow to raise up an heir and preserve the family name. Boaz was such a near kinsman, and Naomi, seeing his kindness, counseled Ruth to make her appeal. Following Naomi's instructions, Ruth came to Boaz at the threshing floor and asked him, as her nearer redeemer, to spread his covering over her.

Boaz was moved by her request and by her character, blessing her again and calling her a virtuous woman known throughout the town. There was a nearer kinsman with the first right, so Boaz dealt with the matter honorably at the town gate before the elders. When the nearer relative declined, Boaz gladly redeemed the family's land and took Ruth as his wife, publicly, lawfully, and joyfully, in the sight of the whole community, restoring the name of the dead to his inheritance.

The agreement was sealed in the custom of that age, when the nearer kinsman drew off his sandal and gave it to Boaz before the elders as a public sign that he yielded his right of redemption. The elders and all the people at the gate became witnesses and blessed the marriage, praying that the LORD would make Ruth like Rachel and Leah, who together built the house of Israel. What had begun in loss and gleaning was now a wedding celebrated by the whole town.

Redemption and a child

Ruth bore a son, and the women of Bethlehem rejoiced with Naomi, whose emptiness God had turned to fullness, and they said the child would be a restorer of her life and a nourisher of her old age, for he was born of the daughter-in-law who loved her and was better to her than seven sons. Naomi took the child to her bosom and became his nurse, and the neighbors named him Obed.

The story then opens onto something far larger than one family's rescue. Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David, Israel's greatest king. So Ruth, a Moabite, an outsider by birth, became through faith and faithfulness the great-grandmother of David, and the humble love shown in the fields of Bethlehem was woven into the royal line of Israel by the quiet providence of God.

Naomi, from Mara to fullness

Woven through Ruth's story is the quieter journey of Naomi, from emptiness to joy. She had gone out full, with a husband and two sons, and came back to Bethlehem stripped of them all, and she told the women not to call her Naomi, which means pleasant, but Mara, which means bitter, for the Almighty had dealt very bitterly with her. She returned home a grieving widow who could see only what she had lost, unable yet to see the loyal daughter-in-law God had given her.

But God was quietly at work through Ruth's faithfulness and Boaz's kindness, and the story that began in famine and death ended in harvest and birth. When Ruth's son was laid in Naomi's arms, the women of the town blessed God and said the child would be a restorer of her life, and Naomi, who had called herself bitter, became the nurse of the child who would be grandfather to King David. Her arc is a small gospel: the God who seems to deal bitterly is often working a hidden mercy toward a fullness beyond what was lost.

Her character and where she points to Christ

Ruth is the Bible's picture of loyal, self-giving love. A young widow with every reason to seek her own security, she bound herself to a grieving older woman and to a God not her own, and she worked humbly and tirelessly to provide for them both. Her faithfulness is quiet, steady, and complete, and it is matched by the kindness of Boaz, so that the whole book shines with the beauty of covenant love lived out in ordinary hardship. She is one of the few women named in the genealogy of Jesus.

The heart of her story is redemption. Boaz is the kinsman-redeemer who pays the price to rescue a destitute widow and bring her into his family and under his protection, a living picture of Jesus, who became our kinsman by taking on our flesh and paid the price with his own life to redeem us and make us his own. And Ruth the foreigner, brought by grace into the family of God and into the line of the Messiah, shows in advance that in Christ there is no longer stranger or outsider, but all who trust under the wings of the God of Israel are welcomed home.

A note on the sources: everything above is drawn from the biblical text itself. Where a detail comes from later tradition rather than Scripture, it is named as tradition. Dates for the earliest figures are traditional and approximate, and Scripture does not always give them. The aim is to tell each life honestly, and to let it do what the whole Bible does, point to Jesus Christ the Lord.

Related: Esther · David · All the people of the Bible