Writer of Fancy: The Playful Piety of Jane Austen

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Bible - OT - Ruth: Boaz the Bridegroom

Boaz is the type of the bridegroom who marries Ruth in order to raise up a seed for the old and widowed Naomi.  James Jordan says Ruth is a substitute bride, because the firstborn seed is her seed, and leads to the redeemer that comes into the world.  Typologically: The Bridegroom marries the Moabitess, the Gentile widow, but he does it in order to give a seed to the Israelite widow.  All Israel is saved through the marriage of Gentiles with the redeemer.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Daughter Ruth

Boaz calls Ruth “my daughter,” even when they are lying together at night with Boaz’s feet uncovered.  The whole book is about the levirate institution, and refracts again and again off the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.  Ruth is a new Tamar, who was “more righteous” than Judah in securing a name for her dead husband(s).  The difference in Ruth is that she finds a Judahite greater than Judah himself; Boaz volunteers to raise up seed for his “daughter,” and doesn’t need to be tricked into fulfilling his responsibilities.  This is another sign that Ruth is about the redemption of the tribe of Judah.

Bible - OT - Ruth: No Name

At the beginning of Ruth 4, Boaz takes a seat at the gate, the place of courts and judgments.  The nearer kinsman happens by, and Boaz greets him.  Lawson Younger points out that the common translation of his greeting, “friend,” doesn’t capture the Hebrew, which is a farrago, a nonsense phrase implying an anonymous “somebody.”  The other kinsman has no name.

And he continues to have no name, because he refuses to take on Ruth as bride and raise up a seed for Naomi.  He could have had an enduring name by providing a perpetual name for Elimelech.  Because he refuses to carry on Elimelech’s name, his own name is lost.

If we had to choose a name, it might be Onan.  The nameless non-redeemer has the same motivations as Judah’s son.  He wants the benefits of acquiring a brother’s property without the labor and expense and sacrifice of raising his brother’s heir.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Ruth the Moabitess

A friend and former student, Aaron Cummings, writes: “If Ruth is ‘adopted’ as a daughter to Boaz, then her story becomes the reversal of the original story of Moab (Gen. 19). Lot’s younger daughter successfully seduced her father while he slept, and she conceived Moab. Ruth, Elimelech’s younger daughter in law, fails to seduce her ‘father’ while she sleeps. He is honorable and persuades her to behave righteously. In essence, we have the restoration of the Moabite people pictured here.”

Ruth “redeems” Moab not only by reversing the seductions of Numbers 25 but the seductions of Genesis 19.

Bible - OT - Ruth: With the maids

James Jordan points out that Boaz “adopts” Ruth into his household when he first meets her. The use of the Hebrew na’ar hints at this. Boaz speaks to his na’ar when he first arrives on the scene (2:5), and invites Ruth to drink water along with his na’arim (2:9).  In his first conversation with Ruth he tells her to “stay among my maids” (na’arot). The Hebrew word can mean young man/young woman as well as servant. Boaz addresses Ruth as “daughter” and brings her into his household, ingrafting a Gentile who will become the means for the restoration of Naomi’s house.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Daughter Ruth

Boaz calls Ruth “my daughter” (2:8), as does Naomi.  This indicates the age difference between them, but also points in a typological direction.  After all, Boaz marries his “daughter,” just as Yahweh is both Father and Husband to “Daughter Zion.”

Bible - OT - Ruth: Pentecost

Citing Deut 16:9-12 and the Gezer Calendar, K. Lawson Younger says in NIV Application commentary on Ruth, “the time period from the beginning of the barley harvest to the end of the wheat harvest was normally seven weeks, concluding at Pentecost.” Presumably, this was the festival that Boaz was celebrating in Ruth 3.

Booths begins after the gathering of the wine (Deut 16:13), but Pentecost is the feast of wheat.  Pentecost is also the festival of the law, and this gives an additional layer to Ruth’s approach to Boaz.  Pentecost celebrated the time when Yahweh spread His wing over Israel at Sinai (cf. Ezek 15), which is what Boaz does for Ruth.  

Bible - OT - Ruth: Ten years

Noami sojourned in the fields of Moab for 10 years (Ruth 1:4), which points to the conclusion of the book, where the author traces the descend of Judah for 10 generations, to David.  After 10 years, Naomi returned to the land, which by then had become fruitful (1:22).  After 10 years, Boaz took the place of Elimelech as the head of Naomi’s remnant family.  After 10 generations, Judah returned to the congregation of Israel (cf. Deuteronomy 23) as the royal tribe, and the land flourished.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Husband and King

James Jordan points out in his lectures on Ruth that the book contrasts Boaz with Elimelech as husband. Elimelech is a failure as a husband, leaving the land and then leaving Naomi alone.  The contrast of the two men also has a political dimension. 

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Bible - OT - Ruth: Ends and Beginnings

Ruth begins with death - the death of the land in famine, the death of exile, the death of Elimelech, the death of Naomi’s sons, the death of Naomi’s future. Naomi goes out full, and comes back empty. Ruth 1 is a perfect tragic story, a story of endings and emptyings.

But it is chapter 1, and the author wants us to realize that this series of deaths is not an end. The end of chapter 1 is a beginning, as Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem “at the beginning of the barley harvest” (v. 22).  The author makes his point with a touch so light as to be nearly imperceptible, but the import of that “beginning” is as weighty as anything in Scripture.

“In the beginning” and “once upon a time” make rational sense as the beginning of a story. But recognizing a beginning on the other side of an end is an act of faith.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Obed

Ruth not only points ahead to the union of Jews and Gentiles, but records it.  Ruth the Moabitess marries Boaz the Jew - a marital union of Jew and Moabite, and Obed incorporates Jew and Gentile in his own body.  Obed, whose name means “servant,” is a type of the coming Servant of Yahweh.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Jesus and Gentiles, 2

Perhaps the pattern noted earlier can be applied more broadly.  Perhaps the incorporation of outsiders is always what spurs God’s return to save the insiders.  So, the current moment may not only be one (as Philip Yancy put it) of God moving on from the West to a place where He’s wanted.  It may also be that as peoples outside traditional Christendom (Naomi) are incorporated into Christendom (Ruth), not only are they saved but the greater Boas comes to the rescue of Naomi as well, gives Naomi, who is as good as dead, new life.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Jesus and Gentiles

The typological pattern of Ruth is: Naomi, the Jewish widow, is bereft; the Gentile daughter Ruth joins her; Naomi gets a savior when Boaz attaches himself to Ruth.  That is, the pattern is not “Savior, then incorporation of Gentiles” but “incorporation of Gentiles, then Savior.”

In the fulfillment, it’s both.  Jesus comes to bring the Gentiles into full sonship and holiness.  But the Ruth pattern is also at work on the larger scale: The incorporation of the Gentile bride in the restoration period is preparation for the coming of the kinsman redeemer.  Might we say that the kinsman redeemer comes to save the widow Israel precisely because of the pleas of the Gentiles?  Might we say that the Redeemer comes to save the widow Israel because of His attraction to the Gentile  daughter?

Bible - OT - Ruth: Naomi’s story

Naomi is as central to Ruth as the title character.  She’s the one emptied, then filled; bereft and restored; dead and risen again.  The son of Boaz and Ruth is “Naomi’s son,” and this chiastically matches (as several of my students have pointed out) her loss of sons at the beginning of the book.  Naomi is the Hebrew widow, and the story, for all its interest in the Moabite Ruth, is also about the redemption of Israel.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Overshadowing

David Daube suggests in his book on the New Testament and rabbinic Judaism that the image of the Spirit “overshadowing” Mary is ultimately drawn from the image of Boaz covering Ruth with the wing of his garment. The Lord spreads his skirt over Mary - who, like Ruth, calls herself the maidservant - in order to give birth to the true Obed, the true Servant.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Ordo salutis

Ruth is redeemed by an Israelite savior, Boaz. But she meets an Israelite widow before she knows that there is an Israelite savior, and she comes to know the savior through her association with the widow. Typologically: The Gentiles pledge themselves to Israel, and through Israel come to know Israel’s savior (and of course Israel is saved through Gentile incorporation).

Tropologically (perhaps): A child is pledged to the new Israel, the new bride who is no longer a widow, in baptism; Israel’s people becomes her people, and Israel’s God her God. She comes to know Israel’s savior through the witness of the bride.

Bible - OT - Ruth: All Israel Shall Be Saved

The book of Ruth is not merely about the individual characters, but about Israel, moving from the barrenness of the period of the judges toward the new birth of the monarchy. Naomi is the barren, bereft Israelite widow, who ends the book with a child her knees and with plenty of food ?Eredeemed. And the chief means for that movement is the incorporation of the Gentile Ruth into her house. Kindness is extended to the Gentiles, and through the incorporation of Gentiles, all Israel is saved.

Bible - OT - Ruth: Ruth and Judges

In a 1989 article in the WTJ, Warren Gage, now of Knox Theological Seminary, explores the connections between the Gibeah incident recorded at the end of Judges and the story of Ruth. He argues that there are literary and thematic connections and contrasts between the two narratives. As usual, Gage gives us a number of stunning connections, such as:

1) Gibeah and Bethlehem both figure prominently in the history of the monarchy, Gibeah as Saul’s hometown (1 Sam 15:34) and Bethlehem as the birthplace of David. This connection with royalty is evident also in the refrain of Judges (”there was no king in Israel”) in contrast to the genealogy that ends the book of Ruth. The story of Gibeah and Bethlehem in Judges-Ruth thus anticipates the story of Saul and David.

2) An additional layer of typology emerges when we consider the widely recognized similarities between the story of Gibeah and that of Sodom. He notes that in both stories, someone offers women to the sodomites who are attacking visitors to a city, and in both instances the phrase “do whatever is good in your eyes” is used (Gen 19:8; Judg 19:24). Clearly, this is related to the larger issue of Judges, which records a time when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

3) The Sodom connection throws some brilliant light on the story of Ruth, since Ruth is Moabite, descended from Moab, the product of Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughter. Thus, Gage points to numerous structural similarities between the story of Lot and his daughter and the story of Ruth and Boaz; the incest in the cave is linked with the tryst on the threshing floor:

women plot to preserve the family, Gen 19:31; Ruth 3:1
the male has been drinking, Gen 19:32; Ruth 3:7
the female seeks him out and lies “beside” him, Gen 19:33; Ruth 3:7
the female receives “seed” from the man, Gen 19:36; Ruth 3:15
two women “receive” a son, Gen 19:37-38; Ruth 4:13, 17

These structural similarities are mainly intended to highlight contrasts, and Gage suggests several: Ruth is fulfilling the levirate law, while Lot’s daughter is committing incest (Ruth “uncovers the feet” of Boaz, an expression similar to that used for incest in Lev 18, 20, but in Ruth’s case without the implication of sin); Lot’s daughter lies with her father, while Ruth lies with a “kinsman” who is an appropriate husband; Lot is passive throughout, while Boaz takes the initiative; Ruth waits for Boaz to awake while Lot’s daughter lies with her father without his awareness; Ruth does not have intercourse with Boaz, but Lot’s daughter does; Ruth receives grain “seed,” foreshadowing her later conception, but Lot’s daughter receives her father’s “seed” and becomes pregnant illicitly.

In short, Ruth’s tryst in the Bethlehem threshing flood is not only contrasted with the sodomy of Gibeah, but with the original incest that founded the Moabites.

4) Gage says that the story of Ruth, read in conjuction with the story of Gibeah, offers a preview of the gospel in a number of respects. The incorporation of the Moabite Ruth is contrasted with the rejection of the Benjamite city. While the men of Gibeah act like Amorites, Ruth leaves her home and family to follow Naomi and Yahweh, displaying a faith like Abraham. The people of God is not defined by race but by faith, and even Moabites, who are forbidden from participation in the assembly of Israel (Deut 23:3), may be saved by seeking out Israel’s kinsman redeemer.

Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Ruth: Ruth and Tamar

In the “Well, duh” category: After mentioning Warren Gage’s work on the parallels between Ruth and Tamar here earlier in the week, now I’ve read a student paper that helps to fill out that point. She points out that in both stories, men and specifically husbands die and that in both the outcome is the birth of a child to the widow. Also, it’s obvious that both are dealing with the institution of the levirate, and both are also reporting on the genealogy of Judah leading up to David. The Tamar story is the beginning of the 10-generation exclusion of the bastard descendants of Judah from full participation and leadership in the community, and the Ruth story is the endpoint of that history.

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