I recall standing at my work station in our medical office years ago when a loud wail emitted from one of the exam rooms. We all looked up, wondering what was going on. Turned out that our physician’s assistant had just revealed to a teenage girl and her mother that the girl was pregnant. The wail came from the mother. Sex is one of our most basic urges but it always seems to surprise parents when their precious young angels engage in that behavior. I’m tempted to go off on a rant about the importance of comprehensive sex education and access to birth control, but that’s not what this post is about. Have you ever known a mother to actually encourage her daughter to have sex as a way to catch a man? Perhaps, but such a story wouldn’t find its way into the Bible, would it? Well…
The Bible has a well-earned reputation as a rather patriarchal (male-centered) book, but there are two books named for and starring women. There are some interesting comparisons/contrasts in these two books. One woman was a foreigner who marries an Israelite and the other is an Israelite who marries a foreigner. I find this particularly interesting since the Old Testament narrative and laws generally frown upon and even forbid Jews marrying outsiders (Numbers 25, Deuteronomy 7, etc.) and yet here are these two stories preserved in the Scriptures. Both women are said to play an important role in Israel’s history (according to the stories; not necessarily by verifiable records). And unlike all the books named for men, in neither story do God or miracles play a significant role; in fact, God is not even mentioned in Esther! Perhaps strong women don’t need the help of miracles or God to make things happen, but you can make your own interpretation of that.
This article is about Ruth. She is said to be the great-grandmother of Israel’s revered King David and for Christians she is also in the lineage of Jesus. Most people know the Sunday School version of this, as a simple and lovely story of a woman who is devoted to her mother-in-law and is rewarded with a wonderful husband. But the full story is more complex and saucier than that. It begins in the time of the judges with the land suffering from famine, once again. (Famine is a frequent mechanism for moving a story character to a necessary place in the Old Testament narrative.) In this case a man named Elimelech, his wife Naomi and their two sons are driven to Moab. They are from Bethlehem in Judah, a town that anyone familiar with the story of Jesus will recognize. The two sons take Moabite wives while they are there, one named Orpah (not Oprah) and the other Ruth. Recall that Moab was an enemy of Israel and there had been bad blood between them for a long time. Moab was the nation that tried to hire Balaam to curse Israel. Therefore the Law of Moses said that a Moabite was not to enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation of descendants. And now we have these two good Jewish boys married to Moabites! But as fate would have it the husband and then the two sons die in Moab.
Eventually Naomi hears that good times have returned to Judah and she prepares to return home. She urges her daughters-in-law to return home so that they can find new husbands. Orpah does so, but Ruth clings to Naomi. Naomi tells her,
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“Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
Ruth 1:15
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Naomi doesn’t seem too concerned about her daughters-in-law returning to Moab and their gods. Perhaps she hopes they will have better luck with those gods, as she has already told the girls, “The hand of Yahweh is against me” (v.13). However, Ruth replies with the statement for which she is best remembered:
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“Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may Yahweh do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”
Ruth 1:16, 17
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This is a touching scene and Ruth is clearly devoted to her mother-in-law. However, it seems to me her acceptance of Yahweh as her god is based on her devotion to Naomi, not for any theological reasons. Naomi certainly doesn’t seem to be a good advocate for Yahweh, as when they return home she tells her friends,
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“Do not call me Naomi [Heb: “my delight”]; call me Mara [Heb: “bitter”], for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but Yahweh has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since Yahweh has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?”
Ruth 1:20, 21
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Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Yahweh; kind of surprising Ruth wants to adopt Him as her god. Although it is common for people to convert to or adopt the religions of their loved ones Jesus taught than one should put spiritual priorities (specifically, following him) above family. So, it is a little ironic that Ruth finds her way into Jesus’ genealogy by choosing a god based on family affiliation.
So, Naomi and Ruth are back in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Naomi has a rich relative named Boaz. It was the custom, in fact it was written in the Law of Moses, that land owners should not reap to the edges of their fields so that the poor could gather the leftovers. Ruth goes to Boaz’s field to do so. He notices and finds out who she is. He tells her to make herself at home and makes sure she has enough to eat and drink. She asks why such kindness for a foreigner, and he tells her how he has heard of her kindness to Naomi. He even tells his servants to make sure they leave some extra grain out for her to glean.
Naomi is pleased to hear that Ruth went to Boaz’s field as he is a close relative, and also because she can “go out with his maids, lest other fall upon you in another field” (2:22). In other words, she doesn’t trust the men of Bethlehem not to attack her out in a field. Sounds like Naomi has an opinion about the men of Judah. But Boaz is a good (and rich) man and Naomi has a plan to get Ruth hitched to him. She basically tells Ruth, “Boaz will be down at the threshing floor tonight. Gussy yourself up and go down there. Wait until he’s done drinking and lies down. Go to his bed and uncover his feet and lie down; then he’ll know what to do” (Ruth 3:3, 4).
Climbing into his bed is one thing, but also consider the phrase “uncover his feet.” “Feet” or “legs” is sometimes used as a euphemism for the genitalia in the Old Testament: In 2nd Kings 18:27 the Hebrew phrase “water of the feet” is used for urine (or, “piss” in the KJV). See Judges 3:24 and 1st Samuel 24:3 where “covering the feet” is translated as going to the bathroom (“relieving himself”). In Isaiah 6:2 the seraphim use a pair of wings to cover their “feet” likely meaning genitalia (why cover the feet and not the private parts, after all?). In Deuteronomy 28:57 a woman’s placenta is said to come “from between her feet.” In Isaiah 7:20 “hair of the legs” seems to mean pubic hair. And in Ezekiel 16:25 spreading the feet is a term for promiscuity. Also, to “uncover” someone was a euphemism for intercourse, as you can see in the Law in Leviticus 18 (“you shall not uncover the nakedness of…”), or a verse like Deuteronomy 22:30, “A man shall not take his father’s wife so that he shall not uncover his father’s skirt.” So for Ruth to wait until Boaz had been drinking (“Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry” 3:7) and then to go in secret to his bed and “uncover his feet” does not seem like an entirely innocent situation.
You still might object to this notion, but consider this: Would you tell your daughter to pretty herself up, wait until the boy she likes has passed out drunk and then go lie down in his bed, whether she uncovers something or not?! I’m not trying to denigrate Ruth and Boaz for being involved in a sexual situation; I’m just suggesting it is naïve to think they were not. Ruth was not engaged; Boaz was free to take her as his wife. There was nothing necessarily immoral about this situation in that culture. Boaz has her “lie down until morning” (3:13). However, there is one snag. In that culture the closest relative of a widow was allowed to assume (“redeem”) the dead husband’s property and his widow, and have children by her to continue the dead man’s heritage. Boaz is a close relative to Ruth (through her late husband), but not the closest. He conceives a plan to take care of this.
The next day Boaz waits by the city gates for this other relative. When he comes by then Boaz gathers the village elders and asks the relative if he is willing to redeem the dead man’s property. He initially says yes. Boaz then points out that he “must also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance” (Ruth 4:5).
This sours the deal for the relative. I’m not sure if Boaz went out of his way to mention that Ruth is from Moab, a potential enemy, but the relative voices the concern that this deal might affect his own inheritance, so he declines. We next learn that it was their custom to close a deal by offering a sandal to the other person, so the relative offers his sandal to Boaz with the elders as witnesses. And so Boaz marries Ruth. Actually, it first says that he “acquired” (or, “purchased”) her (4:10); there’s that idea of women being the possessions of men again (see post #12).
A cute though somewhat racy story, but why so important as to merit its own book? Perhaps the blessing they are given by the people explains it:
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May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel; and may you achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem. Moreover, may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah, through the offspring which the Lord will give you by this young woman.”
Ruth 4:11, 12
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Ruth is compared to Rachel and Leah, who birthed eight of the twelve tribes of Israel (No mention of the two house slaves that contributed the other four? Not cool.), and to Tamar who bore Perez for Judah. Now Ruth is in this same line, which culminates in the birth of David, her great-grandson, the beloved king of Israel. This is really kind of a curious but interesting scenario. David is descended from the sisterly war of the wombs of Rachel and Leah, and from Tamar, who you may recall (post # 8) got pregnant by her father-in-law Judah by posing as a prostitute. Now a Moabitess, an enemy of Israel is in the family.[1] I wonder if one of the reasons for including this story of Ruth was to show that life does not always follow the letter of the Law. None of us are perfect and life doesn’t always go by the book, but things work out in the end, so just chill!
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Thinking exercises:
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1. What do you think about Naomi’s advice to Ruth, to gussy herself up, wait until Boaz is drunk, and then crawl into his bed? It worked: it secured her and Ruth’s future. So, how do you feel about it?
2. Does it bother you to know the scandalous history of some of the key figures in the Bible? Does it bother you that the church often shuns people today for doing the same sorts of things?
3. Ruth seems to have chosen to worship Yahweh based on her devotion to her mother-in-law, rather than for any deep theological reason. Most people adopt the religion of their family. Do you think that matters? Do you think God cares how one arrives at the “right” religion, as long as they get there and stay there? What about those born into a family with the “wrong” religion? Would you do it any differently if you were the Supreme One?
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[1] Review the end of post #8, about Ruth and the other notorious women cited in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1.