Ruth in a Nutshell: Popular Perceptions are Often Plainly Wrong

Ruth in a Nutshell: Popular Perceptions are Often Plainly Wrong.

This text was prepared for a Topical Discussions program presented at Christogenea in October of 2023. Although it is more concise, it offers some new perspectives beyond those found in my October, 2015 presentation on the subject. There are remarks in the twenty-five minute podcast here which are not found in this text.

The contention that Ruth was a racial Moabite is refuted in many ways in Scripture. Here is a quick list of points which demonstrate that Ruth must have been an Israelite.

1) The phrase “land of Moab” also referred to the portion of Moab taken by Israel. The children of Israel inhabited a large portion of the land of Moab for over 300 years by the time of Judges chapter 11, and that is stated explicitly in that chapter. That is found in the words of Jephthah, who defended Israel when the Moabites tried to take back the land, and he said in part “26 While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time?” Although it was still called the “land of Moab” at that time, the actual Moabites lived only in the portion of ancient Moab which was south of the river Arnon, as it is also attested in that same chapter, especially in verse 18.

So the land of Moab which was inhabited by Israel was still referred to as the land of Moab at a time which could have been not more than a few decades before Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, could have been born. Saul had reigned only two years in 1 Samuel chapter 13, and David was already a young man just a short time later, in 1 Samuel chapter 16. So David was born perhaps as many as twenty years before Saul was king. The Judges period, according to Paul of Tarsus in Acts chapter 13, was four hundred and fifty years. So David was born perhaps around 130 years after Jephthah had made that statement concerning Moab. Ruth was his great-grandmother, and Naomi was a generation older, so she was most likely born around three decades after Jephthah’s time, where the land of Moab inhabited by the children of Israel was still called the land of Moab.

2) The Israelites had often used geographic labels to describe one another. According to the genealogy, Boaz and Ruth are David’s great-grandparents. So Ruth would have lived in the later part of the Judges period, and not much longer than fifty or sixty years after the time of Jephthah. Throughout the Book of Judges, men were often identified by the name of the town, village or region from which they came, rather than by an Israelite tribal identification. So David was never called “David the Judahite”, but he is referred to as an Ephrathite, as his father was also called in 1 Samuel 17:12. The town of Ephrath was renamed Bethlehem, an account which is given in Genesis chapter 35 (35:16-19). So about a hundred years before the time of “that Ephrathite of Bethlehemjudah, whose name was Jesse”, as David’s father was called in 1 Samuel 17:12, Jephthah was identified only as a Gileadite, in Judges chapter 11. No mention was made of the tribe of Israel to which Jephthah had belonged, and Gilead was a land adjoining Moab on the east of the Jordan, in the so-called “land of Moab” that Israel had come to occupy.

3) When Naomi’s husband and sons had died, she sought to return to Judah and she was followed by the wives of her sons. But she must have had some hardship, since she then sought to discourage them from accompanying her. As we read in the opening verses of the Book of Ruth, she and her husband went to Moab when there was a famine in Judah, and after her husband and sons had passed, she thought it would be better to return to Judah, but facing hardship she had then begged her sons’ wives to return to their own families in Moab. She could not have been expected to support her sons’ wives, as she herself had no husband and both of her sons were also dead. So Naomi expressed to them her prayer that Yahweh would deal kindly with them, and they wept, but only one of them returned, and Ruth stayed. So by Naomi, having begged Yahweh to care for them, we cannot assume that she was an impious or uncaring woman begging Yahweh for something which was contrary to the law. Throughout the Book of Ruth, Naomi is represented as a pious and humble woman who followed Yahweh and His law.

4) There is a law in Deuteronomy chapter 23 which reads “3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever.”

There were laws of kinsman redemption in Israel, whereby the closest next-of-kin is obliged to redeem his brother under various circumstances. This is evident in places such as Numbers chapter 5 concerning trespass, and Numbers chapter 27 concerning inheritance. So in reference to kinsman redemption, there is another law in Deuteronomy chapter 25 which reads: “6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. 7 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother. 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; 9 Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house. 10 And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.”

In Ruth chapter 4, when Boaz was given the opportunity of redeeming Ruth for the sons of Naomi, as well as a parcel of land that had belonged to her husband, there was another kinsman who was even closer in familial relationship to Naomi than was Boaz, so he had to be given the opportunity first. The other kinsman agreed to redeem the land, but he had declined to redeem Ruth, having given excuses. Therefore the obligation fell to Boaz, a pious man who is portrayed as having upheld the law, to redeem Ruth, and he did. So the law which is found in Deuteronomy chapter 25 was invoked in Ruth chapter 4, in verse 7, and the other kinsman had surrendered his shoe to Boaz before all the people, and it became a testimony. Doing this, he had to endure the reproach for which the law had called.

All of the parties involved in the redemption of Ruth had observed the law, and they must have all known the law. They knew the law of Deuteronomy 25:6-10, and therefore they must have also known the law of Deuteronomy 23:3 which prohibited the admission of Moabites into the congregation. But one law of God cannot compel a man to intentionally transgress another law of God. So if Ruth were a Moabite by race, her marriage to Naomi’s son would not have been legitimate, and the kinsman who could not redeem her only needed to cite the law barring Moabites from the congregation so that he himself could have avoided disgrace. He could not have neglected the law to assist in its breaking, or he himself would have been just as guilty of the transgression. But instead, knowing the law, he submitted and suffered disgrace, and Boaz, also knowing the law, had willingly redeemed Ruth. We cannot imagine that these men who were abiding by the law, would at the same time willfully transgress the law.

5) Over four hundred years after David, Ezra continued to uphold the law which requires the exclusion of the Moabites. This is found in Ezra chapter 9, where not only Moabites, but many others are also excluded, and the men whom Ezra had found intermarrying with them were compelled to put away the wives and their children of the wives which they had married. Ezra identified such marriages as a transgression of the law, and grieved that such transgressions had been committed. We cannot justly imagine that Ruth was a racial Moabite, while Ezra was a pious man upholding the law and compelling his fellow Judahites to expel their own wives and children, whom they sired of the Moabites. It is absolutely certain that Ezra also knew the law, and not one word of criticism for his actions is found in any passage of Scripture.

[Jesus never said that Ezra was a sinner and should not have done such a horrible thing, because his own great-grandmother was a Moabite. If that was true and Ezra was alive in the time of Christ, he would have been opposed to God Himself, or it must be understood that Ruth truly was an Israelite.]

6) There is a challenge raised in Ruth 1:15-16 for which we shall cite Young's Literal Translation of the Bible: “15 And she saith, 'Lo, thy sister-in-law hath turned back unto her people, and unto her god, turn thou back after thy sister-in-law.' 16 And Ruth saith, 'Urge me not to leave thee – to turn back from after thee; for whither thou goest I go, and where thou lodgest I lodge; thy people is my people, and thy God my God.” Because they were of the same people and God, Naomi was able to bring Ruth to Judah in the first place. The Wycliffe Bible, with its odd Medieval spellings and grammar, is in agreement at Ruth 1:16: “And sche answeride, Be thou not aduersarye to me, that Y forsake thee, and go awei; whidur euer thou schalt go, Y schal go, and where thou schalt dwelle, and Y schal dwelle togidere; thi puple is my puple, and thi God is my God;” Wycliffe’s translation is a very literal and it is a good representation of the corresponding text of the Latin Vulgate which he had used as his source. While Young also translated verse 1:16 perfectly, he erred where, in both the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint, the word which he rendered as god in 1:15 is actually plural, gods.

Both Young and Wycliffe correctly translated verse 16 as having expressed statements in fact, that the people of Naomi were indeed the people of Ruth, and that the God of Naomi was also the God of Ruth. But the word for god or God in those verses may also mean judge, and it is often translated as judge in Scripture. In the opening verse of the Book of Ruth we read "and it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled". Although the word for judges is different in verse 1, forms of the words el or elohim are often judge or judges throughout the Old Testament, and that is the word in verse 15 here, where a slightly different form appears in verse 16, which we shall discuss. The ancient children of Israel in the Judges period had local judges ruling over them, as well as the judges who ruled over all Israel, is evident in Numbers chapter 31, Deuteronomy 1:15-16 and elsewhere.

From Deuteronomy chapter 1: "9 And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: 10 The LORD your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. 11 (The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you!) 12 How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife? 13 Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. 14 And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. 15 So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. 16 And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. 17 Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. 18 And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do." So the captains appointed over the people were also their judges, and the judges were important to the people, governing their daily lives and protecting them from oppressors. For a widowed woman without a family, the judge would be very much more important than to a self-sufficient and able man. So to these women, to Naomi and her two daughters-in-law, what judges they had was important to them, it was important for them to be sheltered by a judge, and they would have been more comfortable with the judges with whom they had been familiar all of their lives.

An alternative possibility in relation to Ruth 1:15 only, is the fact that the Israelites of Moab had also been committing idolatry. It is certainly evident elsewhere in Scripture, and therefore that is also a possibility there. But we lean towards the reference in verse 15 as being to judges. An indication of the distinction between God and judges in the two verses, 15 and 16, is this: in verse 15, the word אלהיה or elohim is found in the text, which could refer to Yahweh as a plural of majesty, or to other gods or judges as a common plural noun. But in verse 16, on both occasions where the word God appears in the statement of Ruth, the form of the word is the singular form אלה or eloah, which is used quite often of Yahweh throughout Scripture, but not as often as the plural of majesty, elohim. So in these two verses there is a purposeful distinction in the two forms of the word. For that, I believe that elohim in verse 15 refers to the judges, and eloah in verse 16 refers to Yahweh Himself.

Conclusion) Here we have two choices. We must imagine that Naomi, Boaz, the unnamed kinsman, all the people of Bethlehem who witnessed the redemption of both the plot of land and of Ruth, and even Ezra the prophet were all hypocrites who despised the law while they acted to uphold the law. Or we must imagine that Ruth was a Moabite only by geography, and she must have been an Israelite by race. The truth is that Naomi was a pious woman, and Boaz was a righteous man who lived according to the law, and therefore we should expect them to have made just decisions. Ezra was a pious priest who also sought to uphold the law. The people who interpret these things to have been in violation of the law are only looking to justify sin.

Further proof is in the life of David, an explicit type for Christ Himself and a man after God’s own heart. It would be a terrible thing, to look into the face of your Creator, and insist to Him, that He would choose a bastard to be a man after His Own heart. So to think that Ruth was a racial Moabite is also an accusation that Yahweh God Himself is a hypocrite, since we read in Deuteronomy 23:2 that “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.” For my part, I would not want to be found accusing Yahweh of hypocrisy. Ruth was an Israelite, so get over it.