Ruth

Introduction

To preserve the inheritance of each head of family and the piece of land he owned in the midst of his tribe was considered in Israel as the way to protect the dignity and the freedom of everyone. This practice of redeeming the land, together with the name of the one who died without children, is highlighted in the case of Ruth.

An old tradition held that among David’s ancestors, there was a foreign woman named Ruth. She is the protagonist of this beautiful story. These pages preserve for us scenes from the lives of the Palestinian farmers, Christ’s ancestors, as they lived for centuries. In the simple life of these peasants, we find true culture, an exquisite human quality, and unconscious nobility.

A spirit of supranational openness inspires this story written around the fourth century B.C. Shortly before this, Ezra had forced the Jews to get rid of their foreign wives, who might have enticed them to follow pagan religions. By contrast, here, the protagonist of the story is a foreign woman. Ruth accepts the true God of Israel and she is welcomed into the community of the people of God.

3.1 Why does Ruth want to have Boaz for her husband? In order to follow the so-called “Levirate” law, mentioned in Chapter 38 of Genesis.

When a man dies without leaving children, the sacred duty of his widow is to marry the nearest relative of her deceased husband. The first son she would bear him would take the name of the dead man and be considered his son.

This explains Ruth’s sacrifice. She gives up marrying a young man and accepts being the wife of an older and foreign man because this can give her a son “for” her dead husband. Thus Ruth fulfills the mysterious plan of God who predestined her to be among Christ’s ancestors (see Mt 1:5).