Ruth

Lessons I didn’t learn in Sunday School – Ruth

Most Christians are familiar with the most popular stories taught in Sunday School. But as adults, what can we learn from those lessons?

The story of Ruth is touted as a love story, but there’s more to it than Boaz and Ruth falling in love and marrying. It’s about inheritance and one of the ways a widow without sons could regain protection and not turn to begging or prostitution. Life was not easy for women and the most important lesson in Ruth is about lasting friendship between women.

Early societies treated women like property. Rich men who wanted to leave their possessions to their son and heir, married a virgin to guarantee the child was his. So virgins of child bearing age were valuable. They competed in the marriage market which has some remnants in debutante balls where young women are presented to society as potential brides. Poor women had a life of hard work ahead of them. Even the daughter of a rich man who was plain, widowed, or could not find a husband, was treated like a servant or sent to a nunnery.

The story of Ruth is told in four chapters. It begins with Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to Moab because of a famine. Elimelech dies and the two sons take wives, Orpah and Ruth and they lived in Moab for about 10 years. Then the two sons died. Naomi decides to return to Judah where there is now bread. She tells the young women to return to their mothers’ houses and find new husbands because she has no other sons. Orpha leaves but Ruth remains with Naomi.

Ruth gives an oath to Noami: “For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. They people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

Although Naomi is older than Ruth, they pledge to stand by one another no matter what happens as they set out to return to Naomi’s homeland.

Moab is across the Dead Sea from Judah. Moabites originally were descended from Abraham’s brother, Lot, who impregnated his two daughters after his wife’s death – she was turned into a pillar of salt. This is another story to look at some other time. But it shows that everyone in the Middle East is a cousin or relative traced back to Abraham.

Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem during barley harvest time where many of her old neighbors recognize Naomi, and she tells them of her troubles. Boaz was a kinsman (most likely a younger brother) of Elimelech and a mighty man of wealth. Ruth volunteers to go to the field. She hopes to find grace in Boaz’s eye which she does. Boaz asked about Ruth and the servant tells him her history with Naomi.

Boaz tells her to gleam only in his fields by his maidens and orders his men not to touch her. He protects her and invites her to eat with him and then orders his men to drop handfuls of the crop for her. All of these actions demonstrate that Boaz is attracted to Ruth and cares about her welfare. It doesn’t say anything about being attracted by her beauty but by her behavior toward Naomi.

Naomi, who remains in Bethlehem and does not go into the fields, listens to what happens each evening and proposes finding security for Ruth. She tells her to wash and dress and go to the threshing floor but not show herself to Boaz. After he lies down, she uncovers his feet and lies down. She says, “spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.”

She is asking him to marry her and as a near kinsman redeem her dead husband’s inheritance. This was her right as shown in Deuteronomy 25:5:10.

Boaz praises her for not chasing young men which implies that he is older and matches the idea that he is Elimelech’s brother. He tells her there is a closer near kinsman. She stays until morning but leaves before anyone can see her and Boaz gives her six measures of barley. Naomi listens to what Boaz told her and they wait to see the outcome.

Boaz goes to the gate of Bethlehem and waits for the kinsman. He calls 10 elders of the city as witnesses. He tells the near kinsman that Naomi wants to sell a parcel of land which was their brother Elimelech’s plot. This confirms their fraternal relationship. He tells him to redeem it but if he doesn’t want to, Boaz will redeem it. But there is one condition. If he buys the land, he must buy it of Ruth and marry her and raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.

The near kinsman can’t redeem it without forfeiting his own inheritance and gives Boaz the right to redeem it. He plucks off his shoe and gives it to his neighbor to seal the deal. Boaz agrees before the elders to buy the land belonging to Naomi’s husband and sons. He also purchases Ruth to be his wife and agrees to raise up the dead upon his inheritance.

Ruth has a son, Obed, and Naomi becomes nurse to it. She is too old to breastfeed as some claim. This is most likely a declaration that she claims the child as her grandson because in the law at that time, he is legally her grandson and heir to the land Boaz purchased from Naomi. The term nurse would imply that she helped Ruth take care of him. This also shows that she lives with Ruth and they continue their pledge to help one another.

I don’t think there are enough stories about women forming strong friendships that last a lifetime and that is why this one is special. Naomi could have sold the land for herself and lived off of the profits but she wanted to find “security” for Ruth and told her how to claim her rights to raise up an heir to her dead husband. 

Laws were passed to transfer a woman’s property, if she had any, to her husband when they married. Anyone who has read a Jane Austen novel knows that if a woman didn’t have a son, she lost the family property to a male relative of her husband.

Why do you think women were not allowed to inherit or own property in some cultures?

Some conservative religions still insist the husband should handle the money and important decisions for the family. How does that affect a woman’s image of herself and her security if her husband dies or divorces her?

Do you have a friendship like Ruth and Naomi? How is that special?