Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

One of the three blessings of the legal assembly in 4:11–12 was that Yahweh might make Boaz flourish and give him renown in Bethlehem through a family line whose size would be as great as that of the patriarch Jacob/Israel and whose significance would match that of Perez (the premier clan of Judah). This genealogy, which leads from Perez through Boaz to David, bears testimony to the fulfillment of the blessing of the legal assembly of Bethlehem.69 The genealogies at the end of the book lift the story to a national level. The first genealogy (at the end of the epilogue, v. 17) begins with Obed, son of Boaz and Ruth, and culminates two generations later in David; the second (here in the coda) goes back to Perez, the son of Judah and Tamar, then leads to Salmon, father of Boaz, and after ten generations also culminates in David. The double emphasis on David moves the book to the national level. Culminating with David as the tenth member of the genealogy, there is an automatic connection made with the apex-person of the ten-member genealogies of Noah (Gen 5) and Abraham (Gen 11), where the tenth member enters into a new covenant with God.