Prophecy in Ruth

“Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.” (1:16)

Reading

Naomi urges her widowed daughters-in-law to go home. Orpah does; Ruth will not, and binds herself to Naomi, to Israel and to Israel's God even past death: “Where you die I will die, and there be buried” (1:17). She is a Moabite, and the Law said, “No Ammonite or Moabite may ever come into the assembly of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 23:4). In Bethlehem she asks Boaz, “Why should I, a foreigner, be favored with your attention?” (2:10), and he blesses her by the God of Israel, “under whose wings you have come for refuge” (2:12).

Fulfilled

The Fathers, St. Ambrose among them in his Commentary on Luke, saw in Ruth the Church gathered from the nations: a stranger who leaves her own land for love and is welcomed into the people of God. St. Paul says the same of the Gentiles in Christ, who are “members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).

Unfolding

The welcome of the foreigner continues as the Gospel reaches every people, until the great multitude “from every nation, race, people, and tongue” stands before the Lamb (Revelation 7:9).

“I am your servant Ruth. Spread the wing of your cloak over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” (3:9)

Reading

The Hebrew word is go'el, the near kinsman whose duty was to buy back a relative's land, free a relative from slavery, and keep a dead man's name alive in Israel (Leviticus 25:25, 47–49; Deuteronomy 25:5–6). Ruth asks Boaz to spread over her the “wing” of his cloak, the same word as the “wings” of God under which she had taken refuge (2:12). A closer kinsman has the first right, but declines because of the cost: “I cannot exercise my right of redemption for that would endanger my own estate. You do it in my place, for I cannot” (4:6). Boaz pays it freely, buys back Elimelech's land, and takes Ruth as his wife “so that the name of the deceased may not perish from his people” (4:10).

Fulfilled

This is a traditional Christian reading rather than one the New Testament spells out. Christ is the kinsman who became one of us so that he could redeem us, paying what no one else could pay: “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption” (Galatians 4:4–5). As Boaz takes the foreign widow as his bride, Christ takes the Church from the nations as his own, and Revelation ends with the wedding of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7).

“They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.” (4:17)

Reading

When the child is born, the women of Bethlehem say to Naomi, “Blessed is the LORD who has not failed to provide you today with a redeemer” (4:14). The book closes with a genealogy from Perez, son of Judah, to David (4:18–22), and so the quiet story of one family turns out to be the story of Israel's royal line. The scepter promised to Judah (Genesis 49:10) passes through a Moabite woman. In the books of Samuel, God will promise David a house and a throne forever (2 Samuel 7).

Fulfilled

Matthew copies the line into the genealogy of Jesus: “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth” (Matthew 1:5). Matthew names only four women before Mary: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah, each with an irregular or foreign story. The Messiah's family tree already holds sinners and strangers, a sign of the mercy he comes to bring.

See also

Prophecy in Matthew; The scepter of Judah; Rahab and the scarlet cord.

“Prosper in Ephrathah! Bestow a name in Bethlehem!” (4:11)

Reading

The story begins with a famine in Bethlehem, whose name means “house of bread,” and turns when Naomi and Ruth arrive there “at the beginning of the barley harvest” (1:22). At the gate the elders bless Boaz and Ruth with a wish for Ephrathah and Bethlehem. The prophet Micah later names the same town as the birthplace of the coming ruler: “But you, Bethlehem-Ephrathah least among the clans of Judah, From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:1).

Fulfilled

Joseph goes up “to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David” (Luke 2:4), and there the angels announce “a savior … who is Messiah and Lord” (Luke 2:11). The house of bread becomes the birthplace of the one who says, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). The name the elders hoped for in Bethlehem was given there, far beyond what they asked.