Book of Ruth

This is a Handbook about the Pentateuch and the historical/narrative books of the Old Testament, that belongs to the Series of Handbooks for the study of Theology, of the Institute of Religious Sciences of the Eclesiastical University of San Dámaso (Madrid, Spain). In this pdf you can find de introduction to the handbook and the explanation of its content. You can buy this book in: http://www.sandamaso.es/tienda/manual-de-ccrr/196-pentateuco-y-libros-historicos.html

Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Informationen sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de/ abrufbar Dieses Werk ist als freie Onlineversion über den Hochschulschriften-Server (OPUS; http://www.opus-bayern.de/uni-bamberg/) der Universitätsbibliothek Bamberg erreichbar. Kopien und Ausdrucke dürfen nur zum privaten und sonstigen eigenen Gebrauch angefertigt werden.

Although the Book of Ruth is in many respects a classic example of biblical Hebrew narrative, with its stripped-down style and the opaqueness of its character's inner lives and motivations, there are two examples of formal poetry in the book (1:16-17 and 1:20-21). Biblical poetry works with a very different set of literary conventions than narrative, and by taking note of those conventions, we can see the distinctive contributions made by these poems to the book as a whole.

Puji syukur kami penjatkan kehadirat Allah SWT, yang atas rahmat-Nya sehingga kami dapat menyelesaikan penyusunan makalah yang berjudul Sistem Informasi Manajemen. Dalam Penulisan makalah ini kami merasa masih banyak kekurangan baik pada teknis penulisan maupun materi, mengingat akan kemampuan yang kami miliki. Untuk itu, kritik dan saran dari semua pihak sangat kami harapkan demi penyempurnaan pembuatan makalah ini. Dalam penulisan makalah ini penulis menyampaikan ucapan terima kasih yang sebesar-besarnya kepada pihak-pihak yang membantu dalam menyelesaikan makalah ini, khususnya kepada Dosen kami yang telah memberikan tugas dan petunjuk kepada kami, sehingga kami dapat menyelesaikan tugas ini. Abad 20 yang lalu serinng disebut abad informasi karena kenyataan bahwa informasi sangat penting dalam kehidupan manusia, termasuk juga dalam kehidupan bisnis.dengan informasi manusia dapat memperoleh apa yang telah terjadi pada lingkungannya bahkan dari luar lingkungannya. Informasi dari berbagai unsur perusahaan menjadi perhatian bagi para manajer perusahaan dalam pelaksanaan transaksi-transaksi yang dilakukan perusahaan. Tanpa informasi internal maupun informasi eksternal, sulit bagi para menajer untuk mengambil berbagai keputusan dalam perusahaan. Informasi internal harus disiapkan sendiri oleh berbagai unsur perusahaan, sedangkan informasi eksternal diperoleh baik dari alat-alat komunkasi modern seperti mass-media, alat-alat komunikasi seperti telepon, handphone, TV, atau dari internet. Kemajuan alat komunikasi pada melinium ketiga semakin mempermudah perolehan informasi dari berbagai sumber untuk berbagai kepentingan terutama dalam berbagai pengambilan keputusan didalam perusahaan, itulah sebabnya sangat dirasakan pentingnya mengelolah informasi secara terintegrasi pada setiap organisasi perusahaan. Oleh karena itulah focus utama dari system informasi manajemen adalah bagaimana mengelolah informasi sebaik-baiknya agar dapat menjadi alat pembantu bagi setiap manajer dalam pengambilan keputusan. System informasi manajemen telah ada jauh sebelum teknologi informasi yang berbasiskan computer hadir. Akan tetapi dengan adanya computer sebagai salah satu bentuk revolusi dalam teknologi informasi, computer telah

Tujuan penulisan skripsi adalah untuk menjelaskan kajian biblika tentang penebusan dalam kitab Rut serta menjelaskan implikasi tentang penebusan dalam kitab Rut bagi kehidupan orang percaya masa kini. Adapun kesimpulannya adalah sebagai berikut: Pertama, penebusan secara konteks dalam kitab Rut adalah tindakan untuk mendapatkan tempat perlindungan melalui pernikahan. Tempat perlindungan ialah rumah tangga, karena kata ini mengandung makna kedamaian dan kebahagiaan, serta keamanan, yang didapatkan dari sebuah pernikahan dan hidup bersama dengan suami. Kedua, penebusan secara konteks dalam kitab Rut ialah menebus dan menegakkan milik pusaka orang lain. Tradisi levirat dalam kitab Rut mengharuskan goel menebus tanah milik Elimlekh yang telah mati (4:3-4) dan menegakkan milik pusaka orang lain (4:5-10) yaitu dengan menikahi Rut. Dalam kitab Rut penebusan bukan hanya menebus benda tetapi juga menebus orang. Ketika berada di dalam perundingan tentang penebusan di depan hadapan para saksi. Dalam tindakan penebusan ini, penebus juga harus menikah dengan Rut untuk menegakkan nama Elimelekh melalui anak Rut nantinya. Ketiga, penebusan menggambarkan pemeliharaan Allah bagi kehidupan orang percaya. Dalam penebusan, Allah melakukan tindakan-tindakan khususnya demi menggenapi perjanjian-Nya untuk selama-lamanya, tindakan-tindakan ini ialah pemeliharaan Allah bagi orang percaya. Keempat, pernikahan levirat dapat saja dilaksanakan dalam keluarga apabila ada saudara kandung dari orang yang telah meninggal belum memiliki ikatan pernikahan dengan orang lain, dan bersedia untuk menikah dengan janda dari saudara sekandungnya, dan pernikahan ini dilaksanakan sesuai dengan prinsip dari proses pernikahan Kristen. Pernikahan levirat yang sejati itu telah digenapi oleh Yesus Kristus sendiri bagi orang percaya (Matius 25:1-13. Markus 2:18-22). Melalui pernikahan inilah orang percaya dapat melahirkan buah-buah Roh (Galatia 5:22-24). Kelima, penebusan dalam kitab Rut menggambarkan penebusan yang dilakukan oleh Yesus Kristus untuk menebus manusia dari hukuman dosa. Bahkan melampaui penebusan dari penebusan di Perjanjian Lama tersebut. Yesus Kristus telah datang ke dunia menjadi penebus bagi manusia dari kematian kekal menjadi hidup yang kekal.

'In the past the Book of Ruth does not seem to have received a great deal of attention. Scholars usually pass it by as of small value. It is not worth while to squeeze the juice from so small a fruit. The beauty is all on the surface. The outer skin is so transparent that all the seeds can be detected without opening.'
Thus wrote W. E. Staples in 1937, in the opening to his paper concerning the biblical Book of Ruth. Of course, he was not in agreement with the scholars he mentions, and the purpose of
his work was to show that despite the smallness of the fruit, its juice was well worth squeezing out, and that, below the surface, there lay much worthy of investigation. The Book of Ruth
tells a simple story of loss and redemption, set in the time of Israel’s Judges. It mainly focuses on three principal characters: Ruth, Naomi and Boaz. Ruth, a Moabite widow, forsakes her
people and land to accompany her mother-in-law, Naomi (an Israelite who lost her husband and two sons when they all went to Moab in the midst of a famine), as she returns to Bethlehem. Boaz, a benevolent landowner from Bethlehem, shows kindness to Ruth and redeems the family’s inheritance. The book closes with the marriage of Ruth and Boaz and the
birth of their son, Obed, who would become the grandfather of Israel’s most famous king, David. This secures the small fruit firmly in the canonical orchard of Jewish and Christian scripture, establishing its importance in the messianic heritage of both traditions. The rabbinic and patristic exegetes of Late Antiquity would also have disagreed with Staples’ scholars. The Rabbis wrote a verse-by-verse commentary for the Book of Ruth, the
length of which far exceeds the biblical text itself. None of the Church Fathers composed a verse-by-verse commentary, but many from the earliest patristic period onwards have afforded
it considerable attention. The Rabbis and Church Fathers wrote much concerning all three principal characters, but they gave special attention to the character of Ruth herself. She attracts this attention because of her piety, faithfulness and selfless concern for her mother-in-law. She is also attractive because she raises the whole issue of proselytism, as the proselyte to
Judaism nonpareil. For the Church Fathers she prefigures and represents the Gentile church. However, Ruth is especially attractive because she is an ancestor of the Messiah in both
traditions. This is the intrigue of The Book of Ruth – that such a small, seemingly insignificant character in such a small, seemingly insignificant story could have such influence and position in rabbinic and patristic writing. This study seeks to explore whether there was an exegetical dialogue between the
rabbinic and patristic commentators on the Book of Ruth in the period of late Antiquity. The rabbinic commentary on Ruth is collected into one anonymous (not necessarily homogeneous) volume: the Ruth Rabbah (written in Hebrew). The patristic commentators, on the other hand, are mostly individually identifiable, but are linguistically and geographically disparate (spanning Greek, Latin and Syriac languages and culture). The linguistic differences between the rabbinic and patristic exegetes create some difficulties: it is uncertain to what extent they were familiar with one another’s languages and whether they had access to either or both the oral and written sources in one another’s traditions. Yet, both groups occupy the same general period in history (approximately the third to sixth century) and it would appear that the development of their writing was contemporaneous. The issues which made the character of Ruth so attractive to the Rabbis and Church Fathers form the themes that will be explored in this study. Firstly, there is the issue of Ruth’s gender – the book presents a biblical heroine in the midst of a realm that is almost exclusively
male-dominated. The commentators themselves, on both sides, were exclusively male, so how did they deal with a woman taking the central role? Secondly, there is the issue of Ruth’s
ethnicity (her otherness) – she was a Moabitess, and the Moabites were strictly forbidden from entering into the assembly of Israel (see Deuteronomy 23:3). Finally, there is the issue of Ruth’s role as a messianic matriarch and the Messiah’s identity, with regard to the lineage of David. The patristic commentators clearly identified the Messiah in Christological terms, but did this claim influence rabbinic interpretation?

The article explores an unusual literary phenomenon in both biblical and Mesopotamian traditions: a consecutive order of clauses in a law collection serves to structure the plot of a later, narrative composition. The plot of Ruth follows the list of
commandments in Deut 24:16-25:10, while a portion of the Neo-Babylonian work, “Nebuchadnezzar King of Justice” follows the order of LH 1-5. Strikingly, these narrative compositions invoke the venerated law codes of their respective traditions, and yet, at the same time, the practice of those very same laws invoked, is seen to be at variance with the prescriptions of the earlier codes. The implications of the phenomenon for understanding processes of legal revision in the ancient Near East are explored.

In this paper I discuss one of the ways the gaps and ambiguities in the book of Ruth--which are, as I contend, intentional and relevant to the narration--can be understood as playing an important role in developing the theological message of the book.

Summary:  The book of Ruth tells a story about a man and woman with a high sense of duty and an uncommon concern for the welfare of others.  As such, it’s a rare gem, which sparkles all the more brightly because of the dark and murky backdrop against which it’s framed.  (Note especially the book of Judges’ last two incidents, both of which, like the book of Ruth, unfold in and around Bethlehem.)  Why, then, spoil things with the events of ch. 3, i.e., Ruth and Boaz’s unusual night-time encounter?  The answer, I submit, involves the book of Ruth’s connections with the stories on the one hand of Judah and Tamar and on the other of Lot and his daughters.  Keywords:  Ruth, Boaz, Naomi, Tamar, Lot, Judah, intertextuality.  Date:  Dec. 2020 (updated).

Ruth 3 kindles sexual tension in the depiction of Ruth's nocturnal encounter with Boaz upon his threshing floor. Perhaps inspired by the literary artistry of the author of Ruth, some recent interpreters have also averred that an erotic undercurrent flows through words they deem intertextually suggestive and allusively ambiguous in Ruth 1:14 as the text reads, 'but Ruth clung to her'. The present study critically examines this proposal in light of interrelated semantic, syntactic, and intertextual literary evidence.

A common assumption in modem scholarship has been that non-standard language usage in the biblical texts can only be explained as evidencing either pre-exilic northern or post-exilic southern Hebrew. This article argues that pre-exilic Judahite Hebrew was much more complex than merely being identical with standard biblical Hebrew. The argument discusses general socio-linguistic considerations,
pre-exilic inscriptions, biblical texts (especially focusing on the work of G. A. Rendsburg). and Mishnaic Hebrew.

Questions arise as a result of reading and studying the Scriptures. One reads a passage and has to deal with elements such as narrative structure, genre, audience, context, and canonical context, e.g., place in redemptive history. Further, what is the grammatical-historical meaning of the text in question? What does the passage mean in immediate context and in the theology of the Bible as a whole? What are the key themes that are related in it and the theological implications of said text? Finally, where is this text and its theological trajectory headed in the unfolding of the Bible’s storyline? There is no doubt that for any accurate interpretation of the Biblical text which grasps the theological import there contained, one must synergize these elements to arrive at the theological thrust of a passage and the reason for its place in the Biblical canon.
In this work, I will endeavor to show the interconnectedness of three women: Tamar, Rahab and Ruth as paradigmatic for what is revealed later in Scripture — Yahweh is a God who uses unlikely human beings for his purposes and is happy to include gentiles within his people.1 I will begin with drawing out the historical meaning of Genesis 38, the Tamar & Judah narrative and its trajectory to Rahab in Joshua 2, move on to the story of Ruth, and arrive at the trajectory of these passages: Matthew 1 and the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Giulio Michelini
«Identità e alterità nel libro di Rut. Lettura pragmatica a partire dall’esegesi rabbinica», in M. GRILLI – J. MALEPARAMPIL, ed., Il diverso e lo straniero nella Bibbia ebraico-cristiana. Uno studio esegetico-teologico in chiave interculturale, EDB, Bologna 2013, 133-159.

Con il presente lavoro studieremo il rapporto tra Israele e l’“altro” (lo straniero) così come emerge nel libro di Rut. Vengono prese in esame le tensioni interne al racconto, ma anche quelle che si creano tra il libro e gli altri libri del canone della Bibbia ebraica. Se da una parte si fa attenzione ai fenomeni comunicativi presenti nel racconto, tentando una lettura pragmatica di alcuni elementi di esso, dall’altra si insiste su alcune interpretazioni che di esso vengono dalla tradizione giudaica. Vengono in particolare valorizzati alcuni contributi provenienti dalla lettura rabbinica di Rut, sottolineandone però la portata esegetica che viene paragonata, per quanto possibile, alla lettura moderna di un testo basata sui metodi legati al Reader-Response Criticism.

This paper evaluates Jungian psychoanalytic approaches to Hebrew Bible texts by way of two readings of the book of Ruth: those of Yehezkel Kluger and Nomi Kluger-Nash. In so doing, it provides a brief synopsis of Jungian approaches to Hebrew Bible texts and the process of individuation. It then evaluates the two readings mentioned according to the author and Ricoeur’s criteria for adequate interpretation. Having done so, it attempts to draw conclusions on the general (and potential) value of Jungian biblical hermeneutics, particularly as it affects the appraisal of women in the Hebrew Bible and the incorporation of Jewish tradition and scholarship in Hebrew Bible hermeneutics. Finally, it endeavours to sketch a way forward.

In this part special place is given to the “Myth of the Metallic (Copper / Bronze) Th reshing Floor”, present in the toponyms, legends, magical stories and in the mediaeval apocrypal texts. It contains analyses of the next mythical elements: the metallic components (threshing fl oor, castle, fi eld, plants, food …); the connection between the mythical threshing fl oor and the cosmological myths about the fi rst mountain; the relation between the “metallic threshing fl oor” and the “metallic shrine”. Th e similarity between the threshing fl oor and one type of the Slavic pagan shrines with circular form, and the representation of the threshing fl oor on the ritual loaves from the 19th century are also discussed. Elaboration is given to the chthonic and “outer world” location of the metallic threshing fl oor, and the basic actions that take place on it: the fi ght between the hero and the dragon; the holy marriage between the hero (=sky / cosmic axis) and the Earth, (=ground upon which the threshing fl oor lies).

In 1857, Setswana language produced the first complete Bible in a Bantu language. The second Setswana Bible was published in 1908 – the third in 1970. In each case, different circumstances, factors or contextual frames of reference dictated the need for such a Bible version. The frames converged to cause differences between the meanings of the Setswana Bibles and their sources. This book demonstrates how specific socio-cultural, organisational, linguistic, textual and communicational frames probably influenced the outcome of each Bible. It subsequently presents a framework for analysing existing Bibles and for minimising the occurrence of shifts in prospective translations. The book of Ruth is used as an example while Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is treated as an ideal source text.
Sidney Berman is a scholar of Biblical Studies with a specific focus on Old Testament interpretation. He has taught Old Testament studies, Biblical Hebrew and New Testament Greek at the University of Botswana. His research and publications are in contemporary biblical hermeneutics, exegesis, Old Testament studies and Setswana Bible.

A growing number of writers have made the point that good interpretation requires not just skill but character; all else being equal, virtuous people, whose interactions with the world are characterised by habits of attentiveness, charity, honesty, courage and humility, are most likely to understand and do justice to the texts they read.

The book of Ruth offers a test case in the possibilities and limitations of virtue hermeneutics for biblical interpretation. Lurking just beneath the surface of the novella are a string of interpretive questions about how the commandments of the Torah are to be understood and applied, and about how the character of YHWH is to shape the conduct of his people.

Viewed from one angle, Boaz could be seen as the paradigm of the virtuous reader, a biblical parallel to Aristotle's 'magnanimous man'. But Boaz is not the only reader of God and his purposes within the book of Ruth. At least as important to the action are Naomi and Ruth; their interpretations of the words and actions of God and the readings that are generated by their interactions with Boaz offer a challenge to the sufficiency of 'virtue' as a category for biblical hermeneutics.

What emerges is a hermeneutic of ḥeseḏ that presupposes an expansive vision of the kindness of YHWH, and flourishes within a social matrix radically different from the small circle of wealthy, free-born, virtuous men which Aristotle imagines as necessary to safeguard the flourishing of good character.

Student, Reformed eological Seminary | Faculty, Coram Deo Academy "About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.

Many interpretations of the Book of Ruth read the relationship between the Judean woman and her Moabitess daughter-in-law as the expression of an inclusive school of thought within Israel's attempts to define itself. The foreigner, in this view, becomes accepted into the covenant people of God, demonstrating Israel's multi-ethnic horizons and Yahweh's universal concern. Yet this essay uncovers the presence of an ideological subtext undergirding the narrative: the nations, represented in the character of Ruth, are the means for Judah's exaltation—an ideological position that I expose through a literary reading of the narrative. This reading has concomitant implications for the book's Sitz-im-Leben. This article focuses primarily on two episodes in the narrative, 3:14-18 and 4:13-17, exposing the underlying centripetal ideology that anticipates the restoration and exaltation of Judah through the gifts (or "fullness") brought in by the nations.

One biblical book that features numerous examples of gender discord is the book of Ruth, where there are no fewer than ten instances of the phenomenon, with all but one occurring in the first chapter. While some scholars regard these as further evidence of gender neutralization, others have argued that the apparently masculine pronouns are actually vestiges of a common dual ending. 3 Although both explanations have merit, neither takes into account the literary effect of these incongruent forms. The purpose of this article is to consider from a literary per spec tive the instances of gender discord in the book of Ruth and to show their important contribution to the book's narrative design and development of its characters.

A postcolonial approach is gaining acceptance by many scholars as a fruitful way of interpreting the Bible. Yet a postcolonial approach raises issues for those who hold a 'high' view of Scripture. Five issues will be demonstrated through an analysis of Mary Donaldson's reading of the book of Ruth, with the outcome being that the authority of Scripture is decentred. Nonetheless, a postcolonial approach can still be usefully adapted by those with a 'high' view of Scripture. This article will present an alternative postcolonial reading of the book of Ruth that uses biblical theology to help maintain the central authority of the biblical text.

The Book of Ruth presents the reader with a tale of one woman’s extraordinary faithfulness to her mother-in-law, which ultimately leads to her participation in King David’s ancestral line. Juxtaposing this tale, in certain manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, is the final chapter of Proverbs, more specifically Prov 31:10-31, which describes a woman of noble character. The present study investigates a variety of lexical and thematic associations, both conspicuous and subtle, between the aforementioned texts. After consideration of modern scholarship's assessment of the date of each composition, the study crystallizes the probability of inner-biblical allusion between the literary units and further suggests, albeit tentatively, the direction of borrowing.

This work is pointed towards the semiotic and mythological aspects of the threshing floor in Slavic culture, including the period from the Middle Ages till the contemporary folklore. According to the real form and the functions of the threshing floor, its dynamical cosmological symbolic is stressed, accenting its celestial character: - threshing floor = sky/heaven; - the hinge = axis mundi; - the circular movement of the animals = cyclical dynamics of the celestial bodies. A few myths referring to this particular object are elaborated. “The threshing Floor where the Birds are threshing Immortelle” is explicitly represented in the stories from Macedonia and Bulgaria, while implicitly its presence can be noticed in the Balkan rituals connected with the “Christmas Straw” and the legends of “The Milky Way” (“Godfather`s Straw”/”Kumova slama”). The relation between the mythologized threshing floor and the faries is elaborated through the components “Fairies' Th reshing Floor” (“Vilino gumno”, “Judinsko horo”), present throughout toponyms and legends. The second part of this work will give elaboration to the motif of the “Metallic Th reshing Floor”.

In Biblical narratives, comments from the narrator can be extremely helpful for interpreting the actions of the characters within the story. After David commits adultery with Bathsheeba and attempts to cover it up, the narrator simply informs the reader, “But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD” (2 Samuel 11:27b). There’s no question regarding the morality of David’s actions after the commentator makes a statement like that. That being said, not every narrator operates in the same way. The author of Ruth for example much prefers to tell the story through the dramatic irony created by the narrative’s dialogue. Of the total eighty-five verses of the book, over fifty are taken up with dialogue.  Such an absence of explicit commentary can result in a wide variety of interpretations of the characters’ actions. The author therefore relies on the reader having a base level of outside knowledge to assist them in coming to certain intended conclusions regarding the interpretation of the book. 

Such is the case for Naomi’s actions in the first chapter of Ruth. After about ten years of living in the land of Moab and away from God’s people and God’s place, Naomi hears that the Lord has visited his people in the land of Judah and given them food. She decides to return from Moab to her home and her two daughters-in-law go on the way with her. Naomi then stops and instructs both Orpah and Ruth to return to Moab because they will have a greater likelihood of a fruitful life there. Whether they do it consciously or not, readers of Ruth then make an interpretative decision regarding the morality of Naomi’s instructions. The narrator does not present the answer and many commentators conclude that Naomi is an exemplary character.  In fact, many commentators view all the main characters in the Book of Ruth as being model figures.  There are others who question whether Naomi is meant to stand with Ruth and Boaz as an exemplary figure.  The purpose of this paper is to argue that Naomi’s actions in the first chapter of Ruth are morally suspect and therefore reflect her flawed faith which helps her to serve as an effective foil against Ruth’s exemplary faith.

The pericope of Genesis 38:27-30 is the ending to what seems to be an oddly placed chapter within Genesis. It is a small section that, at its base level, instructs the reader about the birth of Judah’s sons by Tamar, his daughter-in-law. Many commentaries on Genesis address chapter 38, particularly with respect to the interruption of the Joseph story, the levirate and Judah’s sin, but they ignore 38:27-30, other than to note the genealogy from Judah to David and the Messiah through Perez.  But this section ties in the struggle and the elevation of the lowliest person into a position of salvation and honor within the royal family. The pericope of Genesis 38:27-30 is not just an aid to understanding genealogies, but the happy culmination to the negativity of the previous sections in the chapter. It draws the reader to wonder again about the ‘chosen-ness’ of the line, and the Jewish nation. This pericope is the elevation of an outsider, grafted into the royal line.

‫ֹﬠַז‬ ‫בּ‬ ‫מוֹ‬ ‫שְׁ‬ ‫וּ‬ ‫ְך‬ ֶ ‫ל‬ ‫ימֶ‬ ִ ‫ל‬ ‫אֱ‬ ‫ת‬ ‫חַ‬ ‫פַּ‬ ‫שְׁ‬ ‫מִּ‬ ‫מִ‬ ‫ִל‬ ‫י‬ ‫חַ‬ ‫ִבּוֹר‬ ‫גּ‬ ‫ישׁ‬ ‫אִ‬ ‫הּ‬ ‫ישָׁ‬ ‫אִ‬ ְ ‫ל‬ 1 ‫ע‬ ‫מוֹדַ‬ ‫י‬ ‫מִ‬ ‫ָﬠֳ‬ ‫נ‬ ְ ‫ל‬ ‫וּ‬ Καὶ τῃ̂ Νωεμιν ἀνὴρ γνώριμος τῳ̂ ἀνδρὶ αὐτης, ὁ δὲ ἀνὴρ δυνατὸς ἰσχύι ἐκ της συγγενείας Αβιμελεχ, καὶ ὄνομα αὐτῳ̂ Βοος. Erat autem vir Helimelech consanguineus homo potens et magnarum opum nomine Booz [dwm (Qerî) X (Ketiv) [D; yu m] Texto do Ketiv com as vogais do Qerî -[d' yO (w omit) m Cp 2,1 a mlt Mss ut (Muitos Manuscritos hebraicos medievais de 21 -60 Mss) ut (com) Q (Qerî) [d' wO m (mantém a forma do Qerî); [d' wO m -derivado de [d' mo (parente, conhecido, companheiro) A grande maioria dos Mss apóiam a forma da Qerî e apenas no texto vemos presentes as vogais do Ketiv, portanto a melhor leitura é a do Qerî, e ainda assim, com as vogais de Qerî. A palavra sugerida para o Ketiv apresenta a forma do Particípio Paul de [d' y: e a tradução seria "aquele que é conhecido" ou seja, o "parente" 2 . A LXX parece optar pelo adjetivo derivado de ginwv skw (conhecido) assemelhando-se à forma do Qerî', enquanto a Vulgata usa consanguineus (consangüíneo -parente) assemelhando-se à forma do Ketiv no Pual. Deste modo a opção por Qere ganha mais força. 1 [D; yu m]

During the time of the Judges, Elimelech, Naomi and her children departed from Bethlehem to Moab because of a famine. There Elimelech dies and his sons marry two Moabites, Orpha and Ruth. Years later also the children die and Naomi decides to return to her land. On the return trip, Ruth, who refuses to leave her, accompanies her. In order to survive Ruth becomes a gleaner in a field, the owner of which is Boaz, who treats her kindly. At the urging of Naomi, Ruth goes to the field where Boaz sleeps in the middle of the night to ask for his protection. Boaz acts as a "rescuer" (goel) and marries her. From this marriage, Obed is born, the father of Jesse and the grandfather of King David. Naomi, who had been left without children, thus became the great-grandmother of King David. The iconographical representation of the book of Ruth does not appear in Early Christian Art but during the  Middle Ages it developed on a grand scale.

Author: Samuel C. Long
Publisher: CBE International

From beginning to end, the story of Ruth captures the attention of the reader. Though a story of the ebb and flow of ancient human existence—famine and death, gleaning and feasting—the story and the character of Ruth have transcended these ordinary occurrences. Ruth contains many elements that make for good story—tragedy, conflict, romance, and redemption to name a few. This gripping story causes “the emotions of the reader to fluctuate between hope and despair until the very end when what began with multiple tragedies comes to a triumphant and happy conclusion.” Perhaps the evocative nature of the story contributes to the vastly different uses of this book and the character of Ruth. Dante calls her the “gleaner-maid, meek ancestress” of David; Bunyan casts her as Christina’s youthful companion Mercy; and Milton uses Ruth as the paradigm for a virtuous young lady. Indeed, the book of Ruth continues to be one of the most beloved among the OT scriptures. In four short chapters, the author draws the reader into the ancient Israelite experience and tells a delightful story of faithfulness and redemption. When compared with OT literature containing harsh denunciations and warnings for the Israelites regarding their conduct, Ruth’s simple tale describing a time when Israelite society functioned as God intended is refreshing.

Author: Timothy Paul Erdel
Publisher: CBE International

The book of Ruth is one of my favorites. A literary masterpiece, it offers a rich exploration of God’s providence, a theology of mission, and a case study in a plethora of Christian virtues, including courage, trust, generosity, hospitality, sacrifice, humility, kindness, compassion, friendship, stewardship, purity, perseverance, faith, hope, and love. There is a harvest and thanksgiving theme as well as an eschatological one. It is no accident that observant Jews make the book of Ruth the liturgical centerpiece for the twin feasts of Pentecost and First Fruits (Shavuot).

By using the narrative device of contrastive characterization, the author of Ruth demonstrates three return-from-exile scenarios that act as a model for the audience. Orpah served as Ruth’s foil and represents a return to the pagan culture. Naomi and Ruth project a role reversal. While Naomi returns more like a pagan than a Jewess, Ruth has demonstrated covenant fidelity and illustrated loyalty to YHWH and Israel. She is thus a model for how Jews ought to return from exile to exodus.