Ruth (; ) is the person after whom the

Book of Ruth The Book of Ruth (, ''Megillath Ruth'', "the Scroll of Ruth", one of the Five Megillot) is included in the third division, or the Writings ( Ketuvim), of the Hebrew Bible. In most Christian canons it is treated as one of the historical books ...

is named. She was a

Moab Moab () was an ancient Levant, Levantine kingdom whose territory is today located in southern Jordan. The land is mountainous and lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by ...

ite woman who married an Israelite, Mahlon. After the death of all the male members of her family (her husband, her father-in-law, and her brother-in-law), she stayed with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and moved to Judah with her, where Ruth won the love and protection of a wealthy relative, Boaz, through her kindness. She is the great-grandmother of

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

. She is one of five women mentioned in the

genealogy of Jesus The New Testament provides two accounts of the genealogy of Jesus, one in the Gospel of Matthew and another in the Gospel of Luke. Matthew starts with Abraham and works forwards, while Luke works back in time from Jesus to Adam. The lists of na ...

found in the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

, alongside Tamar,

Rahab Rahab (; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible in Joshua 2:1-24, a Canaanite who resided within Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites by hiding two men who had been sent to scout the city before their attack. In the New Testam ...

, the "wife of Uriah" (

Bathsheba Bathsheba (; , ) was an Kings of Israel and Judah, Israelite queen consort. According to the Hebrew Bible, she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, with whom she had all of her five children. Her status as the mother of Solomon ...

), and Mary. The story of Ruth as told in the Book of Ruth was likely written in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

during the Persian period (550–330 BCE). Scholars generally consider the book to be a work of

historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the Setting (narrative), setting of particular real past events, historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literatur ...

, while other scholars, including

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...

scholars, hold that it is a historical narrative written in the form of a short story.

Book of Ruth

In the days when the judges were leading the tribes of Israel, there was a famine. Because of this crisis, Elimelech, a man from

Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...

in Judah, moved to

with his wife, Naomi, and his two sons,

Mahlon and Chilion Death of Elimelech and his two sons Mahlon ( ''Maḥlōn'') and Chilion or Kilion (כִּלְיוֹן ''Ḵilyōn'') were two brothers mentioned in the Book of Ruth The Book of Ruth (, ''Megillath Ruth'', "the Scroll of Ruth", one of the Five ...

. There Elimelech died, and the two sons married Moabite women, Ruth and

Orpah Orpah ( ''ʿOrpā'', meaning "neck" or "fawn") is a woman mentioned in the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;marry. They all wept, and Orpah decided to leave Naomi and return to her people. Naomi tried again to send Ruth back, too, but she told her that "(...) where you go I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried." ( ESV) In the

Targum A targum (, ''interpretation'', ''translation'', ''version''; plural: targumim) was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the ) that a professional translator ( ''mǝṯurgǝmān'') would give in the common language o ...

, each of Ruth's lines is preceded by Naomi, who defines what it is to be Jewish. Eventually, Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

harvest. Boaz, a relative of Elimelech, lived nearby, and Ruth decided to go to his field and glean after his reapers. When Boaz arrived at the field, he asked who the young woman was, and then told Ruth not to go to anyone else's field, but keep gleaning there. He told her that if she was thirsty, she could drink from the vessels of the female reapers, but to avoid the men. When Ruth asked him why he was so good to a foreigner, Boaz told her that he had heard how loyal she was to Naomi. At mealtime, Boaz invited Ruth to eat with him, and then instructed his male reapers to not reproach or rebuke her, and even to pull out some barley from their bundles and leave it for her to glean. Ruth gleaned at the fields of Boaz throughout the barley and wheat harvests. When the harvest ended, and Boaz was winnowing barley at night at the threshing floor, Naomi advised Ruth to wash and anoint herself, go to the threshing floor, and when Boaz had lain down to sleep, uncover his feet and lie down there. Ruth did as she said. At midnight, Boaz woke up, and Ruth asked him to protect her, as he was her husband's goel, closest relative tasked with protecting his rights. Boaz said that he would like to do so, but Ruth had an even closer relative than him. In the morning, Boaz went and sat down by the gates of the town, then talked to the relative when he arrived. He told him that Naomi was selling Elimelech's land. The man said that he would redeem it. Boaz then says that one of them will acquire Ruth, although the text is unclear due to a Qere and Ketiv disagreement. In the Qere, spoken form, the relative would acquire Ruth. In the Ketiv, written form, Boaz would acquire Ruth. In both cases, it would be to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance in a

levirate marriage Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother's widow. Levirate marriage has been practiced by societies with a strong clan structure in which exogamous marriage (i.e. marriage o ...

. The man refused to redeem the land, fearing that it would impair his own inheritance. Boaz then redeemed the land and acquired Ruth. Ruth became Boaz's wife, and bore him a son. After Ruth had given birth, Naomi took the child to her breast. The women of Bethlehem named him Obed and said that Naomi had borne a son. Obed became the father of Jesse, the father of King David.

Religious interpretations

Jewish perspectives

Boaz of Judah blessed Ruth for her extraordinary kindness both to Naomi of Judah and to the Judean People (Ruth 3:10). "And he oazsaid, 'May you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter; your latest act of kindness is greater than the first, not to follow the young men, whether poor or rich.'" Commentary of Rashi () regarding the first act of kindness: "that you did with your mother-in-law". Ruth's kindness as noted in the Book of Ruth by Boaz is seen in the Jewish Tradition as in rare contradistinction to the peoples of Moab (where Ruth comes from) and Amon in general, who were noted by the Torah for their distinct ''lack'' of kindness. Deut. 23:5: "Because they he peoples of Amon and Moabdid not greet you with bread and water on the way when you left Egypt, and because he he people of Moabhired Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim against you, to curse you." Rashi notes regarding Israel's travels on the way: "when you were in state ofextreme exhaustion." According to the Ruth Rabbah, Ruth was Orpah's sister and the two were daughters of Eglon, the king of Moab; according to the same text, Eglon was the son of Balak. Tamar Meir of the

Jewish Women's Archive The Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to document "Jewish women's stories, elevate their voices, and inspire them to be agents of change." JWA was founded by Gail Twersky Reimer in 1995 in Brook ...

writes that Ruth and David being descended from these two men is seen as a "reward" for them. For Balak, it is his reward for building altars and for Eglon, it is his reward for "arising upon hearing the name of God from Ehud son of Gera". The same text says Ruth did not convert during her marriage to Mahlon, contradicting other rabbinic literature, which says Ruth formally converted to Judaism for the sake of marrying Mahlon but did not fully accept the faith until later.

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

viewed the Book of Ruth as historical and referenced it in his ''

Antiquities of the Jews ''Antiquities of the Jews'' (; , ''Ioudaikē archaiologia'') is a 20-volume historiographical work, written in Greek, by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus in the 13th year of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, which was 94 CE. It cont ...

''. Yitzhak Berger suggests Naomi's plan was that Ruth seduce Boaz, just as Tamar and Lot's daughters all seduced "an older family member in order to become the mother of his offspring". At the crucial moment, however, "Ruth abandons the attempt at seduction and instead requests a permanent, ''legal'' union with Boaz."

Christian perspectives

1795-William-Blake-Naomi-entreating-Ruth-Orpah

Ruth is one of five women mentioned in the

found in the

, alongside Tamar,

, the "wife of Uriah" (

), and Mary. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld argues that Ruth is a model of loving-kindness ('' hesed''): she acts in ways that promote the well-being of others.Katherine D. Sakenfeld, ''Ruth'' (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1999), 11–12. In , she demonstrated ''hesed'' by not going back to Moab but accompanying her mother-in-law to a foreign land. She chose to glean, despite the danger she faced in the field () and the lower social status of the job. Finally, Ruth agrees with Naomi's plan to marry Boaz, even though she was free of family obligations, once again demonstrating her loyalty and obedience (). Barry Webb argues that in the book, Ruth plays a key role in Naomi's rehabilitation. Ruth is commemorated as a matriarch in the

Calendar of Saints The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...

of the

Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

on 16 July. She can also be seen as a prototype of a convert to Judaism.

Tomb of Ruth

The traditional burial place of Ruth is a building located in

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

. Francesco Quaresmi in the early 17th century reported that Turks and Orientals generally believed the structure contained the tombs of Jesse and Ruth. Franciscus Quaresmius
''Historica theologica et moralis Terrae Sanctae''
1639, vol 2 p.782. According to Moshe Sharon, the association of the site with Ruth is very late, starting in the 19th century. Moshe Sharon
''Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, '' Vol 5, H-I BRILL, 2013 pp. 45–52.
/ref> It receives numerous visitors every year, especially on the Jewish holiday of

Shavuot (, from ), or (, in some Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi usage), is a Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday, one of the biblically ordained Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan; in the 21st century, it may ...

, when the Book of Ruth is read. Haim Horwitz in his 1835 book on Israeli holy sites ''Love of Jerusalem'' discusses the oral tradition that the tomb houses Ruth's grave as well as Jesse's, who is mentioned in earlier writings. Menachem Mendel of Kamenitz wrote in 1839, "Also in the vineyard was a shelter with two graves: one of Jesse, father of David, and one of Ruth, the Moabite."

Cultural influence

Ruth is one of the Five Heroines of the

Order of the Eastern Star The Order of the Eastern Star (OES) is a Freemasonry, Masonic List of fraternal auxiliaries and side degrees, appendant Masonic bodies, body open to both men and women. It was established in 1850 by lawyer and educator Rob Morris (Freemason), R ...

. Ruth was played by Elana Eden in

Henry Koster Henry Koster (born Hermann Kosterlitz, May 1, 1905 – September 21, 1988) was a German-born film director. He was the husband of actress Peggy Moran. Early life Koster was born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany. He was introduced to cin ...

's '' The Story of Ruth'' (1960); the film depicts Ruth as a pagan priestess prior to her religious conversion. Sherry Morris portrayed her in '' The Book of Ruth: Journey of Faith'' (2009). In English literature, John Keats in " Ode to a Nightingale" references Ruth as isolated and grief-stricken when laboring in exile: "Perhaps the self-same song that found a path/Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,/She stood in tears amid the alien corn;"

Genealogy: the descent of David from Ruth