A bereaved family returns home, and Ruth binds herself to Naomi and to Israel's God with words that become one of Scripture's most luminous expressions of covenant loyalty.
Old Testament
Ruth
Ruth is an anonymous narrative set “in the days when the judges ruled,” following a famine-driven move from Bethlehem to Moab and Naomi and Ruth's return for the barley harvest. Jewish tradition attributed the book to Samuel, but the text does not. Its ending assumes readers for whom David is already significant; proposals for final composition therefore range from the monarchy to the postexilic period. Through Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, the book explores grief, courageous loyalty (hesed), providence, gleaning, family redemption, and the restoration of a threatened household. For Israelite and Judean readers concerned with Davidic ancestry and faithful life during the Judges era, Ruth made a Moabite woman David's great-grandmother without erasing her identity. In Christian ordering, Ruth follows Judges and shares its troubled era, contrasting that violence with ordinary faithfulness and preparing for David in 1 Samuel; Matthew 1 carries this lineage into the Christian New Testament.
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Ruth's humble labor in the harvest fields becomes the setting for providential protection and generous provision, as Boaz's character and his connection to Naomi's family begin to come into view.
Naomi's plan and Ruth's bold midnight request place the question of redemption before Boaz, who pledges to act and sends Ruth home with grain and assurance.
Boaz secures legal redemption at the city gate, restores Naomi's household through marriage to Ruth, and the narrative ends with a genealogy linking Ruth's son directly to the line of David.