The tale of the Moabite women Ruth

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In the Bible you will find a book called Ruth. It is a story about a family that lived during the time when Israel had judges. Ruth is a young woman from the land of Moʹab; she does not belong to God’s nation of Israel. But when Ruth learns about the true God, she comes to love him very much. Naʹo·mi is an older woman who helped Ruth to learn about LORD God.



There was a great famine in Israel during the time when judges ruled. Many people relocated to foreign lands to find food for their families. A man from Bethlehem named Elimelech took his wife Naomi and his two sons Mahlon and Kilion went to Moab to find food and ended up staying there to live. Elimelech died and Naomi continued to live with her two sons who married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. Both sons also passed away leaving Naomi with her two foreign daughter-in-laws.

Naomi heard that the Lord helped the people of Israel and food had been provided back home. She decided to go back to Bethlehem in Judah and told Orpah and Ruth to stay in Moab and find new husbands. While Orpah returned to her mothers home, Ruth clung to Naomi and told her that she will stay with her and that Naomi's God and people will be her God and people.

Ruth, in spite of the dissuasion of Naomi, accompanied her mother-in-law to Bethlehem. The two women arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest in a state of dire poverty. Elimelech had an inheritance of land among his brethren, but Naomi will be compelled to sell it unless she can find a Goel, that is, a kinsman of Elimelech who could assert Elimelech's inheritance rights.

Upon returning the Bethlehem, Ruth decided to go into the fields during the barley harvest to pick up leftover grains. Ruth worked behind the harvesters in a field that belonged to a man named Boaz who was a relative of her father-in-law Elimelech. When Boaz heard that Naomi had returned with Ruth and that Ruth was gleaning the leftover grain, he went to Ruth and told her she could work safely in his fields and get a drink from his water jars when she was thirsty. Ruth questioned his kindness and Boaz responded that he had heard of Ruth's kindness toward Naomi and that the Lord God of Israel would bless her and reward her.

Meanwhile, in seeking to find a husband for Ruth, Naomi advises her to go to the threshing floor on the night Boaz winnows barley, to wash and prepare herself, and to uncover Boaz’s feet and lie next to them while he sleeps. This Ruth does. When Boaz awakes, startled to find Ruth at his feet, she asks him to spread his robe over her—a symbolic act of espousal—because Boaz is a “redeeming kinsman,” that is, one who has a right to redeem Elimelech’s property and at the same time to marry his son’s widow so as “to perpetuate the name of the deceased upon his estate”. Boaz, impressed that Ruth has chosen him, an older man, out of family loyalty, agrees with enthusiasm to have her, so long as the one man in Bethlehem who is a closer redeeming kinsman does not want Ruth for himself.




Boaz bought the estate from Naomi and married Ruth. Ruth and Boaz became the parents of Obed, who became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

The Book of Ruth is read in synagogues on Pentecost, the Feast of the Lord known as the Feast of Weeks or Shavuot - the Jewish Harvest Festival. The Book shows that God's love is open to both Christian and Gentile, as he blessed the Moabite woman who chose the Lord for her God, and placed her life under his wing. Ruth and the lineage of King David in the last lines of the book  are repeated in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament of the Bible.

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