As with each and every biblical story, one can read the book of Ruth many times and never tire of it. One can read it a thousand times and more, and still gain new insights, illuminations, nuggets for meditation from it – or be reminded of old ones, already found before, but lost again, forgotten. It is a short biblical book of only four chapters centering on a woman by the name of Ruth, who was not – as could be expected from a story that is part of the Hebrew Scriptures – an Israelite woman by birth, but became one by grace and by choice. Besides, it is – like each and every biblical story – just a really good story. With a very happy ending.
The people of Bethlehem welcome her into the family of the Covenant and emphatically bless her at her betrothal to “a powerful man, and very rich, whose name was Booz“ (Ruth 2: 1) with these words:
“The Lord make this woman who cometh into thy house, like Rachel, and Lia, who built up the house of Israel: that she may be an example of virtue in Ephrata, and may have a famous name in Bethlehem.“
Ruth 4: 11
What a blessing that is!
The happy ending in the book of Ruth is one of marriage and multigenerational fruitfulness. The narrator makes sure to not leave us in doubt about the fulfillment of the prophetic blessing the inhabitans of Bethlehem have spoken over Ruth the Moabitess, the stranger from the nation of the Moabites among their midst, who is now not a stranger any more, but one of them: Ruth is none other than King David‘s great-grandmother. Ruth is part of the Messianic family line, of the long chain of generations from Jacob‘s son Judah to the shepherd boy David and finally to the Shepherd of Israel, who took flesh from Mary.
„Booz therefore took Ruth, and married her: and went in unto her, and the Lord gave her to conceive and to bear a son. (…) These are the generations of Phares: Phares begot Esron, Esron begot Aram, Aram begot Aminadab, Aminadab begot Nahasson, Nahasson begot Salmon, Salmon begot Booz, Booz begot Obed, Obed begot Isai, Isai begot David.“
Ruth 4: 13-22
It is often helpful to begin with the end. Our meditations on life might become the most accurate and the most fruitful by practicing the advice of “Memento mori“, by being mindful of the one undeniable fact about our earthly existence: death as its ending, by considering the “last things“. The end of something is its telos. The ending of a story is its pivotal point – the point and purpose of all that was related to us about the way by which the characters got there before.
So let‘s walk with Ruth, who “art a virtuous woman“ (Ruth 3: 11), as her husband Booz immediately recognizes on the very first day they meet, from being a widow in the land of Moab to her happy ending as David’s great-grandmother in the land of Juda, and try to learn a couple of things from her along the way.
All quotes from Sacred Scripture used here and in Part II, as well as the spelling of the Hebrew names of the characters follow the Douay-Rheims translation, an English translation from the 16th century.
Chapter I: Responsible love and faithfulness unto death
Because of a famine in the land of Juda, Elimelech and Noemi from the town of Bethlehem live, at the time “when the judges ruled“ (Ruth 1: 1) in Israel, sort of in exile in the land of Moab bordering on the land of Juda to the east – in what today is belonging to the territory of Jordan. They are Israelites among strangers, or strangers among Moabites. After the death of Elimelech, their two sons marry two “women of Moab“ (Ruth 1: 4), Orpha and Ruth, though the law of Moses usually requires that a man takes his wife from among the people of Israel, from among the members of the covenant family. But there probably were not too many Israelite women around, and therefore it might have been quite impossible to keep this commandment. Yet these marriages remain barren: in ten years no child is born unto them. Even worse: Noemi‘s sons die and their wives are left behind as widows just like their mother-in-law.
Famine, exile, barrenness, death, and widowhood: This is how the story begins. When Noemi returns home to Bethlehem after the end of the drought and famine in the land of Juda, she tells the women of Bethlehem to call her “Mara“, meaning “bitter“, not Noemi, meaning “beautiful“, from now on – “for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness“ (Ruth 1: 20).
In this dark and hopeless situation of chapter one, Ruth is already a shining light of virtue standing out against the miserable backdrop.
When their mother-in-law longs for returning home to her people Israel, both she and Orpha have a choice to make. Noemi kisses the two women goodbye telling them:
“Go ye home to your mothers: the Lord deal mercifully with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May he grant you to find rest in the houses of the husbands which you shall take. (…) Return again, my daughters, and go your ways (…) I beseech you: for I am grieved the more for your distress, and the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.“
Ruth 1: 8-13
All three of them are weeping. All three of them love each other: Noemi wants the best for her daughters-in-law and they want the best for her. Noemi knows one thing: it is better for them to have a husband who takes care of them than to live and die as widows. But if they accompany her to Bethlehem, to the land of Juda, they will most likely remain widows and never marry again. Who, amongst the men of her people, would fall in love with and labor for a woman from Moab? And knowing the fate of being a stranger in a strange land herself, Noemi knows how hard it is.
Orpha, in obedience to her mother-in-law and to all the common sense in her speech, kisses Noemi goodbye and does as she was told: returning “to her people“, and letting Noemi go. But Ruth “stuck close to her mother in law“ (Ruth 1: 14). Ruth‘s love for Noemi exceeds Orpha‘s love for her, it is stronger, stickier, more relentless, and Ruth‘s heart seeks a love even higher than that, it pounds with longing for the God Noemi worships. Maybe her love for her husband, too, in some sense exceeded Orpha‘s love for hers. The covenant she made with Noemi‘s family and with her people through marrying Noemi‘s son is nothing she can simply strip off, once her husband is dead and the arguments of common sense set in. It sticks around.
“Be not against me, to desire that I should leave thee and depart: for withhersoever thou shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee.“
Ruth 1: 16-17
The virtues we see in Ruth here are the virtues of charity and chastity. Her love is pure, passionate, undivided and self-giving. The argument “seek a better life for yourself, look for an opportunity to help yourself, or you will remain a barren widow forever“ does not speak to her heart, which cannot overlook and cannot forget, that it is Noemi who will indeed remain a widow, one of old age, that it is Noemi who is all alone and is in tears, drowning in a sea of bitterness, as she has lost all she ever had in life: her husband and the fruits of her womb. Ruth cares about Noemi more than she cares about herself, she binds her own fate to hers, and she has no intention of returning to the gods of Moab, now that the family she married into has shown her the one true God, the God of Israel. With her words, she confirms to Noemi that a covenant was made between them that cannot be broken, that cannot be cancelled, just like the covenant between God and Israel always remains in place, is an everlasting covenant. There is no returning to life before we met, before our paths crossed, Noemi. Not for you, and not for me.
That is responsible love, that is love responding to the imminent call of reality. From the God of Noemi‘s people she has already learned the meaning of faithfulness. And is able to remind Noemi, who feels betrayed and let down by God, of it. More than her own well-being, Ruth seeks Noemi‘s well-being, may it even bring her hardship and suffering alongside her, and more than a new husband to make her happy and keep her safe she seeks the bliss, the blessing, and the protection of the Lord, may it even mean to venture out into risky and unknown territory. One could even say, that Orpha responds to the situation at hand in a natural, ordinary manner: 99 out of 100 women would do what she did, while Ruth responds in a supernatural, extraordinary manner: who is the one woman who does such a thing? Who loves so much and calculates so little?
Those who lose their lives for the sake of God’s kingdom gain their lives, and those who try to gain their lives lose them. Ruth does not and cannot, at this moment in the story, expect any happiness or pleasures from the outcome of the decision she is making. She can expect nothing else and nothing more but to die with Noemi in the same land, and to be buried next to her. But that is all she desires. To stick around till the very end. To remain faithful.
It was grace coming to Ruth, when Noemi‘s son took her as his wife. It was Ruth‘s choice responding, when she confirmed the vow she had given him to his mother. Ruth the Moabitess becomes an Israelite woman by grace and by choice.
Finally, in closing our walk with Ruth through chapter one, meditate on this picture the artist William Blake has painted about Ruth choosing life with “Mara“, the bitter one, about Ruth embracing suffering out of love. Does she not, in a mysterious way, look happier than Orpha, who turns her back on it? Judge for yourself concerning the sublime realities William Blake is hinting at.
