Ruth

Righteous Ruth was a young Moabite woman, the heroine of the biblical book that bears her name, the wife of Boaz, the great-⁠grandmother of King David and an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. Her story takes place in the time of the judges of Israel. The Church honours her among the righteous of the Old Testament.

In the days when the judges ruled, a famine struck the land of Judah, and Elimelech of Bethlehem went with his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to the country of Moab. There Elimelech died, and the sons married two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. After about ten years the sons also died, and the three women were left widows.

Hearing that the Lord had visited His people with food, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem and urged her daughters-⁠in-⁠law to remain in Moab. Orpah turned back, but Ruth would not. Her words are among the most beautiful declarations of loyalty in Scripture: "Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).

The two women arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth went to glean behind the reapers, as the poor were allowed to do, and came to the field of Boaz, a wealthy kinsman of Elimelech. Boaz learned who she was, the woman who had left her land and her family to stay with her mother-⁠in-⁠law. He blessed her for her faithfulness and told his reapers to let her gather without being troubled. She worked on until the end of the barley and wheat harvests.

On Naomi's advice Ruth went to the threshing floor of Boaz at night and asked him, as a near kinsman, to redeem her family's inheritance and take her as his wife. Boaz praised her for not seeking younger men, rich or poor, and promised to do what was right. There was, however, a nearer kinsman. Before the elders at the city gate, he gave up his claim. Boaz then took Ruth as his wife, and the elders and the people prayed that the Lord make her like Rachel and Leah.

From Ruth and Boaz was born Obed, the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. Naomi took the child to her bosom, and the women of the town said that he would be a restorer of life to her.

In the genealogy of the Lord in the Gospel of Matthew, Ruth is one of the women named besides the Virgin Mary, with Tamar, Rahab and the wife of Uriah (Matthew 1:5). Several of them were foreigners or came into the line in unusual ways, a sign that the promise to Abraham reaches beyond one people. Ruth, a Moabite who chose the God of Israel, is the clearest example of this.

The Church counts her among the righteous ancestors of Christ.