13So Boaz took Ruth, and she was [became] his wife: and when [omit: when] he went in unto her, [and] the Lord [Jehovah] gave her conception, and she bare a son. 14And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord [Jehovah], which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman [redeemer], that his name may be [and may his name be] famous in Israel. 15And he shall [may he] be unto thee a restorer of thy life [soul], and a nourisher [support] of thine old age: for thy daughter-in-law, 16which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. 17And the women her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
18Now these are the generations of Pharez: Pharez begat Hezron, and 19Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Aminadab, 20and Aminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon [Salmah],21and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, 22and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1Rth_4:15.—Lit. “and may he support thine old age.” On the form of
ëַּìְëֵּì
(from
ëּéּì
), cf. Ges. 55, 4; on its construction after
äָéָä
, which here however has the force of the jussive (optative) through its connection with the preceding verb, Ges. 132, 3, Rem. 1.—On the forms
àֲäֵáָúֶêְ
and
éְìָãַúּéּ
, cf. Ges. 59, Rem. 3.—Tr.]
[2Rth_4:20.—Salmah (
ùַׂìְîָä
or *
ùַׂìְîָà
, 1Ch_2:11) appears in Rth_4:21 as Salmon, which many MSS. read here also. Originally, the name was probably used indiscriminately either with the termination *–
ׇï
or
åֹï
cf. Ges. 84, 15). By detrition of the
ùַׂìְîָï
,
ë
became
ùַׂìְîָä
.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Rth_4:13. And she brought forth a son. With this happy event the last shadows disappear from the checkered lives of the two women. The fears of superstition are shown to have been groundless. Sorrow in Moab has been changed into happiness in Israel. The reward of love has begun, and Jehovah mercifully owns the daughter of Moab, who has left home and native land for his people’s sake. Great are the joys which surround the cradle of the child of such parents as Boaz and Ruth. The father of Nero is said to have made the terrible exclamation: “What shall come of a son who has me for his father and Agrippina for his mother!” But here, where love had been married to piety, humility to heroism, innocence to believing insight, everybody must look for a future of blessings. A child of Ruth and Boaz had no need of goddesses and fairies to come to its cradle, in order, according to popular legends, to bring wealth and good wishes. The blessing of the Almighty God, who locks not at the person, but at the heart, has spread out its wings over the child.
Rth_4:14. And the women said unto Naomi. What a difference between the beginning and the end of Naomi’s life in Israel since her return! When she came back, poor and lonely, where were the women and neighbors, who ought to have comforted, supported, and stood by her in her necessity? Nothing is heard of them. Nobody was with her but Ruth. But now they appear with their good wishes for Naomi and praises to God; for adversity has vanished. Ruth is no longer the poor gleaner, who painfully gathers a living for her mother, but the happy wife of Boaz. A new name has been raised up for the inheritance of Elimelech.
Who hath not left a redeemer to be wanting to thee this day. It is one of the peculiar beauties of our narrative that its last words are almost wholly devoted to Naomi (Rth_4:14-18). And justly so; for it was Naomi who by her exemplary life in Moab had been the instructress of Ruth. For her sake, the noble woman had come to Israel. Upon her, affliction had fallen most severely (Rth_1:13), bereaving her of both husband and children. Against her, the hand of Jehovah had gone forth, so that she bade acquaintances to call her, not Naomi, but Mara. Moreover, a heart-union existed between herself and Ruth, such as is not often to be found between even natural mother and daughter. The happiness of Ruth would have been her happiness also, even if no national usages and habits had come in to make it such. How tender and delicate is the feeling which these usages and habits set forth, of the sacred and indissoluble character of the marriage bond. And yet modern self-conceit—that, and not Christian self-knowledge—perpetually talks of the inferiority of woman’s position under the old covenant! Boaz had married Ruth, as a blood-relative of her former husband, in order to raise up the name of the latter upon his inheritance. The childless widow did not, as happens so often among us, leave the family of her deceased husband, as if she had never become a member of it. The blood-relative obtains a son by her, and the birth of this son becomes an occasion for congratulations to the mother of the former husband. The child borne by Ruth to Boaz as a blood-relative, although not the nearest, of Naomi’s husband, is called by the women the goel of Naomi, and they praise God that he has not left Naomi without him. There is, no doubt, a legal ground for this. For the child inherits the estate of Elimelech, because its mother was formerly the wife of his son, and with this estate the life of Naomi also is connected. Not Boaz, who has redeemed the inheritance, but the child for whom he redeemed it, is the real goel of Naomi—the person, that is, in whom her sinking house again raises itself; for he is the son of her son’s wife, albeit by another husband. He is the grandson of her family, though not of her blood. Ruth’s goel was Boaz, but Naomi’s the son of Ruth; for Ruth lives in the house of Boaz, but Naomi in that of the child, which belongs to him by virtue of his birth from Ruth. These are practical definitions of the leviratical law; but how thoroughly moral the views on which they rest! how close the sympathy and brotherhood they seek to establish, and how indissoluble the marriage covenant which they presuppose!
Undoubtedly, the most moral law can become torpid, and receive only an external fulfillment or even be evaded. Laws are living and active among a people only so long as the spirit that gave them, being continues to live. The conduct of the unknown blood-relative has sufficiently shown, that the law alone could have afforded no help to Ruth and Naomi. The whole history of Naomi in Israel, after her return from Moab and up to the intervention of Boaz, testifies to the inability of the letter of the law to avert misery and distress. Boaz followed, not the letter of the law, but its spirit; and hence did more than the letter demanded. In the persons of those with whom our narrative is mainly concerned, the doctrine verifies itself that there is no law so strong as the law of love. It is this doctrine which the women also have come to recognize when they say to Naomi:—
Rth_4:15. For thy daughter-in-law, who loveth thee, and who is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. The child, say the women, shall refresh thy soul,—the soul
ðֶôֶùׁ
, animus, of Naomi was bowed down with sorrow, the child will restore (
äֵùִׁéá
) her courage,—and support thy old age; and this, they add, not because the law makes him heir to the estate of his mother’s family, but because Ruth has borne him. The revivication of Naomi’s happiness through the birth of this child, was more securely guaranteed by the love of Ruth, than by friendship and blood-relationship. True, Naomi herself is childless; but seven sons could not have done for her what Ruth did. The women acknowledge now how far short the legal friendship of Israel towards Naomi has fallen, in comparison with the self-sacrifice of the daughter of Moab. And thus there comes to view here so much the more plainly, the doctrine—in its higher sense prophetic, under the old covenant—that love, living, active, self-forgetful, self-sacrificing love, transcends all law and family considerations. Christ announces the same doctrine in its highest form, when he says: “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mat_12:50). Ruth’s love for Naomi takes the place of physical descent. It engrafts her child, as it were, into the heart of Naomi. In itself the child is only the grandson of her family and estate; on account of Ruth’s love, it becomes to her a veritable grandchild of love, nearer to her heart than if a daughter of her own had given birth to it. The power of pure and self-forgetful love, such as Ruth had entertained, could not be more beautifully delineated.
Rth_4:16. And she became foster-mother to it. She took it into her lap, like an actual grandmother. She formed the child in Israelitish life and customs. She became to it what Mordecai was to Esther, an instructress in the law and Israelitish culture. The son of Ruth became to her an actual grandchild of love. For this reason the female neighbors give him a name whose signification is equivalent to Naomi’s son.
Rth_4:17. They called his name, Obed. There are several noteworthy points connected with this. The female neighbors, in order to give pleasure to Naomi, give the child a name. But beside this, he doubtless received a name from his parents, probably one that belonged to the family. But that given by the women continued to be his usual name, and by it he was inserted into the family genealogy. Consequently, the idea enunciated in it must have been specially characteristic. The text says: “They gave him a name, namely, a son is born to Naomi;” and hence they called him Obed. Now, whether the name Obed be explained as servant of God or servant of Naomi, the sense in either case remains insipid. What the women mean is, not that the child is the servant of Naomi, but that he is to her as a son. If the words of Rth_4:17 are to have a plain sense; nay, if the preservation of just that name which the female neighbors gave him is to have an explanation, the name Obed must in some way express the idea of the word “son.” For in this name “son,” given with reference to Naomi, there is contained the idea that the sin which lay at the base of her evil fortune had been atoned for. She who lost the children of her own body, had now a son in the spirit of true love. It is true, that from the philological stores extant in the Bible, the explanation of Obed in the sense of “son” is not possible; but it may be done by the assistance of other languages. It is sufficiently clear that Obed is to be connected with the Greek
ðáéäßïí
(
ðáῖò
,
ðáéäüò
), Latin putus, Sanskrit pôta, putra, Persian puser.
The circumstance that Obed was used in the sense of “son,” justifies the conjecture that in the Hebrew of that day there were various foreign words in use, probably introduced through Aramaic influences, without postulating a closer contact of the so-called Semitic with the Indo-germanic tongues than is usually assumed.
He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. In these words the doctrine of the whole Book reaches its point of culmination. They point out the completion of the blessing pronounced on Ruth by Boaz. The name of the superstitious kinsman, who thought that marriage with the Moabitess would endanger his inheritance, is forgotten; but from Boaz descends the Hero (
âִּáּåֹø çַéִì
), the King of Poets, David, the Prophet, and type of the Messiah. Prom him Christ comes through the promise, even as Obed was the son of Naomi through the love of Ruth. The doctrine of the whole narrative is expressed in the words of the Apostle, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Note.
Verses 18–22 are an addition from the genealogical tables of the House of David. The chronological question involved in them must be considered in connection with the other analogous data, for which reason we refer here to 1Ch_2:8 ff.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
“Naomi took the child.” Whoever was once capable of true love, preserves its power forever after. Throughout her history, until the close of the narrative, Naomi’s name is truly descriptive of her character. Her love is the cause of the blessing that finally ensues; for by it she won love. It sustained her in suffering,—it prompted her to action in behalf of her daughter-in-law. Now in the end she enjoys its blessing, and becomes the loving foster-mother of the child of her who was better to her than seven sons.
Naomi is everywhere an image of the Church of Christ, which wins, confesses, and fosters through, love. Men whose natural hearts are hostile to her, become her obedient children. When there is apostasy and misery in the church, it is for priests and preachers to repent, as Naomi did, and not to excuse themselves. If they really have the spirit of love, they cannot but feel that they have to blame themselves first of all. When the church does not make converts among heathen and Jews, the attempt to lay the guilt of this judgment on them, and to excuse ourselves, is a sign of a hard heart. Alas! God alone knows what heavy loads of guilty responsibility rest on the church for having herself given the impulse by which thousands were kept from coming to the Saviour. And how greatly she sins, when she does not rightly, foster those who do come, exhibiting neither love, nor wisdom, nor faith in her treatment of them,—that too will one day be made manifest. Impatience is not in love; and a little money does not make amends for the coldness of consummate self-righteousness. They are children, who are laid in the lap of the church,—children according to the spirit, that is to say real children, who, by God’s grace, bring a greater blessing to the church that seven sons according to the flesh.
Pascal: “Two laws are sufficient to regulate the whole Christian Church more completely that all political law could do: love to God, and love to one’s neighbor.”
“They said, there is a son born to Naomi, and called his name Obed; he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.” Boaz predicted a blessing for Ruth, and the faith through which he did it was rewarded by his being made a sharer in it. All he did was to utter a word of prophecy, prompted by his faith in the grace of his God, and lo, he was made the progenitor of David, the prophet! He who firmly relies on the love of God, is always a seer. Boaz had faith enough to bring about, in due time, the fulfillment of his own benediction, and became the ancestor of Him in whom all the prophecies of David are fulfilled. Of Boaz himself no warrior deeds are known, and yet the greatest of Israel’s heroes, the conqueror of Goliath, sprang from him. He conquered himself, and on that account became the ancestor of Him who triumphed over sin and death. Similarly, Ruth had nothing but a heart full of love, and yet to her, once a daughter of Moab, there was given what neither Deborah nor Jael obtained,—to become the mother of Him by whom all the nations are redeemed.
Jerome (on Isa_16:1): “O Moab! out of thee shall come forth the unspotted Lamb, which bears the sins of the world, and rules over the whole earth! From the rock of the wilderness, i.e. from Ruth, widowed by the death of her husband, Boaz derived Obed. … and from David came Christ.”
Gerlach: “Thus the coming of the great King is prepared for, upon whom the Lord had determined to confirm the dominion over his people for evermore; and the converted Moabitess, who entered as a worthy member into the commonwealth of the people of God, became the mother of David and of Christ.”
______________________
The Jewish tradition which makes Ruth a descendant of Eglon, the Moabitish king who oppressed Israel as a punishment for its sins, contains an allegory worthy of notice. The daughter of the oppressor, becomes the mother of the Liberator, the Redeemer out of the House of David. According to the Jewish expositors the name Ruth is derived from a root which signifies to give drink, to assuage thirst (Berachoth, 7 a); and from her, say they, David came, who with his songs and psalms supplied the wants of those who thirst after God. And from David, we may add, came the Saviour who gave to the Samaritan woman when she thirsted, of that fountain which springs up unto everlasting life.
The ancient church selected the sixteenth of July as the day on which to commemorate Ruth. The reason for this is probably to be found in the following considerations: In Deu_23:3, it is said: “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of Jehovah; even to their tenth generation they shall not enter.” This was supposed to have been fulfilled in Ruth. In the genealogy of the Gospel according to Matthew, Boaz, through whom Ruth was received into the congregation of Jehovah, is the tenth from Abraham. But it was the Lord and Saviour, whose day Abraham saw, and who according to the flesh descended from Ruth, who first took away the curse from Moab also. This was announced by Isaiah, when in addressing Moab, he says (Isa_16:5): “In mercy shall a throne be prepared, that one sit upon it in truth, in the tabernacle of David, and judge, and seek judgment, and hasten righteousness.” Now, as the ancient church set apart the sixth of July for Isaiah, because he prophesied of Christ, who suffered on the sixth day of the week, and whose incarnation was celebrated on the sixth of January, it fixed the anniversary of Ruth ten days later, on the sixteenth of July. Thus her name and the number of her day are symbolical of prophecy and grace. But ten days farther on, the twenty-sixth, is the day of Anna, whom tradition makes to be the mother of the Virgin Mary. Thus the name of Ruth stood ten days after the prophecy and ten days before its approaching fulfillment, equally distant from him who prophecied of the Virgin and from her who was the Virgin’s mother. The Moabitish stranger finds herself in the middle between the seer who beheld the wilderness of Moab become fruitful, and the nearest ancestress of Him who delivers Moab and all the world from barrenness and thirst.
Pictorially, the ancient church represented Ruth with a sheaf in her hand. As was natural, she was always conceived as youthful. She might be represented with a rose, in accordance with what may be the meaning of her name (see on Rth_1:4). The Rose of Bethlehem was the ancestress of the Rose of Jesse (Mary), whom ancient pictures represent sitting in a rosebush. Both rose and sheaf are symbols of the truth that though love may sow in tears, it will through God’s compassion reap in joy.
Footnotes:
[Rth_4:15.—Lit. “and may he support thine old age.” On the form of
ëַּìְëֵּì
(from
ëּéּì
), cf. Ges. 55, 4; on its construction after
äָéָä
, which here however has the force of the jussive (optative) through its connection with the preceding verb, Ges. 132, 3, Rem. 1.—On the forms
àֲäֵáָúֶêְ
and
éְìָãַúּéּ
, cf. Ges. 59, Rem. 3.—Tr.]
[Rth_4:20.—Salmah (
ùַׂìְîָä
or *
ùַׂìְîָà
, 1Ch_2:11) appears in Rth_4:21 as Salmon, which many MSS. read here also. Originally, the name was probably used indiscriminately either with the termination *–
ׇï
or
åֹï
cf. Ges. 84, 15). By detrition of the
ùַׂìְîָï
,
ë
became
ùַׂìְîָä
.—Tr.]
The subterfuge of Le Clerc, who proposes to read
àåֹáã
, in the sense of “unfortunate, poor one,” with reference to the poverty once suffered by Ruth, is entirely wrong, to say nothing of the fact that the word itself does not have the sense which he assigns to it.
[But is not the emphasis to be laid on “to Naomi” rather than on “son?” It is true, that analogy leads us to expect the name to contain specifically the same idea expressed by the women (cf. however Gen_29:32); but it must also be admitted (with Berth.) that Obed in the sense of “one that serves,” sc. Naomi, harmonizes well with the words in Rth_4:15 : “May he be to thee a soul-restorer, and a support of thine old age.”—Tr.]
As regards the
ò
in
òֹáֵã
, its value (best compared perhaps with a spiritus asper) is exactly the same as in
òìõ
to be compared with lœtari and lœtus,,
òîì
with moliri,
òî÷
with
ìῆêïò
, etc.
The reference of Grotius to the traditionary history of Ocrisia, who became the mother of Servius Tullius, is very unfortunate. Ocrisia was a slave. Her story has no ethical background. The legends concerning her were only designed to glorify the derivation of the king. Cf. Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch. i. 376 (2d edit.).
It is on the ground of this contrast that Jewish tradition homiletically advanced the idea that Goliath descended from Orpah, who returned to Moab, as David from Ruth. The early teachers of the church were acquainted with this tradition, and Prudentius even introduced it into his poem, Hamartigenia, 4:782:—
“Sed pristinus Orphæ
Fanorum ritus præputia barbara suasit
Malle, et semiferi stirpem nutrire Goliæ.
Ruth, dum per stipulas agresti amburitur æstu
Fulcra Booz meruit, castoque adscita cubili
Christigenam fecunda domum, Davidica regna
Edidit atque deo mortales miscuit ortus.”
Cf. my article in the Berl. Wochenblatt, 1863, Numbers 32.
