RUTH (meaning uncertain).—A woman of Moab, who, like her mother-in-law Naomi, and her sister-in-law Orpah, was left a widow. On Naomi desiring to return to her own people in Bethlehem-Judah—which she had left with her husband owing to a famine—Ruth refused to leave her, and the two returned together to Bethlehem. Here she became the wife of Boaz, and bore him Obed, who became the father of Jesse; she therefore figures in the genealogy of Christ (Mat_1:5). See, further, the next article.