The Family
This woman named Naomi - which in Hebrew means "pleasant" (1:20 cliffnote b) - married this dude Elimelech and had two sons by him in Bethlehem, Judah. At this time, there was famine in the land, so they traveled to Moab (the Moabites were "sinful" people who worshiped other gods). There in Moab, her two sons married some Moabite women, but none of them had any children. Sometime later, both Elimelech and his two sons had died, so all that was left were Naomi and her two daughters-in-law Ruth and some other broad.
Naomi decided that she wanted to go back home to Bethlehem, so she advised her daughters-in-law to stay there in Moab and remarry. The one daughter-in-law followed her advice, but Ruth insisted that she follow Naomi wherever she went. She no longer wanted to be with her parents or her friends or her gods because she loved Naomi so much. So, together they ventured back to Judah, at which point Naomi told Ruth to call her Mara instead, because "mara" in Hebrew means "bitter". (cliffnote c)
...Because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted [or testified against (cliffnote e)] me, the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. (1:20&21)Back in Bethlehem
In a situation like Naomi and Ruth's - since none of them have husbands or sons to carry on the family name, and being that Naomi was too damn old to have anymore kids - it's custom to have the widowed daughter-in-law remarry back into her late husband's family. This is considered a "redemption" and the man who marries her is the "kinsman redeemer". [1]
So Ruth was on the prowl to find herself a husband that's of close relation to her late husband. She decided to go work in a field that belongs to this guy Boaz, whom I'm guessing is like the second cousin of Ruth's dead father-in-law Elimelech or something. He thought she was pretty cool for loving Naomi and abandoning her Moabite ways and adopting the Hebrew culture, so he let her work in his field; even though it's implied that the rest of the Hebrews in Bethlehem weren't too happy about bringing a Moabite into the family (2:22), given the part in the Mosaic Law about the taboo of intermarrying. (Exodus 34:15&16)
The way that Hebrews flirted back then was the man (being Boaz) was to give the woman (Ruth) like a bushel of barley to bring back to her parents (that being Naomi). So when Ruth came back to her mother-in-law with her bushel of barley, Naomi was like "Oooh girl! He wants you!" So Naomi told Ruth to go propose to Boaz, and she gave her advice on how to go about it according to the Hebrew customs.
The Proposal and Customs for Redemption
Ruth went to Boaz's house later that night after he fell asleep and took off his shoes. He woke up all pissy and was like "Who the fuck's taken off my shoes?!" She was like "It's me, Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment over me, for you are my kinsman-redeemer." (3:9)
At first glance, you'd be like WTF's going on here?? Well, fret not. I'll explain this to you. When a woman takes off a man's sandals and asks him to spread his garment over her, it's a way of asking for marriage. If he does spread his cloak over her, it's his way of accepting. Remember, the main requisite for marriage is sex, so I'm taking it as if he spreads his cloak over it, it's like getting two people under a blanket to get busy. Makes sense. [2]
So Boaz would naturally accept such an offer, except he says there is another relative that is closer to her late husband than he is. Which means he needs to talk to said person first to see if it's alright that he marries Ruth.
Now, while it doesn't exactly state this guy's name in my Bible, apparently if you look at the Hebrew Bible (otherwise known as the "Tanakh" [3], not to be confused with the Torah which is the five books of the Mosaic Law) it says this closer kinsman-redeemer's name is Ploni Almoni. Roughly translated, this means "Mr. so-and-so" or "whatshisname". [4] I got a little chuckle out of that.
Well, when Boaz went to go talk to Mr. so-and-so, whatshisname basically said that if he were to marry Ruth, it would be a financial/social suicide. He would basically need to forfeit his own land so that he could inherit Elimelech's land, and thus wouldn't be able to pay his compensation to Naomi. Even if he were to mortgage his own land to pay for the compensation, he still has his own family name to uphold. That, and not everybody in town was happy with the fact that a Moabite woman was living among them. He didn't want to go against God's law of intermarrying. So, the right of kinsman-redeemership was passed on to Boaz, who then married Ruth and had a son named Obed. And they all lived happily ever after. Although it seems that Naomi took all the damn credit, because everybody in town was saying that it was Naomi's child, even though it clearly wasn't. (4:16&17) I'm guessing this is simply because Ruth was a Moabite and they wanted to pretend that the family tree were of pure Hebrew blood.
In Conclusion
Now, here's the super interesting part. If you follow the genealogy, Ruth is actually the infamous David's great-grandmother (whom we'll get into in our next book.) Boaz and Ruth had Obed, who fathered Jesse, who was the father of David. And if you follow even further, all of this eventually leads up to Jesus Christ's genealogy. HA! Christ was not of pure Hebrew blood. [5] Anybody think of Harry Potter the half-blood prince? Teehee.
[1] and [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ruth#Synopsis
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_bible#Usage
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploni_Almoni#Hebrew
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus#Luke.E2.80.99s_genealogy
It's also worth noting that the Moabites line came from Moab, the son of Lot, who was conceived during one of the multiple nights of drunken incest with his daughters, when they decided to get him drunk so he would get both of them pregnant.
ReplyDeleteAny idea when we might see the next installment?
ReplyDeleteIt's been over a month. ;_;