Commentary on the book of Ruth

In the series of historical books of the Old Testament, after the book of Judges in the Greek (LXX), Latin (Vulg.) and Slavic-Russian Bibles, the book of Ruth (LXX: Ρούθ, Vulg.: Ruth) is placed. “The eighth book of the Old Testament: Ruth is so called because it contains the story of Ruth. Ruth was a Moabite by birth; but having abandoned kinship and paternal superstition, she turned to true worship of God and moved to Bethlehem in Judea; there she married Boaz from the tribe of Judah. From her the kinship of David is derived in this way: Boaz begat Obed from Ruth, Obed begat Jesse, Jesse begat David” (synopsis of Athanasius). In the Hebrew Bible, book. Ruth stands in the third part of the Old Testament canon - in the section of hagiographers, “ketubim”, occupying fifth place in the series (after the books of Psalms, Proverbs, Job and Song of Songs). The last provision of the book. Ruth in the Bible, one must think, was original; its placement in the Greek Bible between the books of Judges and Kings could be due to the fact that the incident described in it dates back to the time of the Judges, and according to the indicated relationship of Ruth to David, the book is, according to blessed. Augustine (Christian Science, book 2, ch. 13), the beginning, or threshold, to the books of Kings, depicting the history of the royal house of David; Moreover, by joining the book of Ruth to the book. Judges (like the book Lamentations of Jeremiah to the book of the prophet Jeremiah) the total number of books of the Old Testament was 22 (equal to the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet), accepted by Josephus (“On the Antiquity of the Jewish People” - Against Apion I, 8), the Jewish synagogue and some teachers of the church (Origen, Blessed Jerome, St. Epiphanius) 1. The characteristic difference between the book of Ruth and other biblical books is that the content is equally alien both to the main stream of the historical life of Israel, depicted in the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament, and to the inspired speculation and sacred-lyrical outpouring of the eternal feelings of the human heart in the teaching books (Psalms, Proverbs, Book of Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes): the book of Ruth takes the reader into the close circle of an ancient Jewish family, unusually vividly and attractively depicting fate, trials and need, as well as the virtues and ultimate glorification of the main character - the Moabite Ruth, who through her marriage to the Bethlehemite Boaz entered the people of God and was honored to be the great-grandmother of King David. In terms of the nature of the content, the clarity of the characteristics and the method of presentation, the book of Ruth only resembles some scenes from the life of the patriarchs of the book of Genesis; in its external form it is rightly called a Hebrew story from rural life, an idyllic family picture, full of the most sincere simplicity and naivety. With all that, the book. Ruth comes into contact with general Israeli history at two points: at the starting point of the story - the removal of the Jewish family of Bethlehemite Elimelech to the land of Moab due to the famine that befell the country of the Jews (Ruth. 1:1-2), and even more so in the final genealogy of King David (Ruth. 4:17-22) - at the end of the book (cf. 1 Chron. 2:5-10), which the genealogy with the inclusion of the name of Ruth was also included in the gospel genealogy of the Lord (Matthew 1:4–6). This historical feature of the book - the connection with the genealogy of David (deliberately emphasized in (Ruth. 4:17)) - was the reason for the inclusion of the book of Ruth in the Old Testament canon; and since David was the forefather of Jesus Christ and the genealogy of David is a necessary part of the genealogy of the Savior, the importance of the book of Ruth is obvious from the New Testament point of view, from the historical foundations of Christianity. In this sense, blessed Theodoret answered the question: why was the legend of Ruth written? answers: “firstly, for the sake of the Lord Christ; because He came from Ruth according to the flesh. Why did the divine Matthew, when writing his genealogy, bypass the famously virtuous women Sarah, Rebecca and others, but mentioned Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and even the wife of Uriah, teaching by this that the only begotten Son of God became man for the sake of all people: Jews, and other nations, both sinners and righteous” (Answer to Question I on the book of Ruth, Russian. trans., M., 1855, cf. Blessed Jerome of Stridon. Four books of interpretations on the Gospel of Matthew, part 16 Russian. At the same time, according to Blessed Theodoret, “although for the sake of the Master the legend about Ruth had to be written, this story in itself is sufficient to bring all sorts of benefit to those who know how to use such narratives; because it describes to us the grave misfortunes and commendable patience of Naomi, the chastity and love for the mother-in-law of her daughters-in-law, especially Ruth, who, out of heartfelt piety and in memory of her husband, preferred an elderly and decrepit woman to her parents. This story also shows the virtue of Boaz” (question I on the book of Ruth, pp. 314–315). In general, “the presentation and composition in this story are simple and clear, distinguished by such an epic tone that it is completely erroneous and unfounded to attribute the composition of the book to the predominantly legislative time after the captivity, since everything in it clearly testifies to the initial period of Jewish family life.” Thus, in vain they saw in the book of Ruth a tendency to support the obligation of a levirate (cf. Deut. 25:5-10) marriage (Benary, De hebraeorum leviratu, 1835; VerthoIdt, Enleitung...): if indeed the marriage of Ruth with Boaz (Ruth. 2:20, 4:10-17) was levirate (lat. levir - brother-in-law) in the Hebrew sense (Gen. 38:7-11), (cf. Deut. 25:5-10) - although, strictly speaking, he cannot be called so, because Boaz was not the brother of Ruth's deceased husband - then in any case this feature is completely accidental in the narrative of the book and is not in any significant connection with the main thread of the story. Likewise, one cannot see in the book of Ruth with many researchers (Geiger, Urschrift u. Ubersetzungen der Bibel, 1857, p. 49 ff, Bertholet, Stellung der Israelten z. Fremden, p. 145 ff; Graetz, Geschichte der Iuden II, 2, p. 136 ff; Nowack, Handkommentar z. Alen Test. Richer - Ruth, 1900, s. 184–185, etc.) protest against the post-exilic rigorism of Ezra (1 Ezra 9–10), Nehemiah (Neh. 13:23–31) and their like-minded people, who did not allow marriages of Jews with foreign women, and it is assumed that the example of the great foremother of the great David, the Moabite Ruth, was the best exposure of the wrongness of those zealots of the letter of the law (Deut. 23:3; Exod. 34:16). But, regardless of the artificiality of the assumption of such a protest, the post-exilic writing of the book of Ruth is incredible by the very nature of its content and presentation shown above; do not prove such a late origin of the book of Ruth and its placement in the 3rd part of the Old Testament canon (contrary to the opinion of Uatke, Histor. - Kritisch. Einleitung in d. A. T., 1886, 438 ff., etc.), since in this part there are books of Psalms, Proverbs and others of additional origin, just as the books found in the Jewish text do not prove this Chaldeanism, which also occurs in the most ancient biblical books. On the contrary, the ancient origin of the book of Ruth, precisely under the first kings of the Jews, is evidenced by the following data from the book itself: 1) the image of expression (Ruth. 1:1; cf. Judges 19:1) "in the days when the judges ruled..." shows that the incidents described in the book from the time of the Judges were not too far removed from the time of the sacred writer of the book; 2) the genealogy (in Ruth. 4:17–22) is brought only to David; if the writing of the book belonged to a later era of the period of the kings, then nothing would have prevented the inclusion of the names of the royal descendants of David (after the captivity there was no point at all in depicting the genealogy of David alone); 3) only in relation to David did the detailed story of the book about David’s foremother matter; not without reason, they point to an incident from the life of David (1 Sam. 22:1-3) (during the persecution of Cael, David places his father and mother with the Moabite king), showing that the memory of the Moabite origin of David’s foremother was fresh both in himself and among his contemporaries. The authority of LXX, who placed the book of Ruth in the biblical codex immediately after the book of Judges and before 1 book. Kings, as well as the testimony of the Talmud (tract. Baba-Batra 14, b.), that the writer of the book of Ruth was Samuel, convinces us that “the writing of the book belongs to the time of King David and was done by one of the prophets who were then” 2. In modern times, among others, the famous historian of Jewish literature Gustav Karpeles admits that the “story of Ruth” (i.e., the book of Ruth) was from the very beginning included in the book of Judges (constituting the final part of its narratives), and that only later the book of Ruth was separated from it and included in the hagiographers. G. Karpeles. History of Jewish Literature. Transl. edited by A. Ya. Garkavi T. I. St. Petersburg. 1896, p. 41 and 50. But it is easier to understand the opposite - the transfer of the book. Ruth from a number of hagiographers into the section of historical books, than the artificial separation of a part (the story of Ruth) from the whole (the book of Judges) supposed here, with the arbitrary transfer of the first to the 3rd part of the Old Testament canon Prof. A. A. Olesnitsky. Guiding information about the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments from the works of the fathers and teachers of the Church. St. Petersburg 1894, p. 43 You might be interested in: