This new Bible study here on Ruth is entitled Ruth, a woman of worth. That is a line taken straight from chapter 3 verse 11. I'll have to talk about that line we'll talk about it very soon. But Ruth is a woman of worth indeed.
She's a fantastic character. This is a short book, only four chapters, but it is awesome. There's so much typology, so many connections to overarching themes of salvation history. It's really, really great.
So it's only going to be two lessons. We're going to introduce the book of Ruth with the usual practical stuff like title, authorship dating. Placement in the canon is very, very interesting. There's a lot more theology when we discuss that it's placement in the canon in Christian Bibles compared to Hebrew Bibles and great stuff there.
We're going to be looking, of course, at big overarching themes and typology and things like that. So it's a good hour well spent just setting the stage, laying the foundation for this fantastic little book of Ruth. It's probably one of the happiest books in the Old Testament, I think. It's not cut and dry.
Like, whoopty-doo, here's a love story of Ruth and Boaz. And there's, trust me, there's a lot going on here. And it's more uplifting than the judges. We just finished the book of judges.
And that's a pretty depressing book for a lot of different reasons. There's a lot to learn from it, of course. It's very instructive as to why we should never turn away from God. We should reject a culture instead of embracing the culture and so on and so forth.
Well, Ruth is a light spot in the darkness of the period of the judges. Okay, so with that, then let's just look briefly at some of these practical elements. And I want to end the lesson on some of the more media, substantial, thematic, and typological points because there's a lot of fun stuff there. So number one title, surprise, surprise.
It's called Ruth. That's the title of the book. Ruth comes from Hebrew, Re-Ooth. It's a play on the Hebrew word.
Re-Ooth means friendship. So Ruth's name means friendship or friendly. Different renditions depending on what you're reading. That's really beautiful.
And you really get that as you read the book. She really lives up to her name as everyone does. And the next lesson is we go through the four chapters and we explain the cast of characters, all explaining the meaning of everybody's names and how that applies. But she means friendship.
In Greek and Latin, transliterate, there's no real changes. Like if you go back to numbers, the book of numbers and Hebrew is Ben-Mied Bar in the wilderness. And it changes in the Greek and the Latin two numbers. So there's none of that really here.
It's just simply the name of the character Ruth. And so Ruth is the only book of the Old Testament that's named after a Gentile woman. And that little bit of trivia may not seem, it may seem trivial. That trivia seems trivial.
It is not. I'm telling you the fact that we have a book of a Bible named after a Gentile woman who comes from a very sinful people, that is hugely, hugely significant and very exciting as you understand that in the overarching themes of salvation history and God's universal call to holiness for all people. So she has the claim to fame that she's the only, she has the only book named after her after a Gentile woman, which is awesome. And then she's also one of only three books that's in the Bible that's named after a woman.
So you've got Esther and Judith. Those are also books named after women and Ruth here. So a little bit of trivia for you. I think that's kind of interesting.
Now authorship and dating. Well, there's not a lot to say about this quite honestly because it's truly an anonymous book. There's no consensus among scholars as to who wrote this. There's no consensus in tradition, Jewish or Christian tradition as to who wrote this.
Your Catholic study Bible will say that one Jewish tradition, one rabbinic tradition, describes it to the prophet Samuel. But then also, so the Samuel that would be in the 11th century BC, then also in terms of the concept of dating. Well, if it started by Samuel in the 11th century BC, it wasn't finished by him. I think that much is certainly the case.
And that really touches upon a theme. When we talk about authorship and dating and with a lot of these books, by and large, you have to understand that there is a period, a mysterious period of authorship of multiple authors. You might have the initial author be Samuel, and then down the line you have other authors. That happens with a lot of books.
Samuel didn't write, sit down and write Ruth as we have it today in our Bibles. It has this mysterious history of composition and editing and redaction. We're totally fine with that. And I think that's a very balanced way to look at it.
So here's a quote from your Hamilton book. He says, though most widely espoused date is during the reign of Solomon, that is in the later portion of the 10th century. So obviously, if Samuel started it, then in Solomon's reign, it continues, and then up into the period of the exile, that's all fine. But the main point is we have no consensus as to who wrote it, which means we have no consensus as to the dating of the writing.
But it very well may have started with Samuel. You probably have various smaller forms of this great history of who Ruth is. And I think it's going to become really, really apparent after King David. After King David takes the throne and he's the greatest king of all of Israel.
They're going to have people sitting down to talk about his ancestry. So Samuel wrote down a little bit of this stuff when he anoints David as king. And he got the whole shenanigans with David and Saul and Saul persecuting David and all this stuff. So yeah, Samuel might have written some stuff down, but it becomes really evident to that.
Wow, David's the greatest king. He's got the Davidic Covenant. Davidic Kingdom is this empire of peace, certainly during this reign of Solomon. Then you're going to want to talk about his ancestry.
So that little bit right there tells us more about that. It was probably after David's reign, although the origins were probably during his reign. Okay. So that's really all I want to say for authorship and dating.
Placement in the canon. This is really, really interesting. There's a lot more to say about this than meets the eye because you got a lot of discussion of the placement of XYZ book and the canon. By the way, canon is not like, boom, canon.
Canon is really the table of contents. It is the official list of those inspired books that the Catholic Church determines is inspired as opposed to all the rest of the other books that are circulating in the Old Testament, well, intertestamental period, and then of course the New Testament period as well. You do need an authority, by the way, to determine what is canon, what's canonical, and what is not, like what makes the list and what fails to make the list. You do need an authority.
That is another topic for another time. Well, in any case, the placement of Ruth in the canon is very fascinating. And there's some really beautiful theology with this. So there's two ways to look at it.
First, in Christian Bibles, and this is following the tradition of the Greek Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, as well as the Latin Vulgate, they're going to place it obviously after judges and before the books of Samuel. And that's what we have now. You open up any Christian Bible of any denomination, and that's what you find. And that's obvious because it's the hinge between these two stories.
In fact, Ruth chapter 1 verse 1 tells us, in the days when the judges rule the land, there was a famine in the land and it goes on to introduce the characters. So chapter 1 verse 1 tells us this occurred in the period of the judges. All right. And also, at the end of Ruth chapter 4 verse 17, it talks about the Davidic Empire.
Because that's a big, we'll talk about this more with the key themes. But one of the biggest themes here is pro-David explanation. I don't really like the word propaganda, but you know what I mean if I say propaganda, marketing, call it PR, call it public relations if you want to. So it's a very strong Davidic PR.
All right. So it says in chapter 4 verse 17, a son was born. They named him Obad. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Okay. So you've got Ruth and Boaz here. They're in the lineage of David here being their great grandfather. Rather, Obad is the great grandfather should say, sorry, grandfathers Obad, great grandfather would be Ruth.
She's the grandmother. Okay. Excuse me, and Boaz, the grandfather. All right.
You're with me. So it is the hinge between these two stories. It takes place in the judges, but then it sets the stage for what's going to happen with the Davidic Empire. All right.
So that's really awesome. That makes total sense. So chronologically, historically, Ruth follows judges. Cool.
All right. That makes sense. But the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew Old Testament, well, they don't really have an Old Testament, but you know what I mean? The Hebrew Scriptures, they do not place it after judges.
Interestingly enough, Hebrew Bibles place it within the category of the writings as known as the Ketu-vene. Now, I've said this in other Bible studies, but in case you didn't catch this, the Hebrew Scriptures are divided into three categories, the Torah, the Nabi-Eem, and the Ketu-vene. And that's abbreviated as Tanak. You take the T, the N, and the K, put it in some vowels, and you got the Tanak.
It's the way to remember these three major categories. The Torah is the Five Books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. It's the Pentateuch. All right.
That's the law. The Nabi-Eem are known as the prophets. The historical books, what we call historical books, are known for them as the former prophets. So that's significant.
It kind of takes both categories into one. And then the Ketu-vene are known as the writings or the wisdom literature. So you're going to put the Psalms in there. Job.
Solomon's trilogy. You're going to put in there with the Song Solomon and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and all of these books, a Ciraak. Okay. Those are known as the writings.
So the Torah, the Nabi-Eem, the Ketu-vene, those are the three categories. Interestingly, Ruth falls into Ketu-vene, the category of the writings. And the question is why? Why not just throw in with the former prophets, the historical books?
Because there are actually two reasons for this. The first of which is because Ruth is one of five books that are used throughout the liturgical calendar. It's the annual liturgical calendar. You got different feasts and five feasts require the reading of certain biblical books.
By the way, these five books are known as the Megaloth. They're called the Festal Scrolls. So the Megaloth has these five books and Ruth is one of them. So what I have broken down for you here in your notes, if you want to follow along, if you have them, if not, I'm going to read it to you right now.
Ruth is read for a set Pentecost. It's known as the Feast of Weeks. That's in April, May. And then just for completion, you're just explaining this for you.
It's pretty cool. So Ruth is number one. Song of Solomon is read at Passover. That's going to be March, April timeframe.
Ecclesiastes is read on the Feast of Tabernacles in September, October timeframe. Lamentations is read on the 9th month of Abb, which is the temple destruction that makes sense. Because you're lamenting the temple's destruction. And then Esther is read on the Feast of Perim because Perim is the origin story for the Feast of Perim, and that's going to be in March.
All right. So Perim, by the way, means lots. So you got these five books, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Esther. Interesting, by the way, that Esther is in this category, and she's not in the historical books either.
Because again, she's one of these Megaloth. All right. So why is Ruth read at Pentecost? Really, really quickly to explain this.
Some theories out there would be that during the Feast of Pentecost, you have the conclusion of the the grain harvest, specifically the wheat harvest. You've got barley in early spring, wheat in late spring. And that is the context for the story of Ruth. If you had a chance to pre-read Ruth, or you're going to read it with this Bible study, you're going to find out that there's the whole backdrop is in spring in between the barley and the wheat harvests.
And so the poor were allowed to, and I'll explain this in more of the next lesson, but the poor, in fact, were allowed to, and it was commanded by law to let the poor glean some of the grain that had fallen in the harvest period. So that's what Ruth does. So it makes sense then that Ruth, who has this impoverished foreign woman, and she works really, really hard, she's industrious, and she's gathering up enough grain, greening grain for her and her mother-in-law, that's read at the Feast of Pentecost. Also Pentecost is during Jesus' time, who was known for and celebrated the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.
So when Moses takes the Israelites through the Red Sea and the whole Exodus story, you get to Mount Sinai and there's the giving of the law. Well, in Ruth's case, she was the one who accepted the law of Moses through her conversion, and so there's a celebration of that. And then finally, according to the Jewish tradition, David was born in Dainant Pentecost, and so David is the descendant of Ruth. She's the great woman, the great woman of worth, and so she celebrated there too.
So there's various reasons why Ruth, the book of Ruth, is read by the Jews at the Feast of Pentecost. So that's one reason why it is in the Ketuvim, or the writings. There's another reason why it's there, and this I find so beautiful, it's really quite moving, and you see the theology of the placement of canon. This is the reason why it's really quickly, parenthetically.
When we introduce new books, I like to spend an hour introducing them and going through all these things because you learn a lot. A lot of people, they skip over, like who cares about authorship and dating, and placement in the canon, or the structure, they teach you things. They really do, so yes, you might want to hastily get into chapter one verse one, and let's move on with the story, but if you understand the bigger picture and you understand that, there is a theology within the structure of the book. There are literary devices being employed at the macro level of the book, and even here, the placement of the canon, you learn a lot.
So I just want to say that parenthetically, but in proof of that point, let's look at this next point of why Ruth and the Ketu-Vim. So Ruth is the embodiment in the Old Testament, of the righteous woman, or the righteous bride, in the wisdom literature. So the Ketu-Vim is the wisdom literature, and if you had a chance to read it, one of the themes that you're going to see is that a wisdom is personified by, she's called Lady Wisdom, is what she's called. And the young Israelite man, the young Jew is supposed to go pursue Lady Wisdom, and not Lady Folly, and all these types of themes.
Well, Ruth is the embodiment of Lady Wisdom in two different ways, and this is really cool. So let me read this quote here for you, and then I'll explain what it means. It says here, Ruth typically follows Proverbs, get that. Ruth typically follows Proverbs and precedes the song of Solomon in Jewish Bibles.
That's typical, it's not always the case, but it's typically the case. It follows Proverbs and precedes the song Solomon in Jewish Bibles. So the figure of Ruth has come down in Jewish tradition to be associated with both the woman of noble character, a.k.a. the woman of worth, and chapter, I'll read that verse in a moment, chapter 3 verse 11.
She's associated with the woman of worth, or the woman of noble character of Proverbs, but also the bride in the song of Solomon. So what does this mean here? Well, first off, in Ruth chapter 3 verse 11, Boaz is talking to her. We'll get to the whole story in the next lesson.
But at one point, he says here, all my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of worth. Okay, beautiful. That's why I mean this Bible study. She's a woman of worth.
Oh, it says you're a woman of worth, a.k.a. Man, you're a great catch. She's a great catch. Maybe we could subpile it down with a woman, a great, or sorry, Ruth, a great catch.
Right. So she's a great catch, but that line there is very much connected with Proverbs 31 verses 10 and following 10 through 31. That describes very famously the woman of noble character or the good or the righteous wife. So I want to read this to you, because as you if you can have Proverbs 31 in your brain, when you read the story of Ruth, what you're going to see is that Ruth is the embodiment.
She's like, she lives up to the hype, right? She lives up to the characterization here of the righteous woman. So I'm going to try to refrain myself from giving a whole bunch of comments or other commentary about Mary here or I should say typology about Mary in here as well, because Mary ultimately is the woman of worth, right? She is the woman of the righteous woman, the good wife of St.
Joseph. Mary is the perfect fulfillment, but all Jewish women, I would even argue on Christian women would aspire to this. There are a lot of jokes out there by women that this is an impossible standard, right? How can anyone live up to this standard?
And just like, you know, the scripture set standards for men and women, both for husbands, wives, and fathers, and mothers, where we are striving for holiness, we're striving for righteousness to be hardworking, industrious, faithful, trustworthy, loving, and considerate, and full of love of God and all the rest of it. So with that, let me just zip it here. And I'm going to read to you Proverbs 31 verse 10 and following. And then the point is, in the canon of the Jewish scriptures, Ruth follows after it as the example of this chapter.
You see? So let me read it. Verse 10, who can find a good wife? She is far more precious than jewels, the heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not harm, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar.
She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household, and tasks for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. She clothes her loins with strength and makes her arms strong.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the difthiff and her hands hold to the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.
She's not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household or clothes and starlet. She makes herself coverings. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing. She laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her.
Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. Isn't that an awesome passage?
That is a beautiful passage. Yes, it's a high standard for sure, but it's describing, like I said, a woman who is filled with faith of God and obedience to God, and she serves her family and she works hard and she's humble and she's gentle. She's strong as well. And all of these virtues.
So again, I repeat, imagine reading this. If then you flip the page and boom, there's Ruth. She is the woman, the good wife, that boa's found, Boa's found, the good wife. And she exemplifies all of these virtues.
And we'll touch upon some of those as we go through chapters one through four. The story of Ruth in the next lesson. She is hardworking and industrious. She is gentle.
She is strong. She is faithful and factorial. Conversion to Yahweh isn't incredibly beautiful. And so on and so forth.
So it's incredible. So this is the first reason now why Ruth is in the Ketu-Vim because she is the woman of worth. She is the good wife. Then get this.
It's not over yet, right? Because next then after Ruth comes the Song of Solomon. Now everybody knows the Song of Solomon. It's like the romance novel of the Old Testament.
It has very poetic and erotic imagery of a love between a man and a woman. And it's incredibly beautiful. I can't get into it. All it's all very metaphorical and analogous.
It has multiple meanings. The love of a man and a woman. But you've also got the love of God and his people. There's all kinds of imagery with Jerusalem as the great city and all these types of things.
But Song of Solomon is famous because it has the great pickup lines of the Old Testament. The great pickup lines of the ancient world. Like, oh, my lady, your hair is like a flock of gazelles and all this kind of stuff. It's like, well, nowadays those pickup lines wouldn't work.
But then they apparently did. But it's very analogous. It's very beautiful. Well, get this.
The Song of Solomon follows on the heels of Ruth and the story of how Ruth and Boaz, a man and a woman, have a righteous holy marriage. And they become the ancestors of David and ultimately of Jesus. So this is really, really cool because the romance between Ruth and Boaz is the background for the marital themes of Solomon. The Song of Solomon.
But more than just the themes of the love between a man and a woman. But the greater than that, it's the love between God and Israel. Boaz is a type of God and Israel, or I should say, Ruth is a type of Israel. God is exemplified or personified by Boaz and Israel by Ruth.
And more than that, from a Christian perspective then, it's typology of Jesus and the church. Boaz is a type of Christ. And Ruth is a type of the church. I'll talk a lot more about that if we get to the end of this lesson.
But it's really phenomenal, fun, fun stuff. This is not just the love story of a man and a woman. This is all typological between God and his people and Jesus and his church. And that is what the Song of Solomon is all about.
It's the love of God and his people primarily. That would probably, I would argue, be the literal sense of scripture, is not the love between a man and a woman. It's the love between God and his people, ultimately Jesus and his church. Okay?
So that is the fun stuff about the placement in the canon. On the one hand, really practically speaking in Christian Bibles, you've got the continuation of the story, the historical context. Great. Ruth is set in the period of the judges.
And she's the ancestor of King David. And he's a noted king in the books of Samuel. Terrific. But in the Jewish canon, it's super awesome to see that.
Again, Ruth is read at Pentecost, but more than that, she's the embodiment of the righteous woman, the woman of worth and Proverbs 31. And she then becomes the model for understanding the Song of Solomon. And that awesome. So hopefully you follow all of that, because that makes it exciting.
And to go read, in fact, what you should probably do is read, read Proverbs 31, read Ruth. And then of course, my Bible study for the next lesson, and then you go and you read Song of Solomon. All right. That would be a pretty cool journey.
All right. Let's move on now. Roman numeral four, let's look at structure. Now, there are two structures to consider.
The first is really straightforward. This would be a dream. The structure is organized across geographical terms. And it's really the structure is based around the location of Bethlehem.
Everything about this book is Pro Bethlehem, Pro Judah, Pro David. It's one of the first main themes we'll talk about in about 10 minutes here. So it's Pro Bethlehem. And so everything revolves around Bethlehem.
So chapter one is leading Bethlehem, going to Moab, then coming back to Bethlehem. That's an exile. I'll talk about that in the next lesson. That's exile imagery, leaving the Promised Land, going abroad into exile, then coming back to the Promised Land.
That's going to be foreshadowing. Well, that will all foreshadow the Babylonian exile. So in any case, number two, the setting is in a field in Bethlehem. And then number three, chapter three, you've got the Threshing Floor in Bethlehem.
And then chapter four is the Gate at Bethlehem. So Bethlehem is central in all of this because that's where David comes from. Remember Bethlehem means the house of bread. So you're supposed to have this image of an abundance of food, an abundance of bread.
That's actually important for chapter one verse one to talk about next time. All right. The second structure that you can look at is according to a literary chiasm. Now you find the structure in the Catholic International, the Old Testament.
I always recommend for you. And what you find is this, this chiastic structure here. Remember, a chiastic structure is you go down a particular pattern, certain steps along a staircase, so to speak, A, B, C, D. And then you're going to go back down the staircase, C, B, A.
So you've got A and A prime, match a theme, B and B prime, match a theme, C and C prime match a theme, and then D is the central point. Like that is, it's like a big old sandwich, right? You've got your pieces of bread, and then inside of your bread, you've got cheese on both sides, and then you've got salami on both sides. And right in the middle is the tomato.
And the tomato is the most important thing about the sandwich. Okay? Silly, stupid analogy, but it's a visual for you. Okay?
Now this structure is interesting. So the A's match of the book opens up with a line or the lineage, you could say of a limulec. His name means my goddess king. We'll talk more about that in chapter one.
But then it ends a prime is a parallel where it talks about the line or the lineage of Boab, specifically the lineage leading up to King David. God's chosen king, right? And the same like means, God is my king. Well, David is God's chosen king.
So there's the parallels. B is all about Naomi and her daughters-in-law. They're in exile and they lack everything because they're widows, and therefore they're vulnerable in that society. They have no family to protect them.
They have no money. So they're lacking everything. Well, B prime in chapter four, the parallels that Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth, their back and the promise land, their back in Bethlehem, and they lack nothing. They're full and they're joyful and grateful.
God has showered blessings upon them. Okay? So then go back up to C. C is the courtship.
Really, I would say the attraction of Boab and Ruth, because it's all chapter two. They're in the field. They're just looking at each other. They're like, wow, he's handsome.
He's pretty and well. He's virtuous. He's generous and back and forth. It's attraction really more than courtship.
It's just a small little alteration I would probably make. But the parallel is the marriage of Boaz and Ruth in chapter four. Right in the middle, my friend, I want to talk a little bit about this. Right in the middle is Ruth and Boaz at the threshing floor.
This is the great, really colorful, really kind of scandalous story of how Ruth and Boaz make it clear to each other. Yeah, we need to get married. We need to tie the knot. Okay?
Now, there's a lot of, I'm going to decide this. I'm going to talk about this structure. I'm going to come full circle to the structure after we discuss the typology of Boaz and Ruth. Because I have a personal theory about this.
It's not in your Catholic introduction to the Old Testament. When you meditate on chiastic structures like this, you should always, as a student of scripture, be thinking, why is this important? You should always be asking that about everything in scripture. But what's the message?
What's the lesson? Why is Boaz and Ruth at the threshing floor in chapter three, the central part of this entire structure? What's happening here? Okay?
Now, I'm going to keep you on tenter hooks here. Keep the suspense going. Let me come back to that after we discuss the typology of Boaz and Ruth. Okay?
It'll make more sense, I believe. So hold on to that. Put a pin in it. We're going to come back.