The Book of Ruth: Christ is Coming
This quaint love story has one major theme, which is the theme of the entire Old Testament: Christ is coming. During the days of the Judges, man-made climate change was a serious issue and there was a famine in the land of Israel (I’m being facetious, of course. But there was a famine.) A Jew from Bethlehem named Elimelech took his wife, Naomi, and two sons to Moab to live for a while.
Elimelech died in Moah. The two sons took Moabite wives. But the two sons died also. Naomi was distraught. She decided to return to her home. Her two daughters-in-law wanted to go with her, but Naomi convinced one of them to return to her own home. But Ruth was determined to stay with Naomi: “Wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Naomi could not dissuade her, so Ruth went to Israel with her mother-in-law.
Well, you can read the subsequent events, the book is only four chapters long. Long story short, Ruth ended up marrying a man named Boaz, who was in the Messianic line. It is interesting that this Moabite woman, Ruth, ended up in the line of David and Christ, but if Naomi’s “God” became her “God,” then nothing was lost. Jesus’s “Moabite” blood would have been miniscule at best.
Again, the major purpose of this story is to continue to trace the Messianic line. We started with Adam, then Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. Judah’s son Perez was the next in line, and that is where Ruth 4:18 starts in tracing the line to David. It is interesting that there are 10 generations listed from Perez to David. This is almost surely for the sake of ease of memorization. There would have been 700 to 800 years, at least, between Perez and David. More than 10 generations would surely have passed. The “begot” here (and in some other places in Scripture) means “descendant of.” We know, for sure, that there are gaps in Matthew’s genealogy in Matthew 1. He lists 14 generations from Abraham to David (1,000 years), 14 from David to the Babylonian captivity (less than 500 years), and 14 from the captivity to Jesus (almost 600 years). Again, we know, from comparing Matthew with Old Testament records, that he omitted some generations.
There was a reason for this, of course. Books were scarce until the invention of the printing press. Thus, few people could read. The way they learned was largely by listening and memorization. So, often in the Bible genealogies are grouped together for ease of memorization: 10 generations from Adam to Noah, and 10 generations from Shem to Abraham. Now, in Ruth, 10 generations from Perez to David. I suspect this is to make it easier for people to remember the most important figures in the line.
Much of the Old Testament especially is written in poetic form. This also made memorization easier.
But the whole point of it all—the whole point of the book of Ruth—goes back to Genesis 3:15: the fall of man and the promised Messiah. Ruth gets us to David, the great king who will be introduced in the next Old Testament book. The guiding hand of God in all of this is clearly seen by those with eyes to see.