The Marriage of Ruth

The simple story of the book of Ruth abounds in problems for which no final solution can ever be found, since the materials for their solution are denied us. On this village scene, so different in character from most of the scenes of those ungentle times, the curtain is half lifted. But only half. Naomi returns from her sojourn abroad, bringing her daughter-in-law with her, and Ruth goes out to glean in the harvest-field. Then unexpectedly we find Naomi possessed of land, and we are left to guess how it came into her possession, and what had happened to it during the years of her sojourn in Moab. We are not told the relationship of Boaz to Elimelech, or the relationship of the nearer kinsman; nor are we told why the hand of Ruth went with the property. That the story of Ruth's marriage must be linked with the question of levirate marriage is generally agreed, though this is clearly not strictly a case of levirate marriage, since Boaz is not a brother-in-law or levir. There are not wanting, indeed, those who draw a much sharper distinction between Ruth's marriage and levirate marriage, but to this we must return. Of levirate marriage in ancient Israel we know very little, and while the later scholasticism of the Talmud may preserve, some ancient traditions, it cannot be implicitly trusted to throw light on customs which were already obsolete when the book of Ruth was written, needing to be explained to the reader as customs that formerly held in Israel.