A NAME AND A PLACE: How is Ruth Like Abraham? by Bobbie Ann Cole

Pentecost, last week, coincided with the Jewish festival of Shavuot (Weeks), which remembers how Moses struggled down from the mountain bearing tablets of stone engraved with God’s law and the harvest season. The Book of Ruth, whose story is set at harvesttime, is read in synagogues everywhere, into the night.

Is harvest the only reason for reading Ruth? Rabbi Fohrman of Aleph Beta believes there are much bigger issues of nationhood that connect Ruth with Abraham.

SIMILARITIES

Both have faith in God, leave the land of their birth for Israel and both possess chessed, (lovingkindness).

Ruth has come from Moab, to a land that she did not know before, (Ruth 2:11). Abraham, (Abram) goes forth from his birthplace and father’s house, “to a land that I will show you,” (Gen.12:1).

Ruth’s lovingkindness towards her mother-in-law Naomi is recognized by redeeming relative Boaz, (Ruth 1:16-17). Abram demonstrates lovingkindness in his hospitality to three strangers, (Gen.18:1-16).

WHY ABRAHAM?

God has promised Abraham that he and his descendants will be great, even kings, (Gen.17:6), while Ruth, at the other end of the story, will be great-grandmother to the beloved King David, of great faith, the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham.

Sometimes, the reasons behind God’s choices are not immediately obvious and this is so with Abraham. What singles him out? Rabbi Fohrman refers us to his genealogy. (Gen.11:27-32). There, we read that Abraham married Sarai (Sarah), his brother, Nahor, married Milcah, the daughter of his brother, Haran, who had died, presumably young. Haran also has a daughter, Iscah and a son, Lot.

Jewish sages suggest that Iscah is in fact Sarah, because the etymology of both names has to do with princedom, which Rabbi Fohrman accepts.

LEVIRATE MARRIAGE?

Marrying Haran’s children may echo the spirit of Levirate law, whereby a man should marry his brother’s widow, (Deut. 25:5-6), and their first child perpetuates the late brother’s name. Ensuring a name for one’s late brother constitutes an act of lovingkindness.

In Ruth, Peloni Almoni, (Mr. Nobody!), Elimelech’s brother, is unwilling to marry Ruth under Levirate law, because it would spoil his own inheritance.  

TOWER OF BABEL

Abraham’s kind character is contextualized by its position in the Bible, immediately following the story of the Tower of Babel. God’s reaction to those people’s aim to build a tower that reaches heaven: “They are one people with one language and this they have chosen to do?” (Gen.11:6).

Their intention is solely to make a name for themselves. Their story is immediately preceded by the Flood, where lives were abruptly cut short and people swept away, with no name or place.

Having a name in the Land is of prime importance within Judaism, to this day. It is the rationale behind Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum, Yad v’Shem,— ‘A Name and a Place’.

God is underwhelmed that the builders of the Tower seek to create ‘A Name and a Place’ for themselves!

LEGACY

In sharp contrast is Abraham and Nahon’s lovingkindness in marrying their late brother’s daughters, to ensure his legacy.

Why does God call Abraham and not Nahon, too? God called both to go with their Father, Terach, to the Land of Canaan. But they had stopped, along the way, in Charan, and settled there, “vayeshvu sham,” (Gen.11:31).

In Genesis 12:1-2, God calls Abraham a second time: “And the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and (you shall) be a blessing.’”

Nahor remains but Abraham, the eldest, obeys, on the way building an altar to God, whereas those before had tried to build a high tower to themselves.

SIMILARITIES

Abraham’s story in a nutshell is of a father and sons, one of whom tragically dies. His brothers try to remedy his loss of legacy through quasi-levirate marriage and God leads him into the land of his inheritance, Israel.

Centuries later, in Ruth, Elimelech abandons the Land of his inheritance during a famine. He goes to Moab and settles there (vayeshvu sham). His sons, whose Hebrew names mean ‘sickness’ and ‘destruction’ die in Moab. Rabbi Fohrman calls them, ‘tower builders’, futilely “destroying the legacy of their father” by taking Moabite wives, whose destiny has no connection to Israel.

Elimelech’s line will have no name or place in the Land.

A NAME AND A PLACE

His widow, Naomi, returns to Israel in despair, unable to envisage any possibility of a levirate marriage-like situation that would enable her husband’s line to continue. She tells her two daughters-in-law, the widows of her sons, to leave her and return to their own people.

One of them, Ruth, leaves her birthplace and her sister (in-law) just as Abraham left his birthplace and brother, Nahor. Like Sarah, she would seem to be barren, without hope of perpetuating her husband’s name.  

After vowing loving loyalty to God and to Elimelech’s people, she “happens” to glean in the field of Boaz, the redeemer relative.

SPREAD YOUR WINGS

There, Boaz asks God to “spread his wings” over her in recognition of her lovingkindness towards her mother-in-law. Later, after the harvest, she will throw this same metaphor back at him when she confronts him on the threshing floor: “I am Ruth, your handmaid, and you shall spread your wings over your handmaid, for you are a near kinsman,” (Ruth 3:9).

Boaz is willing to marry Ruth, but there is a closer relative, Peloni Almoni, apparently an elder brother, who selfishly refuses to provide a descendant for Elimelech by marrying Ruth. Mr. Nobody’s main interest, as another ‘tower builder’ lies in securing the posterity of his own name in the Land.

JESUS

 But Boaz will not abandon his brother Elimelech’s name to anonymity. He shows lovingkindness in marrying Ruth, to perpetuate his brother’s line.

From their union will come great kings—  including Jesus Christ, our King,— in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham to make him and his descendants great.

Their child, Obed, is born of the selflessness of both parents. His descent is of Abraham, who left his homeland to come into the Land of Israel, but also of Haran, Abraham’s brother who died young, through Ruth, who left her homeland to come into the Land of Israel. The forefather of her nation of Moab is Haran’s son, Lot!

 

Bobbie Ann Cole is a Christian writer, speaker and teacher

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