The central character in the Book of Ruth. A Moabitess, she married one of the sons of Elimelech and Naomi of Bethlehem in the course of that Judahite family's sojourn in Moab. When Naomi decided after the death of her husband and her sons to return to Bethlehem, Ruth insisted on accompanying her and adopting her God and her people as her own. Exercising the right of the poor to gather the grain which falls to the ground in the course of the harvest (Lev 19:9-10; 23:22), she met Boaz, the owner of the field in which she was gleaning. He married her, and she bore him a son named Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of King David (Ruth 4:17). Hence she appears also in the NT in Matthew 1:5 as an ancestress of Jesus.
Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible. Copyright © 1986 by G.G. The Jerusalem Publishing House, Ltd. All rights reserved.
