📖 The Book of Ruth
Start reading →Old Testament · 4 chapters · History
Loyal love (hesed) restores and redeems.
Who wrote Ruth?
Author
Anonymous (trad. Samuel)
Written
c. 1010 BC
Genre
History
Why Ruth was written
A story of faithfulness, providence, and redemption set against the dark backdrop of the Judges period — showing that God's purposes advance through ordinary acts of covenant loyalty.
Outline of Ruth
- 11: Naomi's tragedy and Ruth's loyalty
- 22: Ruth meets Boaz in the harvest fields
- 33: Ruth appeals to Boaz as kinsman-redeemer
- 44: Boaz redeems Ruth and the family line; David's genealogy
Key verses
Ruth 1:16-17Ruth 2:12Ruth 4:14
How Ruth points to Christ
Boaz as kinsman-redeemer is one of the clearest OT types of Christ, who takes our obligation upon himself, pays the price of redemption, and brings the outcast into covenant community. Ruth, a Moabite, prefigures the inclusion of Gentiles.
How Ruth begins
1Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
Read Ruth 1 →