Let us focus for a while on Ruth. She is a Moabite woman. She is a foreigner and she is alone. Her mother-in-law is a depressed bitter woman who is busy counting her losses. She is so busy in her own sorrow that she fails to accompany her daughter-in-law in gathering grains or introducing her to family and kin. Ruth does it all alone. She works from morning to the late evening, only going to the house once perhaps to check on her mother-in-law. She gathers grains, roasts and grinds them, bringing the flour to her mother-in-law. She provides for her family in the place of her dead husband.
Ruth embodies the Proverb 31 woman long before the Book of Proverbs was composed. We do not know how Ruth carried out her household responsibilities while Mahlon was alive or when she was married to Boaz. The Book of Ruth only talks about her period of widowhood. There is no example of the life and responsibilities of a married woman in Israel given prior to the description of Ruth. The only mention of married women in the tribes is provided in the rules and laws of Moses. Ruth does not require to adhere to those laws being a Moabite.
Pro 31:25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
Ruth's choices are different from that of the women before her. Sarah followed her husband because she had nothing to live for in her own land. She was childless and menopausal. She was perhaps tired of the shame of being barren and chose to follow her husband into a land of promise. We see her failing to share her husband's trust and thrusting her maid onto him for childbearing. We see her unwonted jealousy as she mistreats her servant and later makes her leave the security of the tribe towards an imminent death in the wilderness. What we fail to recognize is that the child that Hagar carries with her is also Abraham's seed, though not the seed of promise nonetheless, his child and Sarah fail to treat the child of her husband with anything close to compassion.
Rebekkah tricks her husband into blessing her favourite son. That leads to a war between her sons and enmity between the two lands. Rebekkah takes advantage of her husband's blindness and fools him. Her success in doing so is also her failure in being a good wife and mother. She does injustice to one of her sons and her husband while trying to do well by Jacob.
Rachel steals her father's household idols despite knowing of her husband's faith. She not only insults her husband's faith but also desecrates the faith of her father by sitting on the idols and claiming to be unclean. A major portion of Rachel's life is spent in jealousy of the fact that her sister has had more children than her even when she enjoyed the undivided love and attention of her husband. Rachel went on to barter her husband for a few mandrakes.
Gen 30:14-15 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes.
Later on, we read of Potiphar's wife who tried to seduce Joseph in the absence of her husband and though one may argue that she was not an Israelite, well, neither was Ruth. We read of Zipporah, a Cushite and though she took it upon herself to fulfil the covenant of circumcision to save the life of her husband, little else is said to reference her involvement in her husband's affairs. Moses having married her even becomes a point of conflict with Miriam who is later punished by God for her objections.
We read of Caleb's daughter but there is no description provided of her nature or her manners. A contrast is provided by Deborah, a Judge, who frees the people of an oppressor.
We read of Jephthah's daughter whom he unknowingly promised as a sacrifice and who abided by her father's wish. Though it reflects a heart of devotion it also shows helplessness that cannot be overlooked. The Law of Moses disregards the vows by wives if their husbands object. However, the life of a girl is vowed away by the father and nothing is done to prevent it. In truth, it is a lesson in both foolishness and superstition if it is to be believed that such a sacrifice is pleasing to the Lord for we know how He provided the ram for Abraham and His Son for all humanity. The daughter, though seeking time from her father to reconcile with her fate, fails to present reason to him and fails to uphold the fact that taking human life is a sin, to begin with.
Then there is Delilah, a Timnite, another foreigner. She betrays her husband time and time again and Samson chooses to trust her repeatedly till she leads him to blindness and death. These are mostly the examples of women we find before or around the time of Ruth. Also, we see the plight of women in Israel during the time of Judges in Judges 19-21. Though this perhaps occured after Ruth's time, it gives us an idea about the temperament of the people contemporary to Ruth. The mistreatment of the women and the wives is all explained in the last line of the book of Judges.
Jdg 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
This brings us to the story of Ruth. The story takes place in the time of the Judges. We do not hear of a King or a Judge. Yet we hear of a foreigner's faith in the people to whom she had married. Her faith does not stem from a place of helplessness like Jephthah's daughter. Her faith stems from her own strength and commitment to her deceased husband. She embraces the covenant of her husband's God, not out of Zipporah's desperation but out of respect for her family. She chooses her vows over her comfort, unlike Delilah. She does not choose her own greatness like Deborah but chooses to silently toil and support her lonely mother-in-law. There are so many lessons to learn from Ruth but one of the greatest lessons she succeeds to impart is that of selflessness.
