Three Poems in Ruth

     Old Testament narratives are typically written in prose, but one feature of these Biblical Hebrew narratives is that they often include a short poem at a moment of climax. For example, Genesis 1 is prose, but when the creation account reaches man, there is a short poem about man being created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Genesis 2 is prose, but when Adam meets his wife, he responds with a poem (Genesis 2:23). Genesis 3 is prose, but when God pronounces the curse, it is in poetry (Genesis 3:14-19). The book of Ruth follows the same practice of introducing three poems at climactic moments.

The first poem in the book of Ruth occurs with the first real twist in the story, as Ruth, the young Moabite widow, resolves to go to the land of Israel with her mother in law rather than remaining in Moab. This passage is not always written in verse in English, but it is a beautiful poem nevertheless, often quoted at weddings:

     “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you.

      For where you go I will go

      And where you lodge I will lodge

      Your people my people

      And your God my God

      Where you die I will die

         And there I will be buried.

     May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

 (Ruth 1:16-17)[1]

The main feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, and in this poem the parallelism can be seen both within each line (your people / my people, etc.) and between lines (you / I, you / I, your / my, your / my). The poem ends, significantly, with Ruth invoking a common Israelite oath to enforce her vow.

The second poem in Ruth occurs at the moment of highest drama, when Boaz wakens to find Ruth lying at his feet, and Ruth delivers her unusual marriage proposal. This poem is in the structure of a chiasm, a structure in which the first item matches the last, the second item matches the second to last, and so on. (The entire book of Ruth actually shows several large chiasms as an overall outline, though that is outside the scope of this article.) This verse is a short chiasm not readily apparent in English, so I have placed the English words in the same order that they occur in Hebrew:

A       I

B         Ruth

C             your maidservant

D                and you will spread your garment over

C’            your maidservant

B’         Because redeemer

A’      you

  (Ruth 3:9)

In this chiasm, in the A  and A’ lines, “I” corresponds with “you.” In the B  and B’ lines “Ruth” corresponds with “redeemer” (Boaz). The C and C’ lines are identical. Sometimes when there is a chiasm, the central point occurs in the center of the chiasm. This is the case here, as the marriage proposal itself appears in the center. An additional interesting point is that the proposal (“and you will spread your garment over”) is stated in the Hebrew imperfect tense, reading more like a statement about the future than a request. Ruth was a native Moabite speaker. The Moabite language was similar to Hebrew but not identical. Ruth, formerly married to an Israelite, would have been easily conversant in Hebrew, but would certainly at least have carried an accent. Who knows if she also slightly boggled her proposal such that it became a future source of humor for the family? In any case, Boaz understood her request and responded with enthusiasm and love.

The third poem in the book of Ruth occurs when the Bethlehem elders pronounce to Boaz a blessing on his marriage to Ruth:

A       May the LORD give the woman

B          who is coming into your house like Rachel and like Leah, the two of which built the house of Israel

C                and may you do worthily in Ephrathah

C’               and be renowned in Bethlehem

B’            and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah   

A’      That the LORD will give you because of this woman

  (Ruth 4:11-12)

The poetic structure in this chiasm is not as obvious but can still be seen. The A and A’ lines both have the words for “LORD,” “give” and “woman.” The B and B’ lines both use the word for “house” twice, and reference early Israelite ancestors. The C and C’ lines have a blessing with the parallel words “Ephrathah” and “Bethlehem.”

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[1] Here and throughout the article I have generated a literal translation to closely match the Hebrew words and word order.