RUTH: INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERARY STRUCTURE

Below is a summary of a chapter in my unpublished book The Structure of Scripture. I will send the original chapter to anyone who requests it at elmerphd21@hotmail.com. 

An analysis of this small book's literary structure is more difficult to undertake than it might at first seem. The difficulty lies not in the attempt to discern a basic structure, but in the number of excellent literary analyses already in existence. Perhaps it was Goethe's enthusiastic endorsement of Ruth's literary merits that helped to prompt some of these studies, or the general agreement by scholars on the book's cohesiveness that kept them from being sidetracked onto issues of secondary concern. In any case, the Book of Ruth has been long recognized as a masterful work of art within the genre of the historical short story – with, of course, continuing debate as to whether the emphasis should be on the adjective “historical” or the noun “story.” At the same time, the large amount of dialogue found in Ruth prompts one to consider it not as a short story but as a drama with a series of acts and scenes. In either case, Rauber rightly decries those who would relegate the book to the category of a minor love story, or condescendingly praise its charm, as not truly understanding its author's depth of understanding and literary skill.

Prime evidence for the complexity contained in these four short chapters is seen in the wide variety of scholarly opinions that have been given concerning the book’s major theme, including: the faithfulness of ordinary people, the tracing and legitimizing of David's ancestry, a protest against strict intermarriage laws, support for the levirate marriage customs, romantic love and its correspondence to the cycles of nature, emptiness/fullness contrasted, etc. etc. The providence of God is felt by most commentators to be at least a minor, if not the major, subject of the story.

Moving to an area of more general agreement, it is almost unanimously accepted by students of this book that the traditional chapter divisions accurately delineate its four major sections. Also generally accepted are the functions of the respective chapters in: (a) introducing the situation, (b) developing the tension between the main characters, (c) resolving the tension, and (d) describing the results of the action.

Each of the four acts has its own combination of characters, series of three scenes, theme, setting and internal order. When these factors, briefly summarized in Fig. 1, are coupled with the techniques of foreshadowing, parallelism and transitional sentences that tie together all four acts into a cohesive whole, the story can be seen to achieve, on a much smaller scale, a truly impressive effect that prefigures such later compositional masterpieces as James Joyce's Ulysses.

Looking first at how the dramatic effects are staged, the first three acts end with Naomi having the last word, and in Act IV Naomi is the subject of the closing dialogue. One might indeed conclude that the book is misnamed “Ruth” since a critical look will reveal that Naomi's spiritual progression is a major theme of the story. Even more telling, however, is a consideration of the leading characters that initiate the action in each act. In chs. 2, 3 and 4 we see, respectively, Ruth, Naomi and Boaz taking the lead.  That would seemingly leave no major character to begin the crucial activities that set the stage at the beginning of the book. But as Sasson points out, the famine that opens the book and triggers Naomi's move to Moab “in Israel could only have been God's instrument for judgment.”  Thus, God himself is the invisible, but most important, actor on the stage. This may be underscored by the fact that “the LORD” appears exactly twelve times in the text. The theme of God's hidden guidance over human events is found elsewhere in the book and is implied in verses such as 2:3 where we read that Ruth “happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz.” Note also that God is only referred to directly in the first (1:6) and last (4:13) acts of the book.

Figure 1: The Structure of Ruth

Act              Initiator                                                                         Scene

(verses)       of Action               Setting               Main Theme         (verses)                 Actors

(1:1-5)        Prologue

I (1:6-22)    God                      Moab to                 Death /

                                             Bethlehem              Separation           2 (6-14)             Ruth / Naomi / Orpah

        3 (15-22)          Ruth / Naomi / Women

II (ch. 2)    Ruth                    The Field                Reaping             1 (1-2)                  Ruth / Naomi

       2 (3-16)                 Ruth / Boaz

                                                                                                       3 (17-23)               Ruth / Naomi

III (ch. 3)  Naomi                Threshing              Winnowing          1 (1-5)                   Ruth / Naomi

                                              Floor                                                 2 (6-15)                 Ruth / Boaz

        3 (16-18)               Ruth / Naomi

IV (4:1-17) Boaz              City Gate                 Marriage /              1 (1-12)                 Boaz / Elders /

                                          to Israel                      Birth                                                  Kinsman

        2 (13-17)             Naomi / Women /                                                                                                                                               Child

(4:18-22) Epilogue

Another key pattern is seen in the locales used as settings for the four acts. Act I begins outside the borders of Israel and ends at the gates of Bethlehem; the next two acts take place solidly inside the city; and Act IV reverses the action of the first chapter by moving from the city gate to, symbolically, the whole of Israel in its final mention of the future king of Israel. By extension, if David's line is viewed messianically, the string of blessings in the narrative that progressively affect individuals, a family, a city, and a nation can also be extrapolated to the whole gentile world, thus completing the geographical circle that began in Moab.

Rauber (1), in his exposition of the emptiness/fullness theme, shows how Naomi's situation in Act I is fully reversed by Act IV and that this final situation is foreshadowed by key events in the intervening chapters:

            I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty (1:21)

she also brought out and gave her (Naomi) what food she had (2:18)

           You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law (3:17)

           Then Naomi took the child...and became his nurse (4:16)

This same progression can be expressed through the contrasting pairs “death/birth” and “separation/ marriage.” In the first scene of the play, Naomi is progressively cut off from her country, husband and sons. By the end of the book she has, in reverse order, returned to her native land and gained a son-in-law and grandson. The two center chapters that develop the intervening plot prepare us for this happy turn of events through the symbolism of agriculture. Chapter 2 covers the entire period of harvest as seen by the bracketing verses 1:22b and 2:23. The act of reaping is actually one that symbolizes death, but a sort of death that paradoxically leads to preservation of life, as underscored by the scenes of Ruth, Boaz and Naomi consuming grain. Threshing, which forms the backdrop for ch. 3, is a symbol for separation. Just as winnowing is a positive activity in which the chaff is removed from the grain, Naomi's experiences have separated her from a pagan culture in order to return her to her country, restore her life (4:14-15), and give her a place of renown.

Specific correspondences between matching scenes throughout the book yield what has been called “an almost perfect chiastic composition” despite some disagreement regarding the exact placement of the scene breaks. For example, the ten years of barrenness of the Prologue are balanced by the ten generations enumerated in the Epilogue. In addition, several key phrases occur in the other scenes of Ruth 1 and 4 that serve to unite these contrasting sections: the names Mahlon and Chilion, specific mention of God's activity (1:5 and 4:13), allusions to levirate marriage in 1:11 and ch. 4, and the theme of restoration (see 1:21 and 4:15). Concerning the last theme, one could point out that the same root word for “restore” in 4:15 appears ten times in Act I as the word “return.”

Literary correspondences between the two center chapters have similarly been noted. These extend even down to the parallelism between individual scenes within each act. Most obviously, Act II and Act III each contain three scenes between, respectively, Ruth and Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, and again Ruth and Naomi. It has often been noted that two of the major characters, Naomi and Boaz, never appear together in the same scene – a real tribute to the author's skill.

In the first scene of both these acts, Boaz is interestingly designated as a kinsman by the Hebrew word moda although elsewhere the synonym gaal is employed. In each of the second set of scenes, Boaz inquires about Ruth's identity, asks Ruth to stay, and blesses and praises her; Ruth assumes a submissive posture; young men are mentioned; and – most tellingly – the key Hebrew word kanap occurs. This word is translated as “wings” in verse 2:12 and as “garment” in 3:9. At its first usage Boaz prays that Ruth will obtain from God the refuge she has sought. At its second usage Boaz, as well as the reader, becomes aware that he himself will be the instrument that God has chosen to answer his own prayer – an encouraging, and sobering, message for us today. The third scene in both chapters contains the word hesed (or kindness), has Naomi questioning Ruth, and involves Ruth presenting grain to Naomi.

Ruth 1 is composed of a Prologue followed by two scenes, just as ch. 4 contains two scenes and an Epilogue. The first dramatic scene in each of these chapters includes a character (Orpah and the unnamed kinsman-redeemer, respectively) who does not live up to familial obligations as fully as another actor on the stage (Ruth and Boaz, respectively). The second dramatic scenes in chs. 1 and 4 both take place in the presence of a group of towns-women who function as a sort of Greek chorus commenting on the action.

The ending of the story, 4:18-22, has proved to be troublesome to commentators as reflecting a perspective that differs from the rest of the book. However, Howard notes that these dubious verses link with 1:1-5 and confirm the blessing of 4:11b-12. (4)

All of the above leads to an agreement with Rauber's assessment that this “discovery of a set of patterns [is] very hard to explain by any sort of cut-and-patch work or any theory of semiautomatic folk art.” The Book of Ruth is not only, in Goethe's words, “the most beautiful of all idylls,” but also a deep theological work in which the resourceful and responsible actions of individuals coupled with God's overarching but invisible oversight result in blessings to individuals, families, and finally to nations.