RUTH AND ESTHER SIMILARITIES

Ruth and Esther

I always find it fascinating to take seemingly unrelated events and lives in the Bible and show the sometimes great number of similarities between them. It witnesses to me concerning the unity of Scripture on yet another level. As one example, look at my post on “Genesis 37” for a short list at the end enumerating but some of the parallels between the lives of Joseph and Jesus. In that particular case, we would call Joseph a “type” of someone to come later. In the two individuals I would like to discuss here, the similarities would probably not be considered as a type-antitype pair, but the parallels are enlightening nonetheless. 

The most obvious similarity between the two OT books going under their respective names is that they are the only canonical writings in which a woman is the main character. The next closest example would probably be the Song of Songs since the two lovers are costars in that case. Another superficial association resulting from that gender emphasis is that you will often see Bible study guides that deal with both books, generally intended for women's Bible studies. But the correlations between the stories of these two heroines' lives goes a little deeper than that.

Of course there are major differences between the two. For one thing, the book of Ruth takes place way before the Monarchy and the Divided Kingdoms and even further removed in time from the later Persian exile which serves as the setting for Esther. Also, the setting for Ruth is a small agrarian community while the book of Esther takes place in a cosmopolitan capital of a great empire, mainly in the royal palace area itself.

The first commonality of note is that both women found themselves stranded in an alien land far away from their homes. And the cause of this exile was due to disasters in their lives: the loss of a husband for Ruth and the destruction of her homeland by conquerors in Esther's case.

But the chain of events begins even earlier in history for both women. Working our way backwards, these women find themselves caught up in the consequences of past examples of disobedience to God's commands. First, let us consider Ruth's situation. She is in her predicament because her husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law have inexplicably all died, leaving her without any protection. Although it is not expressly stated in the text, three deaths in a family like this are probably indications that more than a coincidence is at work. Instead, we are probably made to conclude that God was displeased with these men for some reason. In the case of Naomi's husband Elimelech, it is not hard to discern what his sin was. Instead of staying in Bethlehem when a famine hit (also a probable indication of God's direct action) and trusting to God to provide (as apparently most of his neighbors had done), he left for Moab with his family. And his sons followed in disobedience by marrying Moabite women.

But now we must go even further back in time to see why their actions would have aroused the wrath of God. It stems from early disputes of the Jews with the Moabites that caused a great deal of enmity between the two groups. For evidence of this, see Numbers 22-25; Judges 11:17; Isaiah 15-16,25; Jeremiah 9:26; 25:21; 27:3; 48; Amos 2:1-3; and Zephaniah 2:8-11. Things between the two groups got so bad that God had forbidden any Moabites from entering the assembly of the Jews (Deuteronomy 23:3-6), a command revived after the return of the Jews from the Exile (Nehemiah 13:1).

Turning next to Esther, it is obvious that she only finds herself in the Persian Empire along with so many other Jews is because her forebears again and again had ignored the warnings of God given through the prophets. But there is even more to the story. The arch-villain in this book, Haman, is introduced in Esther 3:1 as an Agagite. This fact may not seem very important, but if you read the story of Saul's battle with the Amelekites in I Samuel 15, you will see that although he was commanded by God to wipe out all the Amelekites, Saul instead decided to spare their king, Agag. Haman is one of his descendants. And we also find out that one of the “good guys” in the book of Esther is Mordecai, who happened to come from the tribe of Benjamin, as had Saul (see Esther 2:5). So the immediate disdain they show one another has a long history behind it.

Going on with the two stories, we see that both heroines have an older “mentor” with them to guide their actions. In the case of Esther it is her adopted mother Naomi; with Esther it is her adopted father Mordecai.

The first pieces of advice that these mentors give their charges could be understood as very unwise from a spiritual point of view. Thus, Naomi urges Ruth to stay in Moab among people of that religion instead of going with her back into a Jewish environment. Fortunately, Ruth chooses to ignore that advice. In Esther's case, after she has taken part in the cattle call to chose a new queen and please the king, Mordecai urges her not to reveal her Jewish origins. We don't know why Mordecai said this to her, but perhaps he had some sort of word from God. From our human point of view and a bit of hindsight, it would seem that if she had told the king right off the bat, there is no way he would have signed the death warrant for all the Jews later on.

Taking things a little out of chronological order, consider the second piece of major advice that these two adopted parents urge. In both cases, their counsel could easily have led to disaster. Mordecai tells Esther that she must gain an audience with the king even through she has not been summoned by him. This sort of action might have led to the death of a queen so bold to do it, or at least to her being deposed. Remember the start of the story in which the previous queen Vashti was removed for being “an uppity woman” who didn't keep to her proper place.

The advice that Naomi gave Ruth was just as risky since she suggested that Ruth sneak off in the middle of the night and lie down with Boaz at the threshing field, an area well known as being a common trysting spot for couples. If Boaz had taken sexual advantage of her or they had been discovered by someone else, it would have meant the end of Ruth's reputation and the possibility of her remarrying. Fortunately, there were no unintended consequences for either woman.

This last parallel brings up another one. In both books, the heroine finds herself in a sexually suggestive situation which is in fact a totally innocent one. Ruth's example has already been described, but with Esther it occurs when Haman gets down on his knees before the queen to plead with her. The king catches him in the act and misconstrues it, to Haman's regret.

Getting back to the two mentors once more time, we note that both of them appear to have been cheated out of what they deserve in life. Naomi complains more than once how God has treated her in depriving her of any offspring. But by the end of the story, she actually becomes a surrogate mother for Ruth and Boaz's son. In Mordecai's case, he had actually saved the life of the king from a plot against him but hasn't even gotten a word of thanks for his timely action. Instead, Haman is the one reaping all the rewards. Of course, that situation will also be addressed by the end of the story when Mordecai replaces Haman's place in the king's esteem.

Although the personal characteristics of the (perspective) husbands in the story are quite different, both of these men hold a very high position in the society in which they live.

In both stories, there is someone standing in the way of the happy union of the man and woman. That person is obviously Haman in the book of Esther. If he has his way, the queen will in fact be executed for being a Jew. The impediment for Esther and Boaz is the unnamed closer relative who has the first right of refusal to Esther's hand. The open exposure of Haman's villainy brings him down. Similarly, the redeemer-relative is shown up to be the greedy person he is when he refuses Ruth after realizing that the field he will gain in the bargain will end up being inherited by Ruth's children under her first husband's name instead of going to him.

This particular episode taking place at the city gates and involving a shoe reflects some obscure legal practices in Israel at the time including the levirate custom involving a dead man being able to have his name carried on when his widow has a child by a close relative. I won't go into all the details since they are a bit vague and ill-defined, but the important point is that the plot of the book of Esther also depends on some strange points of law. One concerns the necessity, as mentioned earlier, of a person entering the king's presence being summoned first or potentially facing dire consequences. The other Persian law requires that a king's decree, once made, can never be undone – although fortunately it can be later amended.

As close as these above parallels are, they are really only superficial compared to some more substantial similarities. In the first place, both stories are intimately related to feasts and festivals, especially Jewish ones. The book of Esther is glutted with feasts found at the start, middle, and end of the book. Most importantly, however, is that the whole story later becomes the last official Jewish festival, the feast of Purim. There is one more, Hanukkah, but that celebrates events from post-OT Israel.

The four chapters of Ruth are actually structured around the agricultural calendar in Israel, as most commentators will point out (see the post on “Esther: Introduction to the Literary Structure”), just as are two of the three annual feasts in the Jewish festival calendar: the Feast of First Fruits (also called Weeks or Harvest Feast) and the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles (also called Feast of Ingathering).

Another thematic similarity lies in the fact that the somewhat local events occurring in both books are shown to have wide ripple effects that end up having major significance for a number of people in a much wider geographical area. By the conclusion of the book of Esther, the action has spread throughout the Persian Empire, and has the effect of preserving Esther's peoples, the Jews. The last chapter of Ruth has even more widespread consequences in showing that her descendants will eventually include King David and Jesus himself, who will come to offer salvation not only to Esther's adopted people the Jews, but also her people by birth, the Gentiles.

Throughout both stories, as often noted by scholars, God is seemingly absent from the action. But His presence in the form of Divine Providence is quite obvious in the form of the famine that begins the story of Ruth, the strange death of all the men in her life, and the fact that Ruth happened to pick the field of Boaz in which to glean. It is even more obvious in the case of Esther in the main episode where the king “happens” to have insomnia, “happens” to go to the royal archives to read something to put him to sleep, and “happens” to read the account of Mordecai's unrewarded actions.

God may appear to be absent in our lives and in the events of the nation and the world, but that is just an illusion. In fact, his actions lie behind both the earth-shaking and the mundane in one way or another that we will certainly not comprehend in this life.