Suggestive Readings of Ruth, Part III

Does this make Ruth a new Uriah?

Why write Ruth?

Among the posited reasons, a number of scholars see the Book of Ruth (BR) providing a wholesome portrait of David’s lineage that makes us all feel a little bit better about his coming from the line of Judah, who did some unsavory things in Genesis 38.

Yitzhak Berger goes farther. Not only does the Ruth-Boaz narrative provide a wholesome contrast to the Tamar-Judah narrative—to make David look good—it also provides a wholesome contrast to the Bathsheba-David narrative in 2 Sam. 11. While this does nothing to make David look better, it makes Ruth look great by contrast.

The ‘Bad Portrait’ of David

His rape of Bathsheba (vv. 1-5) is bad, but it is not the focal point of the text. The action (vv. 4-5) is told quickly, as is the resolution (vv. 26-27). The text spends most of its words telling two stories: David’s plot to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba (vv. 6-13), and the messenger wrongly transmitting a message from Joab to David (vv. 18-25). In these texts, Berger observes three details that recur in Ruth:

1. An ironic use of the word, ‘all,’ that teases reader’s expectations.

At 2 Sam. 11:18, the narrator summarizes the upcoming story by saying that, ‘Joab sent a message, relaying to David all the matters of the war.’ The text leads the reader to expect that David will get all the news all at once.

But he won’t.

The narrator points out that Joab instructs the messenger, first to “finish telling all the events of the war to the king,” to wait for him to react angrily, and “and then say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead,’” in order to calm him (vv. 19-21). So, “all the events” doesn’t include the Uriah-Update. That’s what you use to calm down an angry David.

But the messenger doesn’t separate the Uriah-Update, and instead tells it all at once (vv. 22-24). David doesn’t flinch: “Do not let this displease you… the sword devours one as well as another” (v. 25). No anger at all—troubling.

2. Splitting a message in two, in order to switch the addressee’s reactions.

Rather than tell David “all the matters of the war” outright, he splits the message into two parts, expecting two responses: nearly all the matters, which were supposed to anger David, and then the matter of Uriah, which was supposed to make him happy.

3. Nocturnal deception

Earlier in the chapter, David gets Uriah drunk and attempts to get him home to sleep with Bathsheba. Uriah responds with a speech about his duty (“The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents…”, v. 11), which makes David look bad by contrast (“At the time when kings go out to battle… David arose from his bed…”, vv. 1-2).

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The Good Portrait of Ruth

Whatever its greater rhetorical purposes are, along the way, BR dips its brush into the pallet of 2 Sam. 11 to characterize Ruth as better than David.

1. An ironic use of the word, ‘all,’ that teases reader’s expectations.

There are only three other places in the OT where the text employs the word ‘all,’ only to have the characters ironically subvert the reader’s expectations. And all three occur in Ruth 3-4.

First, Naomi tells Ruth, in language dripping with sexual innuendo, what to do with Boaz (3:1-4; Hint: It’s sex.). She also tells Ruth that, when the time comes, Boaz will give her instructions: “He will tell you what you are to do” (v. 4; Hint: It’s sex.)

Ruth assures Naomi, “All that you have said to me, I will do” (v. 5). The narrator confirms, “She went… and did all that her mother-in-law instructed her to do” (v. 6).

But Ruth turns the tables. Instead of asking Boaz to tell her what to do, she tells him what to do: “Spread your wing over me,” she asks (3:9), recalling Boaz’s blessing of her: “Yahweh reward you… under whose wings you have come to seek refuge” (2:12). And he responds by promising her a legal marriage and consequent redemption.

Ruth doesn’t go all the way or let herself be told what to do; she tells Boaz to do the proper thing, and marry her.

Second, Boaz makes a strong showing by saying, “all that you have said to me, I will do for you” (v. 11). But then he doesn’t. Rather than marrying and redeeming Ruth, he does the proper thing, and defer to the Closer Relative (CR).

Third, upon her return, the narrator says that Ruth tells Naomi, “all that the man did for her” (v. 16). But then she doesn’t. As Joab’s messenger thwarted Joab, so Ruth thwarted Naomi, giving the report the way she chose—which, admittedly, is tangential. She and Boaz had an Important Conversation, but she only mentions the grain: “He gave me these six measures of barley…” (3:17).

2. Splitting a message in two, in order to switch the addressee’s reactions.

Whether intentionally or No (I’m leaning No), Boaz splits a message in two in the next chapter. Here’s my distillation of the dialogue:

BOAZ: There’s a field. You have dibs. Want to buy it?
CR: Yes!
BOAZ: Whoever buys the field gets the wife-of-the-dead-man.
CR: Oh, No.

Neither Berger (nor I) can find another scene in the Bible besides 2 Sam. 11 and Ruth 4 in which a speaker employs this rhetorical strategy.

3. Nocturnal deception

This is the big one, the payoff. In only two narratives in Scripture (Ruth 3; 2 Sam. 11) does a character attempt to set up a nocturnal union between a man who eats and gets drunk and a woman.

In 2 Sam., David unsuccessfully attempts to get a drunk Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba.

In Ruth 3, Naomi unsuccessfully attempts to get Ruth to sleep with a drunk Boaz.

David tells Uriah to “go down” to his house (2 Sam. 11:13). Ruth “goes down” toward the threshing floor (Ruth 3:6).

Uriah gives a stirring speech about what is proper for a soldier to do (2 Sam. 11:11), highlighting by striking contrast David’s character flaws that the text has already disclosed (vv. 1-4).

Ruth gives a stirring speech about what is proper for Boaz to do (3:9), achieving by her wholesome and proper initiative what Naomi tried to achieve through opportune cunning and sexual manipulation, highlighting by striking contrast Naomi’s character flaws that the text has already disclosed (Ruth 1:19-21).

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The Payoff

BR helps David’s legacy by telling a better ancestry story than the Judah—Tamar story (Gen. 38), but it does more. By drawing form the David—Bathsheba story (2 Sam. 11), BR both casts Naomi as a David-like character and depicts Ruth as better than them both.

In light of my previous post that suggests a relativization of Boaz’s agency and an elevation of Ruth’s, Berger’s work invites readers of BR to see Ruth, like Uriah, as a common person who is greater than their elders, greater their king, greater even than David himself.