Ruth (biblical figure)
Ruth (/ruːθ/; Hebrew: רוּת, Modern: Rūt, Tiberian: Rūṯ) is the person after whom the Book of Ruth is named. She was a Moabite woman who married an Israelite, Mahlon. After the death of all the male members of her family (her husband, her father-in-law, and her brother-in-law), she stays with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and moves to Judah with her, where Ruth wins the love and protection of a wealthy relative, Boaz, through her kindness.[1] She is the great-grandmother of David.
She is one of five women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew, alongside Tamar, Rahab, the "wife of Uriah" (Bathsheba), and Mary.[2]
Cultural influence[edit]
Ruth is one of the Five Heroines of the Order of the Eastern Star.
Ruth was played by Elana Eden in Henry Koster's The Story of Ruth (1960); the film depicts Ruth as a pagan priestess prior to her religious conversion.[16] Sherry Morris portrayed her in The Book of Ruth: Journey of Faith (2009).[17]
In English literature, John Keats in "Ode to a Nightingale" references Ruth as isolated and grief-stricken when laboring in exile: "Perhaps the self-same song that found a path/Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,/She stood in tears amid the alien corn;"[18]