Canter Bridge

The narrator of the book of Ruth is exact about his setting. He places his moving story in ‘the days when the judges were judging Israel’. What is more, he gives his merciful and strong hero a pedigree that links it to the Book of Judges. Boaz is of the family of a certain Elimelech.

Mere assonance and historical proximity remind one of Abimelech, born to Gideon and his concubine, a bloody-handed figure of ill repute. A very good man finds his place among the roster of bad men who populate the pages of the Book of Judges. Not all flowed crimson, not all was dark, not all turned violent and craven in the tribal confederacy of the conquest years, it would seem.

There was room for a good man in the fields around Bethlehem. Boaz was a man of means and a certain prominence. His actions bless the ill-favored immigrant Ruth even as they seem to fulfill the prayers of embittered Naomi, reticent as she is to be named by the pleasant syllables that represent her parents’ hope. Her life has turned harsh. Her most pious and familiar memories seem to mock the hunger and loneliness that she sees as evidence that YHWH’s hand has turned against her.

Boaz proves himself worthy of a merciful God, a man whose influence spreads almost unwittingly like a cloak that warms the shivering outcasts of this tale.

One wonders how many noisy histories drown out the gentle music of piety that is played in small corners of remote fields around little towns like Bethlehem. Abimelech seems always to get the press. Meanwhile, a son of Elimelech says to a destitute foreigner with no claim on survival, ‘Glean here and take water when you wish.’