Tag: Ruth 4

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Women Interrupting History

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 38 Listen: (4:24), Read: Mark 15 Listen: (5:16)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 38:26-27

26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again.

27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb.

Ruth 4:11-12

11 Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. 12 Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”

Reflection: Women Interrupting History

By Erin Newton

The story of Tamar interrupts the narrative of Joseph. It is a jarring interruption at that. The scandalous nature by which the men withhold their duties of levirate marriage and her tactics are both perplexing as well as sordid.

The narrator doesn’t cast much of a critical shadow over the actions. Was such behavior acceptable in the ancient world or did the author simply prefer to focus on the greater purpose of the text (to tell the history of Israel’s genealogy)?

The outcome of Tamar’s plan is clear in the text. She conceived not just a child but twins. In a culture that did not fully grasp the concept of eternal life, “living forever” was generally seen in one’s offspring. Not only was Tamar’s lineage continued but it was doubled, a blessing for this once discarded woman.

Laying aside the ethical questions of Genesis 38, the birth of the two boys is seen generations later as a blessing on par with the offspring of Rachel and Leah.

Once again the question of levirate marriage is in focus in the story of Ruth. The elders of the city speak of Ruth as a blessing for Boaz. She is not marked by her foreign identity or her status as a widow. She is a woman that can bring blessing.

Women are not often named in the Old Testament and even less are they given central roles in the telling of Israel’s history. But the story of Tamar interrupts the narrative and, I think, intentionally.

The next story returns to Joseph but with his own trouble with a scheming woman. Joseph is not like Judah; the reasons for their situations are different. Joseph is portrayed as honorable and full of integrity. Judah is marked as self-serving and untrustworthy. Even the women are seen differently.

The interruption of Tamar’s story calls attention to her. But such attention to foreign women is nothing new in the Old Testament. It is Zipporah, Moses’s wife who rushes out to save their son Gershom. It is Rahab who saved the Hebrew spies. It is Ruth the Moabite who enables the line of David.

The two distinctions that should have placed Tamar outside or on the periphery of the narrative—being foreign and being a woman—are honored by God and highlighted by the narrator.

We serve a God who honors that which the world dismisses.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. — Psalm 126.6-7

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Tamar’s Story

Tamar is not defined by the abuse she suffered at the hands of men or by her assertive (and questionable) actions…She is a matriarch of Jesus.

Tamar’s Story — Love of Advent
Read more: Ruth’s Story

Ruth stands in the spotlight…Boaz redeemed her, but Ruth’s character is the focus…she decided by faith for “your God” to become “my God.”

Ruth’s Story — Love of Advent

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Ruth’s Story — Love of Advent

Scripture Focus: Matthew 1.1, 5b
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

5 …Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth

Ruth 4.15
15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”

Reflection: Ruth’s Story — Love of Advent
By Erin Newton

These are the matriarchs of Jesus: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. This is Ruth’s story.

Ruth rarely needs an introduction. Her story is told in nearly every women’s bible study.

She was not part of a scandalous story like Tamar or Rahab. But like Tamar and Rahab, she was also not part of Abraham’s family. She was not an Israelite but a Moabite. And her story opens with sorrow.

Three deaths cover the first five verses of the book. The book begins with emptiness. Famine and empty bellies. Death and empty households. Immigration and the parting of sisters.

Without a husband or heirs, Ruth joined her mother-in-law to return to Israel and said goodbye to her Moabite sister-in-law. The rumor was that God had been gracious to Israel. The barren land was filling with food.

Despite being a foreigner and a woman—a double disadvantage—she worked to provide for herself and Naomi. You get the sense that Ruth was humble yet intelligent. She understood her place in the Israelite culture but also how to make the most of each situation.

Israelite stories of marriage follow a pattern. Robert Alter points out the typical nature of such scenes: a man journeys from a foreign land, comes upon a well, meets a woman, she draws water for him, a marriage proposal occurs, and she rushes home to tell her family. We see this scene in stories about Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and Moses and Zipporah.

The expected story of betrothal is met with unexpected turns. It is Ruth who stands in the spotlight of the story. In this story it is the woman who travels to a distant land. It is Boaz who ensures Ruth has something to drink. In a story that ought to focus on the patriarch, it is Ruth who exemplifies such qualities.

Boaz redeemed her, but Ruth’s character is the focus of the story. She, like Rahab, heard the stories of God in her foreign land. Like Rahab, she decided by faith for “your God” to become “my God.”

Ruth has both the disadvantage of too much estrogen and a foreign ethnicity, but she is a matriarch of Jesus. Her story reveals how God works in unexpected ways.

Ruth, someone from the outside, is chosen and honored as one of five women named in Jesus’s family.

In the love of Jesus belong the outsiders and the disadvantaged.


Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. — Matthew 5.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 14-15  (Listen 5:49)
Psalms 119-73-96 (Listen 15:14)

Read more about Ruth, the Immigrant
Ruth shows us how God’s grace helps us immigrate from our own selfish kingdoms to the kingdom of God.

Ruth, the Immigrant

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