Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives

4. Ruth and Naomi

50 • 4 • R U T H A N D N A O M I Orpah turns and goes back to her own family, leaving Ruth and Naomi together on the road. It is their relationship that will now shape the narrative. Naomi is the first to speak in the biblical book, to both Ruth and Orpah, but Ruth is the first to respond with words of her own. Robert Alter argues that the first statement of dialogue is key to the character of the speaker.1 The biblical preference for direct rather than indirect speech is particularly pronounced in the book of Ruth; dialogue dominates the narrative. Of the book’s eighty-five verses, fifty-nine contain spoken speech—sixty-nine percent of the story is told through dialogue.2 Ruth and Naomi’s first dialogue has been evaluated in a variety of ways, each reading examining what the two women do and say to determine how they feel toward one another. Once Naomi persuades Orpah to leave her Ruth continues to cling (Ruth 1:14). The word for cling (dabaq) is not a common word in biblical texts. Its earliest appearance is in Gen. 2:24, after the speech the first man makes to the woman made from his rib: “Therefore, a man forsakes his father and his mother and clings (dabaq) to his woman and they become as one flesh.” This intimate ideal, which may even suggest the closeness of sexual intercourse, is woven into marriage ceremonies and is the foundational text on which many theologies of marriage are based. When read with Genesis Ruth’s clinging to Naomi is understood in terms of a husband’s clinging to his wife. As he leaves mother and father Ruth is also leaving her home and her biological family. However, not every instance of cling is in reference to married partners. In Proverbs the word is applied to friendships closer than the relationship between brothers (18:24). In Psalm 119 the speaker clings to God’s decrees (v. 31). Even in the book of Ruth itself the author uses the word throughout the narrative as a kind of leitmotif. In addition to its use to describe Ruth’s hold on Naomi, it is used three times in chapter 2 when Boaz urges Ruth “to cling” to his female workers while in the field, and when Ruth and Naomi later talk about his instruction (2:8, 21, 23). While Ruth hangs on her and Orpah turns away, Naomi again speaks. Naomi’s second speech is directed to Ruth alone, urging her to follow her sister-in-law who has returned “to her people and to her god [gods].” Ruth now utters her bestknown words: “Do not entreat me to forsake you, to turn from you; for wherever RUTH AND NAOMI 51 you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people, my people; and your God, my God; where you die, I will die and there I will be buried. Thus may Yahweh do to me and more if even death intervenes between you and me” (1:16–17). Ruth uses the personal name of the Israelite god only here, swearing by Naomi’s god’s name and thereby emphasizing her commitment to Naomi. Naomi says nothing in response. Many commentators—I among them—have asserted that the book of Ruth is about relationship; yet relationship is simply an association or connection. An association between two people can be fraught with all kinds of emotions; it can be reciprocal or one-sided; a burden or a joy; dangerous, loving, or indifferent. That the book of Ruth is about relationship seems almost self-evident—but relationship is an empty form, open to be filled by the reader’s own imaginings. How one reads the bond between Ruth and Naomi is determined more by what the reader considers plausible than by what is explicit in the text. And how their relationship is read influences every other aspect of the book—how the character of each is understood, how the other relationships in the book are interpreted (particularly Ruth and Boaz’s), and how their actions are assessed. What is the relationship between Ruth and Naomi? Is it one of two women coming together in a man’s world in order to survive and model hesed (Phyllis Trible) or is the relationship one-sided, Ruth’s devotion met by Naomi’s coldness (Danna Nolan Fewell and David Miller Gunn...