Later text
Ruth 2:8BSB
Then Boaz said to Ruth, "Listen, my daughter. Do not go and glean in another field, and do not go away from this place, but stay here close to my servant girls.
Intertextuality Pair
Ruth 2:8 → Deuteronomy 23:3-6
Echo
Earlier text
No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation. For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you. Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.
Significance
Deuteronomy 23:3 categorically excludes any Moabite (מוֹאָבִי, mo'avi) from the assembly of the LORD (קְהַל יְהוָה, qehal YHWH), yet Boaz invites Ruth the Moabitess to remain in his field, share his food, and enjoy his protection. The narrator repeatedly identifies Ruth as "the Moabitess" (Ruth 2:2, 6, 21), ensuring the reader cannot miss the tension with Deuteronomy's prohibition. Boaz's welcome functions as a narrative demonstration that חֶסֶד (chesed, "covenant loyalty") — both Ruth's toward Naomi and God's toward Ruth — transcends the ethnic boundary Deuteronomy established against a nation that showed no hospitality to Israel. Boaz's own words ground this welcome in Ruth's own chesed: he blesses her because, as he tells her, "you left your father and mother and the land of your birth" to find refuge under the wings of Israel's God (Ruth 2:11-12).
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- Reference Type
- Echo
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Linked Mentions 1