Naomi Ruth and the Child Obed. Dalziels' Bible Gallery, 1863–81 (adapted). Metropolitan Museum of Art
Book of Ruth: Achieving Justice Through Narrative
The book of Ruth presents a different model of justice from that afforded by statute, custom, and precedent, one that seeks restorative as opposed to retributive justice.
Published: June 7, 2016
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Last Updated: October 28, 2026
This piece is based on my essay, “Achieving Justice Through Narrative in the Hebrew Bible: The Limitations of Law in the Legal Potential of Literature,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeshichte 20 (2014):181-199.
Even though it cannot be assumed that the sons married immediately upon their arrival in Moab, still the narrative notes that the sons lived in Moab for ten years. Underlining the bleakness of the situation is the fact that even the usual explanation for the lack of children, the barrenness of the women, is omitted.
Other cultures have divided rights to use land in particular ways, and different people may hold different kinds of titles to the same piece of land. Max Gluckman, The Ideas in Barotse Jurisprudence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), 75-112.
It is not clear whether this means that there has been a change from the statute in Numbers or that Numbers postdated Ruth. Even if Numbers is earlier (and the evidence from the development of the Hebrew language is that Numbers is earlier than Ruth because it does not reflect the Hebrew of the Second Temple period), the rule in Numbers may be ideal, as other parts of Priestly legislation, and may not reflect the reality of the legal system of Ancient Israel.
D.R.G. Beattie, “The Book of Ruth as Evidence for Legal Practice,” Vetus Testamentum 24 (1974), 256; F.S. Frick, “Widows in the Hebrew Bible: A Transactional Approach,” in A. Brenner, A Feminist Companion to Exodus to Deuteronomy (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1974), 256.
The case of Jer 32:7-8 is unusual in that Jeremiah gained title to the land because he had both the right of inheritance and the right of redemption: in the end, he would have gained the title to the land. Also in some cases, the redeemer purchased the property directly from the relative forced to sell it without the intermediate sale to a non-relative (Jer 32:7-8).
This is most likely because the child of this union will be part of the deceased’s line, but the redeemer has to work the land, cutting into the investment in his own land and his “own” sons’ inheritance; see Dvora E. Weisberg, “The Widow of Our Discontent: Levirate in the Bible and Ancient Israel,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28 (2004): 405.
My analysis of the differences between formal law and narrative was inspired by Thane Rosenbaum, The Myth of Moral Justice (New York: Harper, 2004). A classic overview of theories of justice may be found in Michael Sandel, Justice: what’s the right thing to do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).
