Ruth: Woman of Valor by Jim Baumgardner; Baumgardner Press, Wichita, Kansas (c) 2015; ISBN 978-0-98841-075-6; 371 pages.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — Two years ago on these pages, we reviewed Jim Baumgardner’s fictional biography of Queen Esther. Now comes another novel based on the Bible: Ruth: Woman of Valor.
Most of the time when we read a novel, we wonder how it will end. In this case, we know how the story begins and ends, but we wonder how the middle will turn out. How will Baumgardner flesh out the 2,039 words of the Book of Ruth to make it a 371-page novel?
He begins with two conflicts, one in Judah and the other in Moab. In Judah, there is a drought and Elimelech wants to sojourn with his family in Moab until rains and good crops are restored. His wife, Naomi, argues that to leave Judah would be tantamount to deserting the One God for a land which has many terrible gods. Furthermore, she warned her husband, their sons being of marriageable age might end up marrying Moabites instead of Israelites. She urged him to keep the family in Judah notwithstanding the drought. But Elimelech was stubborn, and so the family moved to Moab.
Meanwhile, in Moab, the teenage Ruth is heartbroken that a childhood friend has agreed to be sacrificed to the Moabite god Chemosh. She watches in horror as the young lady mounts the steps to a fiery furnace and is thrown by priests into the flames. Why would a god demand such a terrible sacrifice? she wonders bitterly.
Ruth later learns that the reason no man has asked her to marry–though she is beautiful and of age — is that her mother has secretly plotted to have Ruth become a temple priestess. In this position Ruth would have to engage in sexual relations with a temple priest as part of the Moabite fertility ceremony. This horrifies Ruth.
Eventually, Ruth learns that the Israelite God does not require human sacrifice and that He considers such fertility rites an abomination. Yet, she is conflicted. The God of Israel is a gentler God, yet the Moabite god apparently has brought rain to their land, while drought has laid waste to the Israelites’ land. How can a cruel god bring such bounty, while a kind god brings such devastation?
After marrying Mahlon, the oldest son of Elimelech and Naomi, Ruth decides she wants to learn more about the Israelite God, while continuing to worship Chemosh and the other Moabite gods. Mahlon does not object. Chilion, Mahlon’s younger brother, consents to a similar arrangement after marrying Orpah.
Elimelech is the first to die, and his oldest son Mahlon becomes head of the family. Naomi begs her son to lead the family back to Judah, but he refuses. As the oldest male in the family, his word is law, and even his mother must follow it. But when Mahlon and Chilion, who were always sickly, both die at an early age, Naomi decides she will return on her own to Judah. Ruth and Orpah accompany her to the border of their lands, but after Naomi beseeches them to return to Moab and to find themselves husbands, Orpah acquiesces. Ruth famously replies that wherever Naomi shall go, so shall she go, and that Naomi’s God shall also become her God.
Baumgardner writes about the dangerous trip from Moab to Judah. There are mountains to cross, animals to defend against, and the possibility of thieves and rapists who might intercept the two women and their donkey at any turn. Along the way, Ruth wonders how she can implement her promise to worship the Israelites’ God when she knows so little about Him.
When they arrive in Judah, Naomi is greeted by her former neighbors, but in her bitterness over losing a husband and two sons, she holds herself apart. Even as Israelites were scorned in Moab, so too does Ruth face rejection in Judah, but she perseveres, more worried about Naomi’s mental and physical health than her own. As a matter of providence, she goes to glean in the field of Boaz, a nephew of Elimelech’s. Notwithstanding the difference in their social positions, they feel an instant attraction. In that Boaz’s own mother, Rehab, was a convert to Judaism, he was perhaps more sympathetic to Ruth’s new status than some other Israelites were.
Amplifying on the biblical text, Baumgardner helps us to understand the rules of gleaning as well as its perils for a young attractive woman. He makes us understand what might have been Ruth’s fate if Boaz had not taken her under his protection.
Finally, we come to the climax of the story, when Ruth goes to the threshing house to lay at Boaz’s feet as he sleeps. When he awakens, he finds Ruth there and she asks for him to throw his mantle over her, to become her husband, and to redeem the land that is hers by inheritance from Elimelech’s estate. In the process, Baumgardner helps us to understand the laws of leverite marriage, by which a sibling, or a close relative, is bound to carry on the genetic line of a kinsman who has no living male children.
Baumgardner deserves credit for offering possible answers to many of the questions that arise in the beloved Book of Ruth. As I did in my review of his biograpny of Esther, I again caution Jewish readers that whereas we use such constructions as “HaShem” or “Adonai” or “The Lord” when speaking of God, Baumgardner, who is Christian, utilizes a transliteration of God’s four-letter Hebrew name: Yud Hay Vav Hay. Some of San Diego Jewish World‘s readers may find this objectionable.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com. Any comments in the space below should include the writer’s full name and city and state of residence, or city and country for non-U.S. residents.