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In one laconic verse (v.13), nearly every problem presented in ch. 1 meets a solution: Ruth remarries, Yahweh grants immediate conception, and a son is born (a distinct contrast to Ruth’s ten barren years in Moab). But after this verse, Boaz leaves center stage. Nor is Ruth the central figure. Suddenly Naomi comes again to the foreground. The women (v.14) who heard her complaint against Yahweh in 1:20-21 now return to acknowledge Yahweh as the source of her blessings. When enumerating those blessings, they mention first her new grandson who will sustain her in her old age. But the newborn baby is not the greatest of Naomi’s blessings. It is a beautiful irony that they speak next of her daughter-in-law, Ruth, who stood quietly by when Naomi bitterly complained about her lot in life (1:20-21). Yet by Ruth’s faithfulness and excellent character, Naomi’s circumstances reversed, and her complaints were answered. It is interesting that in such a tender book (and one in which words are so carefully chosen) “love” is reserved for this climax to describe Ruth’s feelings for her mother-in-law. What an astounding assertion it is to say that Ruth “is better to you than seven sons” in a book in which the birth of a son has been the all-consuming need!
V.16 contains an interesting word that forms an inclusio with 1:5 to round out the book. Naomi takes into her arms the child (yeled̠, “lad”), the same word applied to Mahlon and Kilion in 1:5. The narrator has taken us from the point where Naomi was bereaved of her two sons to this stage where she now holds this new child, the son of Ruth and Boaz (Campbell, 56, 164). Naomi was finally part of a family again, with a loving and fulfilling role to play. “The babe in a sense symbolized it all, and Naomi gave herself over to caring for him” (Cundall and Morris, 314).
All of the problems of ch. 1 have been resolved, and we have arrived at a happy conclusion. But before the genealogy, the story ends with a terse sentence containing an unexpected disclosure. Naomi’s friends named the child Obed, who was none other than the father of Jesse, the father of David (v.17). The son born in these bizarre circumstances to a Moabite woman became the grandfather of Israel’s greatest king. And, of course, the gospel writer most taken with Jewish concerns did not fail to see the significance of Ruth’s presence in the lineage of the Messiah (Mt 1:5). Yahweh’s purpose had been accomplished through the lives of ordinary but faithful individuals. A life committed to his service meets no insignificant turns. All of life becomes sacred.