Booz the Near Kinsman: Ruth the Moabitess and the Church of the Gentiles
Old Testament: Ruth 4:9-10
And he said to the ancients and to all the people: You are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and Chelion's, and Mahalon's, of the hand of Noemi: And have taken to wife Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon, to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance lest his name be cut off, from among his family and his brethren and his people. You, I say, are witnesses of this thing.
Old Testament, also: Ruth 3:9
And he said to her: Who art thou? And she answered: I am Ruth thy handmaid: spread thy coverlet over thy servant, for thou art a near kinsman.
New Testament: Hebrews 2:11, 14; Ephesians 2:19
For both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: ... Therefore because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same: that, through death, he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil: ... Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God,
The connection
The Law gave a lost inheritance a hope: a near kinsman. "If thy brother being impoverished sell his little possession, and his kinsman will, he may redeem what he had sold" (Leviticus 25:25). Ruth had no claim of her own. She was a widow, poor, gleaning after the reapers, and a Moabitess, of a people the Law shut out: "The Ammonite and the Moabite, even after the tenth generation shall not enter into the church of the Lord for ever" (Deuteronomy 23:3). She comes to Booz by night and asks for one thing: "spread thy coverlet over thy servant, for thou art a near kinsman" (Ruth 3:9). A nearer kinsman yields his right, and Booz buys the inheritance before the ancients and takes "Ruth the Moabitess" to wife, "to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance" (Ruth 4:10). Under the Law only a kinsman could redeem; so the Son of God made Himself our kinsman. "Because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same", and "he is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Hebrews 2:14, 11). The stranger is brought in: "you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints" (Ephesians 2:19). St Matthew writes her into the Lord's own line: "Booz begot Obed of Ruth" (Matthew 1:5). St John Chrysostom reads the marriage so: Booz "neither despised her poverty nor abhorred her mean birth, as Christ having received the Church, being both an alien and in much poverty, took her to be partaker of the great blessings." St Ambrose says that in Ruth "was prefigured the entrance into the Lord's Church of all of us who are gathered out of the Gentiles." And St Ephrem sings that Ruth lay down at Booz' side because she perceived "the Medicine of Life hidden in him", and that on the day of the Nativity her vow was fulfilled, "since from her seed arose the Quickener of all." The Catechism teaches that the kingdom, first announced to Israel, is meant to receive people of every nation (CCC 543).
Moral sense
Ruth came with nothing to offer but herself, and she held nothing back: "whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go ... Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God" (Ruth 1:16). St John Chrysostom sets beside her the psalm, "forget thy people and thy father's house. And the king shall greatly desire thy beauty" (Psalms 44:11-12): the soul that leaves its old ways behind is the one the Bridegroom finds lovely. Booz blessed her as one who had come to the God of Israel, "under whose wings thou art fled" (Ruth 2:12). No one need bring a claim of their own to Christ. Poverty and a strange past are no bar; He is the kinsman who does not despise them.
Anagogical sense
Booz bought back a field and raised up a name that would have been cut off. The inheritance Christ buys is greater: "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that can not fade, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4). The gleaner who once asked, "Whence cometh this to me ... a woman of another country?" (Ruth 2:10), is no longer a guest in the field but the bride of its lord.
The Fathers
St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 3: "For she was both of a strange race, and reduced to the utmost poverty, yet Boaz when he saw her neither despised her poverty nor abhorred her mean birth, as Christ having received the Church, being both an alien and in much poverty, took her to be partaker of the great blessings." St Ambrose, in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:3-6: "To us she is a great example, for that in her was prefigured the entrance into the Lord's Church of all of us who are gathered out of the Gentiles." St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity, Hymn 1: "Ruth at Boaz' side lay down, because the Medicine of Life hidden in him she perceived. To-day was fulfilled her vow, since from her seed arose the Quickener of all."
Warrant
Patristic. St John Chrysostom sets Booz receiving Ruth beside Christ receiving the Church, alien and poor (Homilies on Matthew, Homily 3), and St Ambrose says Ruth prefigured the Gentiles' entrance into the Church (in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 1:3-6). St Ephrem says Ruth's vow was fulfilled at the Nativity (Hymns on the Nativity, Hymn 1). Matthew 1:5 names Ruth in Christ's genealogy but does not call her a type, so the grade rests on the Fathers. The near kinsman's right is in Leviticus 25:25; Hebrews 2:11-17 teaches why the Redeemer had to share our flesh. The lead came from Dunk's reading of Ruth beside the Nativity.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 543.
The verses
Ruth 4:9 · Ruth 4:10 · Ruth 3:9 · Hebrews 2:11 · Hebrews 2:14 · Ephesians 2:19
