RUTH, BOOK ov, one of the Hagiographa, placed in the authorized version, as in the LLX., between Judges and Samuel; and in the Jewish canon, as the second of the five 3Iegilloth, coming after the Song of Songs. It consists of four chapters, and describes how Ruth, the Moabite widow of a Hebrew, Machlon by name, in the time of the Judges, became—by faithful, loving adherence to her mother-in-law, Naomi, for whose sake she had left her home and kindred—the wife of Boaz, and through him the ances tress of David himself. A fragmentary genealogy of David's house—of which the principal links only are given—forms the conclusion of the book, which is characterized throughout by the most naive simplicity and minute truthfulness of detail. If there be a tendency in the book—which is doubtful—it would naturally be to show how utterly even that strictest of prejudices, in the mind of ancient peoples, especially the Hebrews, against intermarriage with the "stranger," is vanquished by genuine human love and piety; nay, that the heroine of the tale, even a Moabite, was deemed worthy for her virtue to become the foundress of the royal house of Israel. that the book
of Kings contains no details about David's genealogy, this book, apart from its inde scribable natural charm, becomes a most useful historical record, and further supplies many items on the forms and domestic customs of a time about which we have such very scant information elsewhere.
The time of the events related mounts back to about a century before David, yet both the contents and tendency of the book show clearly enough that it was hardly written before the last years of David's reign, if it was at all written in his life time. For a change had taken place in the interval in the manners and customs of the people (cf. the " in former time," iv. 7), and the genealogy carried down to David, shows the theocratic significance he had acquired by the time it was written.