Moabitiskan Rut

Sammanfattning: The story of Ruth is a short story that can easily be missed if one thumbs through the Bible. It is a narrative that describes two women and their struggle to survive in a male dominated society. The story begins in Moab where Ruth announces her resolution to ”clave” to Naomi. She could have made her life easy and gone back to her mother's house, but Ruth's love for Naomi makes her stay with her. The women travel together to Bethlehem, where Ruth demonstrates what it means to ”clave” to someone. It is not just that she ”claves” to Naomi that makes the story interesting, however it is the remarkable fact that she is a moabite and becomes the ancestress of King David. Some of the Old Testament texts gives us another picture of the moabites opposed to the story of Ruth. For example, Deuteronomy forbids the moabites to enter into the assembly of God. One also finds the same word ”clave” in Deuteronomy. It states that the people of Israel are to love and fear the Lord and ”clave” unto him. The reform of Ezra and Nehemiah is conserned with intermarriage, where the moabites are one of the peoples that the Isralites have intergrated with. The Ezra narrative ends with the desolvement of these marriages. This paper adresses these issues and asks some questions in regards to how we can intepret the book of Ruth in the Persian era and that of the Second Temple.