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Ruth 4:13–17, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Ruth 4:13–17
Birth, Blessing, and Naomi's Renewed Household
Marriage, conception, and the women's blessing
Boaz takes Ruth, she becomes his wife, he goes in unto her, and the LORD gives her conception, and she bears a son. The women say to Naomi: Blessed be the LORD, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. He shall be a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.
Naomi's arms, and a neighborhood name
Naomi takes the child, lays it in her bosom, and becomes nurse to it. The women her neighbors give it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; they call his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
The child is the LORD's gift and the women's public interpretation. Ruth's love is praised in the blessing. The empty house of chapter 1 is not mocked; it is answered.
How this should shape us
Celebrate a birth as this community does, and still refuse to pressure infertile, single, bereaved, adoptive, foster, or child-free people into one required shape of blessing.
Teach it back
Explain Ruth 4:13–17 in your own words. Include the scene's movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters debate whether Obed or Boaz is the women's 'redeemer,' whether Naomi's caregiving implies adoption, and whether the women formally name him. None of those questions permits erasing Ruth as the child's mother.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Ruth 4:13–17, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and base wording behind translation discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ruth.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 4:13–17
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, social, legal, genealogical, and translation notes within the unit.
NET Bible Ruth PDF, printed pp. 501–503, translation and translator notes on 4:13–17
Supports: Authorship and dating alternatives, vulnerability, foreignness, field danger, threshing-floor risk, and legal-social interpretation within directly inspected sections.
Jones, Reading Ruth in the Restoration Period, pp. 188–199, especially pp. 195–199 (linguistic limits, land redemption, levirate distinctions, and Ruth 4)
Supports: A skeptical alternative concerning mixed motives and the limits of personal kindness within unequal social structures.
Kugler and Magori, 'Hesed in Ruth,' article pp. 1–10, especially literary-social readings of Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, survival, hesed, and structural constraint
Supports: Only the exposed thesis that Ruth's changing social and kinship relations do not erase the narrative designation Moabite.
Thambyrajah, 'Israelite or Moabite?', publisher abstract for JSOT 46.1 (2021), pp. 44–63
Supports: Close literary-theological method and a whole-book movement from alienation toward household and monarchical horizon; no unexposed chapter detail.
Ziegler, Ruth: From Alienation to Monarchy, introduction preview, printed pp. 3–16
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Ruth 4:13–17, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ruth
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and base wording behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ruth.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 4:13–17
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Ruth with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, social, legal, genealogical, and translation notes within the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Ruth PDF, printed pp. 501–503, translation and translator notes on 4:13–17
Open source ↗open access doctoral thesis
Reading Ruth in the Restoration Period: A Call for Inclusion
Edward Allen Jones III
University of St Andrews, 2012
Supports: Authorship and dating alternatives, vulnerability, foreignness, field danger, threshing-floor risk, and legal-social interpretation within directly inspected sections.
Exact location: Jones, Reading Ruth in the Restoration Period, pp. 188–199, especially pp. 195–199 (linguistic limits, land redemption, levirate distinctions, and Ruth 4)
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
Hesed in Ruth: A Frail Moral Tool in an Inflexible Social Structure
Gili Kugler and Ohad Magori
Religions 14.5, article 604, 2023
Supports: A skeptical alternative concerning mixed motives and the limits of personal kindness within unequal social structures.
Exact location: Kugler and Magori, 'Hesed in Ruth,' article pp. 1–10, especially literary-social readings of Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, survival, hesed, and structural constraint
Open source ↗peer reviewed article abstract
Israelite or Moabite? Ethnicity in the Book of Ruth
Jonathan A. Thambyrajah
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 46.1, 2021
Supports: Only the exposed thesis that Ruth's changing social and kinship relations do not erase the narrative designation Moabite.
Exact location: Thambyrajah, 'Israelite or Moabite?', publisher abstract for JSOT 46.1 (2021), pp. 44–63
Open source ↗publisher author preview
Ruth: From Alienation to Monarchy, table of contents and introduction
Yael Ziegler
Maggid Books, 2015
Supports: Close literary-theological method and a whole-book movement from alienation toward household and monarchical horizon; no unexposed chapter detail.
Exact location: Ziegler, Ruth: From Alienation to Monarchy, introduction preview, printed pp. 3–16
Open source ↗