Boaz
1180 BCE · Biblical · Beit Lechem (Bethlehem)
Boaz was a prosperous landowner of Beit Lechem, 'a man of substance' from the family of Elimelech, Naomi's late husband (Ruth 2:1). He greeted his reapers with 'GOD be with you!' (Ruth 2:4). When Ruth came to glean in his field, he protected her, told her to stay with his workers and drink from their water, and blessed her for her loyalty to Naomi (Ruth 2:8-12). When she came to him at night on the threshing floor and asked him to act as redeemer, he praised her and promised to act. He told her, however, that a closer relative had the first right (Ruth 3:9-13). The next morning he sat at the town gate with ten elders. The nearer kinsman declined, and before witnesses Boaz acquired Elimelech's property and took Ruth as his wife 'to perpetuate the name of the deceased' (Ruth 4:1-10). Their son Oved was the grandfather of David (Ruth 4:13-17, 21-22). The Talmud (Bava Batra 91a) records Rav's view that the judge Ivtzan of Bethlehem (Judges 12:8-10) was Boaz.
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Beit Lechem (Bethlehem)בית לחם
What they did here
A landowner of Bethlehem. The gleaning, the threshing-floor meeting and the redemption at the town gate all take place there (Ruth 2:1-4; 3:2; 4:1-11).
About Beit Lechem (Bethlehem)
Beit Lechem (Bethlehem), a town in the Judean Hills south of Jerusalem, appears throughout the Tanach. According to the Torah, the matriarch Rachel died and was buried on the road to Bethlehem; it was the setting of the Book of Ruth, and the Book of Samuel records it as the home and birthplace of King David.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Boaz’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Works
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