The Field Belonging to Boaz: Creating Kinship through Land, Labor, Food, and Feeding

Abstract

Abstract Ruth’s decision to glean in a field where she might find favor (Ruth 2:2) sets in motion a transformation of Ruth from Moabite outsider to Judean insider. When Ruth happens upon the “field belonging to Boaz,” a servant identifies her as a nameless foreigner: “a Moabite woman . . . from the fields of Moab” (2:6). By the end of the book, the village elders compare her to “Rachel and Leah who together built up the house of Israel” (4:11). Crucial to Ruth’s incremental transformation are three directives that Boaz gives Ruth when he meets her in his field and greets her as “my daughter” (2:8): stay in my field; drink water from my vessels; and sit with my reapers and eat bread. Anthropological and archaeological studies of agriculture, foodways, and the materiality of food-related objects shed light on the kinship dimensions of each of these three directives. The back-and-forth interactions between Ruth, Boaz, the land, and its produce over two months of harvesting gradually lace Ruth into the “clan of Elimelech,” the father of her dead husband, and place her under the protective “cloak” of the Israelite god.