Ruth maps & timelines

Geographic Context

Ruth’s geography is small and intimate, framed by two neighboring lands. The story begins in Bethlehem of Judah, “the house of bread,” in the hill country south of Jerusalem, from which famine drives Elimelech’s family. They cross the Jordan rift and the Dead Sea’s eastern side to the plateau of Moab, an often-hostile neighbor about fifty miles from Bethlehem, where the family sojourns and the men die.

The rest of the book returns to Bethlehem and its surrounding barley and wheat fields, where Ruth gleans in the field of Boaz, and to the town gate, where legal business is transacted and the redemption is sealed. The whole drama plays out within a few miles, yet it reaches across the covenant boundary between Israel and Moab and forward across the centuries to David and to Christ.

Timeline of Major Events

• During the period of the judges (c. 1100 BC) - Famine drives Elimelech’s family from Bethlehem to Moab (chapter 1).
• Roughly ten years later - The deaths of Elimelech and his sons; Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem at the barley harvest.
• The following weeks - Ruth gleans in Boaz’s field through the barley and wheat harvests (chapter 2).
• At harvest’s end - The threshing-floor appeal and the redemption at the gate (chapters 3-4).
• c. 1080 BC - Obed is born; roughly two generations later, his grandson David is anointed king.