RUTH (meaning uncertain). A woman of Moab, who, like her mother-in-law Naomi, and her sister-in-law Orpah, was left a widow. On Naomi desiring to return to her own people in Bethlehem-Judah which she had left with her husband owing to a famine Ruth refused to leave her, and the two returned together to Bethlehem. Here she became the wife of Boaz , and bore him Obed, who became the father of Jesse; she therefore figures in the genealogy of Christ ( Matthew 1:5 ). See, further, the next article.
W. O. E. Oesterley.