1 Goethe famously refers to it as “das lieblichste kleine Ganze, … das uns episch und idyllisch überliefert worden ist” (J.W. von Goethe, Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständnis des West-Östlichen Diwans). Scholars arriving at a similar assessment are, e.g., Hermann Gunkel, ‘Ruth’, in: Reden und Aufsätze, 1913, 65–92; E.F. Campbell, Ruth (AB), 1975, 3.

2 Feminist and post-colonial readers have correctly observed that the book of Ruth is, in fact, not ‘idyllic’ at all, but rather a struggle for survival in a world marked by famine, death, patriarchy and xenophobia (see, e.g., P. Trible, ‘Two Women in a Man's World’, Soundings 59 (1976): 251–279; Jürgen Ebach, ‘Fremde in Moab – Fremde aus Moab’, in: Jürgen Ebach, Richard Faber (eds), Bibel und Literatur 1995, 277–304; Laura E. Donaldson, ‘The Sign of Orpah: Reading Ruth Through Native Eyes’, in: Rasiah S. Sugirtharajah (ed.), The Postcolonial Biblical Reader 2006, 159–170).

3 See, recently, Volker Haarmann, JHWH-Verehrer der Völker: Die Hinwendung von Nichtisraeliten zum Gott Israels in alttestamentlichen Überlieferungen (AThANT 91), Zürich, 255–73.

4 Or indeed, whether a combination of the two is at stake at all-in the narrative (see, to the contrary, Robert Gordis, ‘Love, Marriage, and Business in the Book of Ruth: A Chapter in Hebrew Customary Law’, in: H.M. Beam e.a. (eds), A Light Unto My Path: Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers, 1974, 241–64; Tamara C. Eskenazi, Tikva Frymer Kemski, Ruth, the Traditional Hebrew Text With the New JPS Translation/Commentary, 2011, xxxv–xxxviii.

5 We mainly follow the ASV.

6 On the textual problem in verse 5, see below.

7 E.g., Gillis Gerleman, Ruth; Das Hohelied (BK XVIII), 1965: “fast pedantisch” (p. 36) and “feierlich” (p. 37); Kirsten Nielsen, ‘Le choix contre le droit dans le livre de Ruth. De l'aire de battage au tribunal’, VT 35 (1985): 209–210; Dana N. Fewell, David M. Gunn, ‘Boaz, Pillar of Society: Measures of Worth in the Book of Ruth’, JSOT 45 (1989): 45–59; Kirsten Nielsen, Ruth (OTL), 1997, 81–92.

8 Gunkel, ‘Ruth’; Gerleman, Ruth; Das Hohelied, 7–9; D.R.G. Beattie, ‘The Book of Ruth as Evidence for Israelite Legal Practice’, VT 24 (1974), 251–267; Edouard Lipiński, ‘Le mariage de Ruth’, VT 26 (1976), 124–27; Bruce Wells, The Law of Testimony in the Pentateuchal Codes (BZAR 4), 2004, 22– 40; Volker Wagner, Profanität und Sakralisierung im Alten Testament (BZAW 351), 2005, 320; Ada Taggar-Cohen, ‘The Covenant as Contract: Joshua 24 and Legal Aramaic Texts from Elephantine’, ZAR 11 (2005), 36; Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel, 2008, 22–56; Agnethe Siquans. ‘Foreignness and Poverty in the Book of Ruth: A Legal Way for a Poor Foreign Woman to Be Integrated into Israel’, JBL 128 (2009), 443–52. Rainer Albertz and Rüdiger Schmitt (Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant, 2012) do not mention Ruth 4 in particular, but posit in general that “blessings were apparently the only rites of a religious nature performed during marriage ceremonies, while the form of the entire ceremony was entirely legal in nature” (Albertz and Schmitt, Family, 399).

9 Michael D. Goulder, ‘Ruth: A Homily on Deuteronomy 22–25?’, in Heather A. McKay, David J.A. Clines (eds), Of Prophets' Visions and the Wisdom of the Sages: Essays in Honor of R. Norman Whybray on his Seventieth Birthday (JSOT Sup 162), 1993, 307–19.

10 Campbell, Ruth, 31.

11 Peter H. W. Lau, Identity and ethics in the Book of Ruth: A Social Identity Approach (BZAW 416), 2010, 55–89.

12 Kathleen Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides in Cuneiform Sources from the Sixth Century BCE: New Evidence from a Marriage Contract from Āl-Yahudu’, Archiv für Orientforschung 51 (2005/2006), 198–219.

13 Gunkel, ‘Ruth’, 79. It is common knowledge that the entrance gate of the ancient Israelite and Judean cities was the location for civil procedures of the community. See, besides Gunkel, e.g., Herbert Niehr, Rechtsprechung in Israel: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Gerichtsorganisation im Alten Testament (SBS 130), 1987, 108–09; Pietro Bovati, Re-establishing Justice: Legal Terms, Concepts and Procedures in the Hebrew Bible (JSOT Sup 105), 1994; Eckart Otto, ‘Zivile Funktionen des Stadttores in Palästina und Mesopotamien’, in: S. Timm, M. Weippert (eds), Meilenstein. FS Herbert Donner (Ägypten und Altes Testament 30), 1995, 188–197; Michael Weißl, Torgottheiten (Dissertation, Universität Wien), 1998, 137–38; Tina Haettner Blomquist, Gates and Gods: Cults in the City gates of Iron Age Palestine: An Investigation of the Archaeological and Biblical Sources (CB OTS 46), 1999, 189–93; Oded Borowski, Daily Life in Biblical Times, 2003, 15–16.21–22.

14 See, e.g., Eckart Otto, Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments (ThW 3.2), 1994; Volker Wagner, Profanität und Sakralisierung im Alten Testament (BZAW), 2005; Reinhard G. Kratz, ‚Theologisierung oder Säkularisierung? Der biblische Monotheismus im Spannungsfeld von Religion und Politik’, in: Okko Behrends (ed.), Der biblische Gesetzesbegriff: Auf den Spuren einer Säkularisierung, 13. Symposion der Kommission “Die Funktion des Gesetzes in Geschichte und Gegenwart” (AAWG.PH 278), 2006, 43–67; Bruce Wells, ‘The Cultic Versus the Forensic: Judahite and Mesopotamian Judicial Procedures in the First Millennium B.C.E.’, JAOS 128 (2008), 205–32; Patrick D. Miller, The Ten Commandments (Interpretation), 2009, 1–9.

15 For details see J. Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3A), 2000; Volkert Wagner, ‘Die Autorisierung von Nachträgen in Texten der Tora durch die Formel ‘ani yhwh (‘elohěkem)’, BZAR 17 (2011), 241–67.

16 Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 1992, 90.

17 See, e.g., Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (Performance Studies Series 1), 1982; Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, 2002.

18 With this reading we go one step beyond the view of Taggar-Cohen, ‘The Covenant as Contract’, 36, who argues that texts like Josh 24 and Ruth 4 should be construed as a negotiation in dialogical form, reflecting a legal procedure.

19 Otto, Theologische Ethik, 57–61. 249–56 (with lit.); Levinson, Legal Revision, 22–56; Dvora E. Weisberg, ‘The Widow of our Discontent: Levirate Marriage in the Bible and Ancient Israel’, JSOT 28 (2004), 403–29; Siquans, ‘Foreignness and Poverty’. Both Nielsen, ‘Choix’; Nielsen, Ruth, 84–85, and Fewell and Gunn, ‘Boaz’, construe the combination of Levirate and Redemption as a deliberate device used by Boaz to accomplish his goals, thereby stretching common law to its limits. Irmtraud Fischer asserts that the “associative exegesis” of both laws reflects a “halakhah” that could be called “feminist” (Irmtraud Fischer, ‘The Book of Ruth: A ‘Feminist’ Commentary to the Torah?’, in: Athalya Brenner (ed.), A Feminist Companion to Ruth and Esther (A Feminist Companion to the Bible), 1999, 40–41). Reversely, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer Kensky negate that Levirate marriage is at stake in the text in the first place (Eskenazi and Frymer-Kensky, Ruth:).

20 The institution of the ge'ullā, see, e.g., Jer 32,6–9; Neh 5,8, Job 6,23; see, e.g., Eryl W. Davies, ‘Ruth 4:5 and the duties of the gω‘ēl’, VT 33 (1983), 231–34.

21 See next to commentaries D.R.G. Beattie, ‘Kethibh and Qere in Ruth IV 5’, VT 21 (1971), 490–494; Beattie, ‘Ruth as Evidence for Israelite Legal Practice’; Nielsen, Ruth, 82; Peter H. W. Lau, Identity and ethics in the Book of Ruth: A Social Identity Approach (BZAW 416), 2010, 69–74.

22 See also Levinson, Legal Revision, 22–56.

23 On the distinction between ‘observing’ and ‘testifying’ witnesses, see Gene M. Tucker, ‘Witnesses and Dates in Israelite Contracts’, CBQ 28 (1966), 42–45; Adrian Schenker, ‘Zeuge, Bürge, Garant des Rechts – Die drei Funktionen des Zeugen im Alten Testamen’, BiZs 34 (1990), 87–90; Bovati, Reestablishing Justice, 257–93; Wells, The Law of Testimony, 22–40; Pietro Bovati, Ristabilire la giustizia: procedure, vocabolario, orientamenti (Analecta Biblica 110), 2005, 242–43.

24 The Hebrew text only has the noun ‘ēdîm that should be construed as a nominal clause, dressed as an outcry; the LXX leaves the final word of the clause untranslated.

25 See Wells, The Law of Testimony, 2004, 43.

26 On this chapter see, e.g., William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 26–52 (Hermeneia), 1989, 202–20; Andrew G. Shead, The Open Book and the Sealed Book: Jeremiah 32 in its Hebrew and Greek recensions (JSOT Sup 347), 2002; Janneke Stegeman, ‘Reading Jeremiah Makes Me Angry!’ The Role of Jeremiah 32[39]:36–41 in Trans-formation within the ‘Jeremianic’ Tradition’, in: W. Th. van Peursen, J.W. Dyk (eds), Tradition and Innovation in Biblical Interpretation: Studies Presented to Professor Eep Talstra on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (SSN 57), 2011, 45–67; Steed Vernyl Davidson, Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings Of Selected Texts In Jeremiah (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 542), 2012, 55–87.

27 Jer 32,25.

28 Jer 32,44; here too the ‘ēdîm are observing witnesses, see Wells, The Law of Testimony, 2004, 43.

29 E.g., Deut 31,19. 21,26; Josh 22,2–34.

30 Haettner Blomquist, Gates and Gods.

31 See, e.g., Robert Gnuse, ‘Spilt Water –Tales of David (2 Sam 23,13–17) and Alexander (Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 6.26.1–3)’, JSOT 12 (1998), 233–48; Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 1990, 349.

32 See, e.g., C.H.W. Johns, Assyrian Deeds and Documents (3 Volumes), 1898–1901; J.N. Postgate, Fifty Neo-Assyrian Legal Documents, 1976; Th. Kwasman, Neo-Assyrian Legal Documents in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (St Pohl 14), 1988; Martha T. Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements: 7th–3rd centuries BC (AOAT 222), 1989; Cornelia Wunsch, Urkunden zum Ehe-, Vermögens- und Erbrecht aus verschiedenen neubabylonischen Archiven, 2003; M. Jursa, Neo-Babylonian Legal and Administrative Documents: Typology, Contents, and Archives (Guides to the Mesopotamian Textual Record 1), 2005.

33 On these texts see: F. Joannès, A. Lemaire, ‘Trois tablettes cunéiformes à onomastique ouest-sémitique’, Transeuphratène 17 (1999), 17–34; L. Pearce, ‘New Evidence for Judaeans in Babylonia’, in: O. Lipschits, M. Oeming (eds), Judah and the Judaeans in the Persian Period, 2006, 399–411; Kathleen Abraham, ‘An Inheritance Division among Judeans in Babylonia from the Early Persian Period’, in: M. Lubetski (ed.), New Seals and Inscriptions, Hebrew, Idumean, and Cuneiform (Hebrew Bible Monographs, 8), 2007, 206–21; J. Blenkinsopp, Judaism, the First Phase: The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism, 2009, 117–122; Pierre-Alain Beaulieu, ‘The Babylonian Background of the Motif of the Fiery Furnace in Daniel 3’, JBL 128 (2009), 127; Laurie Pearce, ‘“Judean”: A Special Status in Neo-Babylonian and Achemenid Babylonia?’, in: O. Lipschits, G.N. Knoppers, M. Oeming (eds), Judah and the Judaeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identities in an International Context, 2011, 267–277; Cornelia Wunsch, ‘Neo-Babylonian Entrepreneurs’, in: D.S. Landes e.a. (eds), The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times, 2011, 40–61; Anselm C. Hagedorn, ‘Diaspora or no Diaspora? Some Remarks on the Role of Egypt and Babylon in the Book of the Twelve’, in: R. Albertz, J. Nogalski, J. Wöhrle (eds), Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve (BZAW 433), 320–36.

34 Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’.

35 MCAY (Marriage Contract from āl Yahudu): 39–40 itiše! UD.[x kam MU].5 kam pku-r[aš …].

36 In a promissory note for 30 kors of dates stemming from the Borsippa region and dated in the reign of Darius (I), a Nabû-bān-aḫi is entioned as the owner of a plot of land from the dowry of a woman called Šikku, BM 103458, see Ran Zadok, ‘The Geography of the Borsippa Region, in: Y. Amit, E ben Zvi, I. Finkelstein and O. Lipschits (eds), Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context: A Tribute to Nadav Na'aman, 2006, 445–47. Another Nabû-bān-aḫi, son of Aḫu-Lūmūr, is mentioned in a text that reports his appointment as overseer during the building of the North Palace of Nebuchanessar, UCP 9/24, see Paul Alain Beaulieu, ‘Eanna's Contribution to the Construction of the North-Palace at Babylon’, in: H.D. Baker, M. Jursa (eds), Approaching the Babylonian Economy (AOAT 330), 2005, 55–56.

37 The Sumerogram DAM in this kind of texts does not refer to aššatu in the biological meaning of the word, but rather to an aššūtu, a woman who is in the legal state of having been married, cf. PSD, s.v. dam; CAD A/1, 471–72. Hence there is no reason to render the word as if including a pronominal suffix; pace Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 201: ‘(my) wife’.

38 This is a minor scribal flaw: iq ma instead of iq-[bi um]-ma; see Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 201.

39 Such a garment was a relatively ordinary piece of woollen clothing; see Stefan Zawadzki, Garments of the Gods: Studies on the Textile Industry and the Pantheon of Sippar according to the Texts from the Ebabbar Archive (OBO 218), 2006, 139.

40 The meaning of the three signs zi in di – most probably the internal object of the sentence – is as yet unclear; Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 204–05, proposes reticently ‘provision’.

41 It seems to us that the verb katāmu in this clause is not just in its standard meaning ‘to cover (someone with a cloth)’, but has a more specific context related meaning like ‘to compensate for’, see below.

42 The scribe accidentally wrote this divine name twice.

43 The name could also be read as ḫadd[â].

44 Not zíz, ‘Shebat’, pace Ran Zadok, The Earliest Diaspora: Israelites and Judeans in Pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia, 2002, 30; see also Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 201–202.

45 The phrase ina ušuzzi, ‘in the presence of’, makes clear that Mešallam, the brother of Nanaya-Kānat, should not be seen as one of the witnesses, but rather as part of the party consenting to the marriage; see: E von Dassow, Introducing the Witnesses in Neo-Babylonian Documents’, in: R. Chazan, W.W. Hallo, L.H. Schiffman (eds), Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, 1999, 15; Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 201–202.

46 Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 202–06.

47 Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 205–06.

48 See CAD B, 364–65.

49 See CAD A/1, 134–35.

50 See K. Watanabe, Die adě-Vereidigung anlässlich der Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons (Baghdader Mitteilungen Beiheft 3), 1987, 21–23,

51 See Wunsch, Urkunden zum Ehe-, Vermögens- und Erbrecht.

52 MCAY:28–29.

53 This assumption might be underscored by the fact that the contract does not mention a dowry; see on dowries; Joseph Fleishmann, ‘Inheritance of the Dowry in Ancient Near Eastern Law Codes’, ZAR 10 (2004), 232–48; Kathleen Abraham, ‘The Dowry Clause in Marriage Documents from the First Millennium BCE’, in: D. Charpin, F. Joannès (ed.), La circulation des biens, des personnes et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancient (CRAI 38), 1992, 311–20; Otto, Theologische Ethik, 51–54.

54 See Roth, Babylonian Marriage Agreements.

55 See Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 206.

56 As for instance in Gilg VIII ii 17: ik-tùm-ma ibrī kīma kallati panū[šu], ‘my friend coverd [his] face like a bride’.

57 Ernst F. Weidner, ‘Hof- und Harems-Erlasse assyrischer Könige aus dem 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr.’, AfO 17 (1957), 285:94.

58 See Abraham, ‘West Semitic and Judean Brides’, 212–17.

59 It is interesting to note in comparison that while the Marriage contract contains curses, the story of Ruth contains marriage blessings.