Matriarch of Israel or Misnomer? Israelite Self-Identification in Ancient Israelite Law Code and the Implications for Ruth *

1. Introduction

Ruth's journey to become a matriarch of the ancient Israelites began with a wish. In the end, she got what she asked for. But did she? Scholars to date have limited their consideration of Ruth's final status to the sole perspective of her contemporary community. This article challenges this view, instead taking into account the broader spectrum of ancient Israelite law code across multiple periods. In doing so, it challenges scholarship to provide a more complete picture of the Israelite societies' views on foreigners.

The biblical law code had three potential designations to apply to Ruth: ‭רז‬, ‘stranger’; ‭ירכנ‬, ‘foreigner’; and ‭רג‬, ‘resident alien’. ² Scholarly interpretations of this law code fall into two camps: those that argue for the possibility of full conversion of a foreigner to an equal status as an Israelite, and those that argue that a foreigner could never fully be accepted as an equal. Agnethe Siquans, Christian Brady, and Alfred Bertholet contend that based upon the biblical law code, certain paths did exist for a foreigner to become an Israelite. Others, such as Shaye Cohen and Jeff Anderson, argue that while foreigners-turned-resident aliens did gain some type of acceptance within the ancient Israelite communities, the law code never assigned these individuals a fully equivalent status. Most of the scholars examining Ruth cite only fragmentary evidence concerning the convoluted ancient Israelite legal system and the dubious resolution that this code provided for the foreigner seeking to integrate within ancient Israelite communities. A major issue concerning this scholarship on Ruth is that it employs a limited frame of reference: only that of her own time period. Arguments that solely consider a snapshot in time ignore the tacit baggage that the preceding code would have brought to their present-day context. That is to say, one must question whether the lawmakers could ever completely detach themselves from the influence of the previous legal definitions concerning the foreigners that would have been to some extent ingrained in their societies and statutory system. It is also unclear whether these lawmakers, and the Israelite communities, would ever have been free of the uncertainty that would result from a sudden change in code. Moreover, one must question how lawmakers and Israelites in subsequent generations would look back on Ruth from the frame of reference of a legal code that was alternatingly broadened and then abridged, often excluding from the pseudo-'ethnicity' those individuals who held the same credentials as Ruth through marriage or permanent residence.

This study will investigate the interaction between Israelite self-identification and biblical law code concerning the integration of foreigners in ancient Israel, and the ramifications for Ruth. An evaluation of the evidence concerning the biblical law code will demonstrate that the apex of the story, in Ruth 4.11–12, does not represent an assignment of an Israelite-equivalent status to Ruth. Because of the perpetually changing law code—and these changes being reactive to a fluid and often volatile political environment in which the ancient Israelites found themselves—neither the legal definition of an Israelite nor that of a foreigner was ever firm, from pre-exilic times to the late Second Temple period. Moreover, the law code of the ancient Israelites at no time provided a clear path for a foreigner to become an unqualified Israelite. If this is correct, Ruth cannot be considered a bonafide Israelite; she remained a partial foreigner even after her marriage to Boaz.

2. Ruth as Archetype

The book of Ruth tells the story of two widows, Naomi and Ruth, and their journey from Moab to Bethlehem. A decade earlier, Naomi had emigrated with her husband Elimelech from Bethlehem to Moab, where one of their two sons married Ruth. Following the death of Naomi's husband and both of her sons, she decided to return to Bethlehem. Ruth's pledge of friendship and decision to follow Naomi defines the story:

Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!

Upon their arrival in Bethlehem, both faced the reality of being foreigners in a Jewish land. The saving hope for Ruth would be Boaz, a wealthy relative of Elimelech. Naomi devised a plan for Ruth to throw herself at the mercy of her deceased husband's kinsman, and become an Israelite via redemption. In the end, the plan seems to have worked. The community seems to have embraced Ruth as one of its own:

Then all the people who were at the gate, along with the elders, said, ‘We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you produce children in Ephrathah and bestow a name in Bethlehem; and, through the children that the Lord will give you by this young woman, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.’

But upon deeper inspection, this acceptance was not unequivocal.

Ruth is the quintessential case study of the foreigner in ancient Israel intent on integration. When she declares her desire to become an Israelite in 1.16, Ruth is a Moabite and a widow; she has no support from a male nor from her immediate family. Ruth's mother-in-law, friend, and companion Naomi is also a widow, lacking the legal status that she previously held through her husband and sons. In contrast to Naomi, however, Ruth's declaration is particularly bold. While Naomi has some claim to kinship with the Israelite people through her deceased husband, Ruth's aspiration appears a wishful dream—she has no ancestral connection. The chasm between Ruth's ‘here’ and her coveted ‘there’ is especially evident in how she self-identifies under Israelite law. Ruth refers to herself as an outsider, a ‭הירכנ‬, ‘foreigner’. Ruth 2.10 reads:

Then she fell prostrate, with her face to the ground, and said to him, ‘Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner (‭הירכנ‬)?’

Notably, the author of the book of Ruth uses only three terms to identify Ruth: ‭היבאומ‬, ‘Moabite’; ‭הירכנ‬, ‘foreign woman’; and ‭תמה תשא‬, ‘wife of the dead man’—none of which assigns her a status that places her in the inner circle of the Israelites. ³ The question is whether Ruth is ever able—under the law code—to cross the chasm and throw off the albatross of alienity, and if so, how.

3. The Israelite and the Foreigner in the Hebrew Bible

Three major designations lay before the lawmakers to assign to Ruth under the ancient Israelite law code: ‭ירכנ‬, ‘foreigner’; ‭רז‬, ‘stranger’; and ‭רג‬, ‘resident alien’. ⁴ Each status held different meanings concerning Ruth's intentions and capabilities for residency, legal rights, religious participation, and degree of integration within the community.

4. Crossing the Border from Foreigner to Israelite

Of the legal designations in the Hebrew Bible pertaining to foreigners, ‭רג‬ is the only option available to Ruth that would provide a path to permanent membership in the community. The dilemma for Ruth is whether the ‭רג‬, as a resident alien, is ever seen as or ever has the ability within the legal code of ancient Israel to convert and become an Israelite. A number of problems concerning the term preclude a final identification of Ruth as an ‘authentic’ Israelite at the end of the story.

As seen in the preceding examples, the use of the term ‭רג‬ in the Hebrew Bible is inconsistent and not always intelligible. Christoph Bultmann attempts to explain the inconsistencies by arguing that there are two parallel streams of meaning for ‭רג‬ in the law code. He contends that the first strain betrays an internal social differentiation among Israelites. ²¹ This ‭רג‬ would be the aforementioned Abraham or Levite in the Deuteronomic code, who clearly is an ethnic Israelite, but is traveling away from his or her native land. Bultmann contends that, in contrast, a second strain of ‭רג‬ represents an external differentiation between the ‭רג‬ and the Israelite. The ‭רג‬ in this scheme is a non-Israelite who is seeking permanent residence among the Israelites and soliciting to join their religion through circumcision. He describes this ‭רג‬:

The foreignness lies in this second strand of evidence concerning the designation ger [‭רג‬] in relation to Israel as the broader group, defined through the Jahwist religion and its sacred law. Because this Israel resides both in the Persian province of Judah as well as in the Diaspora, the foreignness is not based on the Jewish territory and the concrete social possibilities of life within it. The foreigner is not Israelite, i.e. not of Jewish origin. He or she first becomes a ger [‭רג‬] through circumcision (Exod. 12.48), whereas as an uncircumcised baen nekar [‭רכנ ןב‬], he or she remains excluded (Exod. 12.43). ²²

The examples that Bultmann provides in Exodus describe the foreigner as an individual who is merely allowed to celebrate Passover, not as one who is transformed under the legal code into an equivalent Israelite. ‭ץראה חרזאכ היהו‬, ‘He will be as a native of the land’, in Exod. 12.48 specifically refers to the Passover participation. Assigning the label ‭רג‬ to this individual does not in and of itself establish a definitive status equal to an Israelite. While posing a plausible explanation for the different meanings across the law code in various time periods, Bultmann's argument does not resolve the issue.

Another problem with the contention that a ‭רג‬ should be identified as an Israelite convert is the changing law code. From early to later periods, the rules for the integration and segregation of ‭םירג‬ are anything but consistent. Instead, they represent complex reactions to the political contexts of the time. In Bultmann's argument, for example, it is in the later priestly additions to the code that the ‭רג‬ changes in definition to indicate a non-ethnic Israelite seeking to become an Israelite. ²³ This differs from the earlier Deuteronomic Code, where, Bultmann contends, the term strictly refers to an Israelite away from his or her home. The Deuteronomic Code does not permit any legal status change for the ‭רג‬; thus the ‭רג‬'s identity as a native Israelite is ultimately unclear. The Deuteronomic Code goes so far as to describe the ‭רג‬ (Deut. 28.43) as a curse to the Israelite that results from disobedience (Deut. 28.43). Van Houten agrees, contending that only when moving into the monarchical period does the Bible provide examples of pseudo-conversion. ²⁴ She, however, takes the opposite position of Bultmann with respect to the identity of the ‭רג‬, asserting that in the Deuteronomic laws the ‭רג‬ is ‘clearly and consistently treated as a non-Israelite’ and has no opportunity to become an Israelite. ²⁵

Moving into the post-exilic period, the lawmakers continue to modify the legal code pertaining to the ‭רג‬. Alfred Bertholet argues that this post-exilic shift represents a change from a social or political identity to a religious identity. ²⁶ He describes what Ezekiel finds in the late sixth century BCE: ‘The nationality is no longer sufficient in and of itself, for the nation is fractured. And for Ezekiel (cf. in particular Ch 16 and 23), the final judgment of history is the condemnation of its entire past, that was an unbroken chain of wicked compromise with heathenism’. ²⁷ Bertholet goes on to explain the mixture of Israelites and foreigners, both essentially sharing a reality and kinship of being outsiders of sorts. He says,

Indeed, both were foreign in the Babylonian land, those born as Israelites and Gerim (‭םירג‬). The Israelites essentially became Gerim themselves within the land (cf. Ezek. 20.38 20.38: ‭ץרֶאֶ םירִוּגמְ‬). They were just a nation of foreign settlers, not merely sex and gender, but rather Israelites and Gerim. ‭הרזא‬ and ‭רג‬—that which until now had fallen apart, hence became united. ²⁸

Bertholet's description here of the merging of the Israelites and foreigners into a single identity, whether an internal self-actualization or an external conferment, is specifically what Ezra and Nehemiah seethe over following the exile. Bertholet argues that the end result is a law code emendation which transforms the ‭רג‬ into an equivalent, authentic Israelite:

In the time between P and the Chronicler the step had been taken. ‭רג‬ had taken on the specific sense into which it crossed over in the Talmudic literature. It no longer needed to apply strictly to the foreigner within the Jewish community. It is the foreigner, after all, who has adopted their religion. In a word, the ger has become the proselyte. ²⁹

Scholars who argue for a post-exilic dating of the book of Ruth underscore this shift in attitude of the lawmakers, contending that the book of Ruth is a response to Ezra and Nehemiah's polemic calling for a greater Israelite openness to the ‭םירג‬. Van Houten cites this change as well, but challenges Bertholet's interpretation, arguing that although attaining some sort of acceptance or citizenship, the ‭רג‬ does not achieve first-class status and remains in essence a second-class citizen in the priestly law code additions of the post-exilic period. ³⁰ Much of scholarship is in agreement with Van Houten, contending that while the laws may change, the figurative and legal wall between the Israelite and the ‭רג‬ remains in place. ³¹

A third complication with the term ‭רג‬ is inherent in the nature of the law code changes. When the lawmakers adjust the code over time, they do not refine it in a single, unified direction to create a continually more precise definition of the ‭רג‬. If they did amend the laws in this type of coherent manner, one could better ascertain whether the lawmakers were attempting to create a genuine equivalency between the ‭רג‬ and the Israelite. The tumultuous nature of the law code changes, however, suggests that the lawmakers have no intention of creating a full equivalency. Rather, they seek to ensure a smooth cohabitation of the Israelite and the resident alien, but never a desire to equate the two. When the political environment is stable and the Israelite population is secure, the code exhibits a more exclusionary stance. When the Israelites come under attack or the population declines following the exile, the lawmakers open the door for the participation of the ‭םירג‬.

A final issue concerning the term ‭רג‬ is the indefinite nature of the biblical law code concerning marriage and legal status, and the effect that this has upon the identification of the ‭רג‬. Presumably, Ruth's marriage to Boaz would generate some change in status. Cohen argues that through marriage to an Israelite man, a foreign woman assumes the Israelite identity with no further provisions, at least in the pre-exilic period. He contends that ‘By her marriage with an Israelite man a foreign woman joined the clan, people, and religion of her husband. It never occurred to anyone in pre-exilic times to argue that such marriages were null and void, that the foreign woman must “convert” to Judaism, or that the offspring of the marriage were not Israelite if the women did not convert’. ³²

The problem in the text of Ruth is that the author never overtly assigns Ruth a status of or equivalency to an Israelite, even following her marriage to Boaz. Moreover, evidence suggests that in ancient Israel, even when marrying an Israelite, a certain stigma would remain for the foreigner. Cohen argues that this stigma was applied to women differently than men. He explains,

In all likelihood, if a gentile man married a Jewish woman, he would not thereby enter the Jewish community. In most such cases, at least before the second century ce, the offspring of the union took the status of the father and would not have become members of the Jewish community. In contrast, if a gentile woman was married to a Jewish man, she was supposed to abandon her pagan gods and follow the same religion as her husband. There was no ritual of conversion; the act of marriage to a Jewish husband was de facto an act of conversion. By association with her husband she joined the Jewish community in some way, although she probably would have been regarded by her contemporaries, and probably would have regarded herself as well, not as a Jew but as a gentile. Her children of course were Jewish, because they were the offspring of a Jewish father. ³³

This insight is significant. It underscores the complexity of the conversion question. Even in marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, a religious obligation is still required on the part of the non-Jew to the God of the Israelites. Without this commitment, the non-Jew is not an Israelite. Moreover, even after making the commitment, the foreign stigma remains and the individual is not considered fully equivalent to the Israelite.

Perhaps just as significant, Cohen's contention that the offspring of these Gentiles are Jewish elucidates Isa. 56.6–8. If the ‭רכנה ינב‬ described by Isaiah are indeed the sons of foreigners and not the ‭םירכנ‬ themselves, the group amassed by God is one of Israelites, not an appendage of a foreign faction to the chosen people at the eschatological temple. Viewing Ruth in light of Cohen's argument, her marriage to Boaz does not in and of itself assign her a clear status as an Israelite. It integrates her into the community in a manner that she was not previously. But there is a limit to that integration, and she remains distinct from her Israelite community.

In the Second Temple period, the law code returned to a more pronounced factionalism, banning intermarriage. Jeff Anderson contends for an intra- as well as extra-sectarianism evidenced within Israelite self-identification in this period. He explains,

Strong prohibitions against these mixed marriages defined boundaries of Israelite ethnicity. As distinctions between Jew and non-Jew were more strictly defined, boundaries between Jew and Jew also came under severe scrutiny. It was no longer acceptable to be merely a Jew; but Jewish groups began to turn on one another with the same critical eye, often viewed yet other Jewish groups as ‘outsiders’. ³⁴

This internal division among the Israelites is most evident in the literature of Qumran.

5. The Israelite and the Foreigner in Qumran Literature ³⁵

Part of the argument in this study is that only when taking into consideration a broad timeframe is it possible to ascertain a comprehensive understanding of how the lawmakers and communities in ancient Israel would have viewed Ruth—not only those of her day but also in subsequent time periods looking back. The lawmakers and citizens in the Second Temple period would have brought their own bias to a reading of the text of Ruth and thus also a judgment concerning her status as a matriarch of Israel.

The literature of Qumran provides a unique window into the late Second Temple period regarding Israelite attitudes towards foreigners. It would be a mistake to dismiss the group at Qumran as an anomaly, irrelevant for understanding the Israelite culture and legal system of the time. In actuality, the group is a cross-section of the deep fragmentation among Israelites in the Second Temple period, echoing similar historical divisions among the Israelites as reflected in the biblical law code. Josephus documented this fragmentation, identifying no fewer than 24 Jewish sects in the first century CE. ³⁶ Each differed in its definition of the outsider; but the common theme was one of protectionism, each group circumscribing who was allowed in and who was excluded. ³⁷

Three key characteristics of the Qumran literature are important for understanding Ruth's final legal status within ancient Israel as an Israelite or a non-Israelite. The first is a redefinition by the lawmakers of both the Israelite and the foreigner. In Qumran, Israel was no longer the entire ‘nation’, now restricted to include only those within the sect. Its members understood themselves to be the only true remaining remnant of Israel. ³⁸

The insular position of the Israelites at Qumran is evident in their self-identification as ‭רוא ינב‬ ('Sons of Light'), ‭תמא ינב‬ ('Sons of Truth'), ‭קדעה ינב‬ ('Sons of Righteousness'), ‭םיברה‬ ('The Many'), ‭שדוק תיב‬ ('House of Holies'), and ‭דחיה‬ ('The Community'), in contrast to all outsiders labelled as ‭ךשוח ינב‬ ('Sons of Darkness'). ³⁹ The description of the Assembly at the End of Days in The Rule of the Congregation testifies to this exclusivity in its exhaustive list of those who were to be excluded from the community because of impurity, physical impairment, or advanced age (1QSa 2.3–11). ⁴⁰

This narrowing of Israelite identity paradoxically reintroduces the question of whether the ‭רג‬ exclusively referred to a foreigner living among Israelites, or to an Israelite away from his or her native land. The re-emergence of the biblical hospitality laws within Qumran makes this ambiguity particularly conspicuous. The Damascus Document, for example, invoked the Deuteronomic Code in an edict for the support of the poor and the ‭רג‬, but left open the possibility that these individuals were inside the community (CD 6.14–17, 21). ⁴¹ Given the lawmakers' appropriation of the title ‘Israel’ for themselves only, it again advances the question whether membership of the sect, under this title of ‘Israel’, was restricted to Israelites and thus the ‭םירג‬ in their midst were also Israelites of some strain. If so, the concern expressed in Qumran hospitality laws would be exclusively for the sect, its own members, and not outsiders. ⁴² Qumran's hospitality laws mirror the opaqueness of those in the Deuteronomic Code of the Hebrew Bible. As such, they suggest that Ruth, who would be as a widow clearly associated with the poor and the ‭רג‬ under biblical and Qumran law code, holds a not-fully-defined status within ancient Israel—or at the very least one that may represent both an Israelite and a non-Israelite under different scenarios.

As the lawmakers at Qumran constricted their definition of the Israelite, they correspondingly broadened the definition of the non-Israelite. The law code in the Dead Sea Scrolls identifies a non-Israelite as anyone outside the sect, regardless of whether this person be Gentile or Israelite under the previous biblical law code. The result is an emasculated ‭רג‬, no longer having the expanded rights—or responsibilities for that matter—that this individual enjoyed under earlier biblical law. The Qumranites accomplished this recasting of the foreigner by reinterpreting the laws of the Hebrew Bible. 4Q252 II, 5–8 provides an example of this, in which the author reconstrues Gen. 9.27 to exclude Japheth from Shem's dwelling, and instead suggests that God will dwell in this land previously given exclusively to Abraham. ⁴³ Marcus Tso contends that this is representative of the anti-Hellenistic polemic by the Israelites at Qumran seeking to exclude foreigners, particularly Greeks and Romans, from Israel. ⁴⁴ He argues, ‘It illustrates how scripture was applied to justify the goal of “ethnic cleansing”, which was part of the response to external pressures that arose from a particular self-identity, and expressed eschatologically in texts such as 1QM I, 5–7 and XVIII, 2–3’. ⁴⁵ This is reminiscent of Ezra's polemic following the Babylonian exile, and the push for a more exclusive view of the Israelite vis-à-vis the foreigner. In this case within Qumran, it is the ‭רג‬-Israelite, Abraham, who is stripped of his rights. As such, it furthers the argument that a ‭רג‬ may very well have multiple meanings: in some cases indicating a foreigner, and in others, an Israelite, who for one reason or another is viewed as the ‘other’.

As they modified the legal definition of the ‭רג‬, the lawmakers at Qumran also limited this individual's participation within the community. Joseph Baumgarten notes that the ‭רג‬ was allowed to participate in community meetings, for example, but only as a fourth rank after the priests, Levites, and Israelites (CD 14.4–6). ⁴⁶ Neither the ‭רג‬ nor the ‭רכנ־ןב‬ (ben-nēkār; ‘stranger’) was admitted to ‘the congregation of the Lord’, which the 4QFlorilegium interprets as a disqualification or exclusion from the eschatological new temple (4Q174 1–2 i 3–4). ⁴⁷ Here, Qumran evinces a return swing of the pendulum, closing the door that Isaiah previously opened for the ‭רכנה ינב‬. It is significant to note that no scroll other than the Damascus Document welcomes the ‭רג‬; the legal term is not even mentioned in the Community Rule, which outlines the community's key laws concerning participation. ⁴⁸ This omission further demonstrates the limitation of any integration of the ‭רג‬ into the Israelite society at Qumran and a markedly negative view of the ‭רג‬. It suggests that the ultimate destiny of the ‭רג‬ through exclusion from the eschatological temple is destruction along with the non-Israelite nations. Lawrence Schiffman explains,

The material studied here represents a paradox. On one hand, we have encountered non-Jews in what may be considered the classic position assigned to them by the Jewish legal system… On the other hand, some of the sectarian documents express an eschatological view that anticipates the future destruction of the non-Jews, together with those Jews who reject (or who are predestined to reject) sectarian doctrine and practice. For the Qumran sect, the messianic redemption is not to be the universal experience foretold by the prophet Isaiah; it was to be theirs and theirs alone. ⁴⁹

Examining Ruth in light of the Qumran literature, it is difficult to conceive of how these individuals would look back and consider her an Israelite, even after the commitment she makes to the Israelite community and expression of the wish to assimilate as one of ‘their people’ (Ruth 1.16). ⁵⁰ It is important to remember that the argument here is that Ruth's final status depends on both the laws of her community in her specific time period, but also on how the lawmakers of future periods will look back on history and view Ruth. If one historian distinguishes her by a certain status, while another casts her under the rubric of a different code, how does the reader reconcile the two? He or she cannot simply assign a desultory status to an individual that is not fully supported by the law code of one period, much less multiple periods.

A second characteristic of the Qumran law code that helps to illuminate Ruth's final status is the emphasis on purity as a mark of Israelite identity. The literature of Qumran provides numerous examples of purity serving as a lens through which the Israelites differentiate themselves from non-Israelites. 4QMMT, for example, bans intermarriage, citing that union with the ‭הנז השא‬, ‘outsider’ is forbidden so as not to ‘defile the holy seed’. ⁵¹ Christine Hayes argues that this ‭הנז השא‬ refers to an individual outside of the community, the label ‘unholy’ betraying the underlying belief of the lawmakers that this person is neither priest nor layperson as among the holy of Israel. ⁵² Several other documents cite purity concerns, segregating and/or banning the ‭רג‬ from the sanctuary and the council of the community (CD 14.3–6; 4QNah. 3–4, II, line 9; 4QF1 1.4; and 11QT 39–40). ⁵³ Hayes argues that the purity laws evident at Qumran emanate from biblical times, but notes that it is a particular type of impurity that the Qumran lawmakers target, often misunderstood. The notion that a Gentile possesses some manner of uncleanliness by way of a discharge, death, or disease, for example, is an inaccurate view of the purity lens through which the Israelites view Gentiles. Hayes cites the ‭רג‬ as a quintessential example and contends that ‘The strongest argument against an intrinsic or permanent Gentile ritual impurity is the partial and full assimilation of certain Gentiles into Israelite society in biblical times’. ⁵⁴ If the ‭רג‬ represented any kind of moral or physical impurity to the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible or at Qumran, they would not allow the ‭רג‬ within their borders until the individual purged himself or herself of the offense, only then allowing for reassimilation.

Hayes suggests the alternative term ‘genealogical impurity’ as a better representation of the purity laws of ancient Israel. She contends that the purity concerns of Ezra and Nehemiah originate from the Pentateuch; however ‘for Ezra, the issue is not purity of blood (the term “blood” does not appear in these contexts) but rather genealogical purity. The genealogical purity promoted in Ezra-Nehemiah refers to biological descent from full Israelite parents, undergirded by the notion of Israel as a holy seed.’ ⁵⁵ Such an understanding elucidates Isaiah's vision, suggesting that while foreigners may not be those present at the eschatological temple, an opening does exist for the sons of the foreigners—the descendants of the ‭םירג‬—who, unlike the ‭םירג‬, can indeed be Israelites.

Ruth, then, while not having the ability to become a full Israelite herself, could bear offspring who would be able to cross this border that she could not. It is Ruth's genealogical impurity which prevents her from becoming a fully accepted and equivalent Israelite. Hayes explains,

The exclusion of aliens from the temple is predicated both biblically and postbiblically on the alien's foreign, or profane, lineage and not on a principle of (intrinsic and permanent) impurity. According to the Temple Scroll, the blemish of profane seed can be overcome by the convert (ger) after several generations. ⁵⁶

According to Hayes, the polemic in Ezra and Ezekiel is not directed at the Gentiles per se, but merely an effort to protect the purity of Israel.

Hannah Harrington agrees, and suggests that the ancient Israelites both inside and outside of Qumran are ultimately concerned not with Jew vis-à-vis Gentile within the community, but instead purity vis-à-vis impurity. She argues,

The boundary lines between the outside and inside are drawn over internal Jewish halakha, and it is true that the main issues are not with Gentiles. At the center of the conflict are differences in interpretation of biblical purity matters… This list of differences over purity forms a decided barrier between who is considered ‘Israel’ and who is not. ⁵⁷

Harrington notes that ‘Even the Pharisees, who generally adopted a more flexible interpretation of purity than the Scroll authors, would not eat with an outsider, Jew or Gentile, and are said to have bathed after returning from the marketplace (Mark 7:3–4)’. ⁵⁸ The question of purity offers additional insight into the failure of the author of the book of Ruth to definitively assign her a status equal to an Israelite in the climax of the story in 4.11–12. This omission does not necessarily betray a sectarian motive, but perhaps rather an underlying concern on the part of the lawmakers to ensure that the purity laws be understood and observed by all who fall under the umbrella of Israel. Ruth's marriage to Boaz and commitment to the religion of the Israelites, in this view, is insufficient to satisfy this concern and fully meet the purity law requirements of the time.

A third and final facet of the Qumran law code that helps to demystify Ruth's final status is the impetus behind the law code changes. As in the Hebrew Bible, law code changes at Qumran are at times driven by the perilous political environment besieging the Israelites. External challenges consistently trigger the lawmakers' sectarian redefinition of Israelite and non-Israelite. Thus, the identification of Israelite and foreigner in the Second Temple period, and the rights assigned to each, have as much to do with the enemies of Israel as they do with genealogy or purity concerns. In the time between the rise of the Hasmoneans to the first Jewish-Roman war, the Israelites find themselves more and more under external influences: Hellenistic, Persian, Egyptian and Nabatean. ⁵⁹ According to Josephus, it is during this period that the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, and Sicarii emerge. ⁶⁰ The Israelite lawmakers respond to the external threats not only by limiting foreign interaction with the community, but by establishing these internal barriers, thus becoming much less trusting of the perceived outsider. Tso explains that in the law code, ‘The markers of idolatry and circumcision, for example, though not frequently highlighted in the Scrolls, were apparently reinterpreted and reapplied by the sectarians to distinguish themselves from other Jews’. ⁶¹ When considering the broader history of the Israelites dating back to the time of Abraham, this development in Qumran parallels the similar, earlier buttressing of the city walls so to speak. The post-exilic polemic of Ezra reflects an analogous insular view of the Israelite in contrast to the foreigner. It explains how the lawmakers may at certain periods hold a more open view of Ruth's integration, while at others seem to close the doors and limit the participation of the ‭רג‬ or the ‭ירכנ‬ within society.

The law code at Qumran concerning foreigners helps to provide a more comprehensive understanding of this facet of ancient Israelite law and its development from pre-exilic times through to the late Second Temple period. Ruth's status, whether Israelite or non-Israelite, would have been a fluid, changing phenomenon, dependent upon the point in history from which one looked. Two lawmakers from two different times would likely have held different views on Ruth's identity within ancient Israel.

6. Conclusion and Implications

The evidence concerning ancient Israelite law code from its earliest incarnations through those of the Second Temple period makes it difficult to conceive how these societies could have viewed Ruth as an equivalent. Ethnically and genealogically, Ruth was not an Israelite. According to the the purity laws, Ruth was not an Israelite. The author of the book of Ruth never assigned Ruth a clear legal status as an Israelite. Despite her marriage to Boaz, as a first-generation resident alien the legal code did not recognize Ruth as an Israelite by title nor by any other commensurate means. The only legal status that could potentially equate Ruth to the Israelites was the ‭רג‬. The evidence, however, suggests that the Israelite societies held ambiguous and often conflicting views of the ‭םירג‬ in their midst. Because of the perpetually changing law code—and these changes being reactive to a fluid and often volatile political environment in which the ancient Israelites found themselves—neither the legal definition of an Israelite nor that of a foreigner was ever firm, from pre-exilic times to the late Second Temple period. Moreover, the law code of the ancient Israelites at no time provided a clear path for a foreigner to become an unqualified Israelite. The evidence suggests that the law code served merely to assimilate a resident alien as a contributing, functioning member of the community. The path for true Israelite-ness was open only for future generations, if at all; but never for the ‭רג‬ who resettled among the Israelites. In view of these data, Ruth cannot be considered a bonafide Israelite; she remained a partial foreigner even after her marriage to Boaz.

Such a contention concerning Ruth is significant both historically and theologically. In biblical tradition, the line of David, the monarchy, and subsequent generations and figures including Jesus of Nazareth descend from Ruth. If scholarship accepts her as a foreigner, it also acknowledges that the ancient and modern nation of Israel stems not from a pure ethnic line but rather one of various backgrounds and ethnicities. Ultimately, this is neither a profound nor a new observation. Many Israelite patriarchs in the Hebrew Bible married foreign women. This fact is often obscured, as the patrilineal genealogy definitions minimize the innate diversity of the Israelite heritage. Accepting Ruth as a foreigner simply underscores that the Israelite and Jewish identity is one of a variety of backgrounds that betray its complexity and uniqueness. Maintaining that Ruth was only a partial-Israelite does not invalidate her status as one of the chosen of God or her key role as a matriarch of the nation. Moreover, the identification of Ruth as a partial-foreigner, a partial-Israelite, demonstrates the creativity of the Israelites in the preservation of their identity and their existence under continually changing and threatening circumstances, whether those be political, social, or religious.

Accepting Ruth as a partial-foreigner also facilitates a nuanced understanding of the ancient Israelite hospitality laws and their intentions concerning protection. In recognizing a potential Israelite ethnicity in the ‭רג‬, scholarship must contemplate whether the safeguarding of the foreigner in the biblical and Qumran law code was not necessarily directed exclusively at the foreigner but rather at the Israelite. While not removing the charitable nature and concern expressed within the Bible, it does challenge the interpretation of the laws as well as potentially elucidate why these laws are so often repeated throughout the Hebrew Bible and other Israelite and Jewish literature. In the eyes of the ancient Israelite lawmakers, the strangers were not just aliens, the strangers were the Israelites themselves. The question of Ruth's legal status in ancient Israel underscores the difficulty in deciphering the boundary between Israelite and non-Israelite, Jew and non-Jew. Ruth dwelled on this boundary, an example of the mystery and complexity of what makes an Israelite an Israelite.