Ruth 4:18–22

Ruth 4:18 — "Now this is the history of the generations of Perez" The formula ʾēlleh tôlĕdôt ("these are the generations of") is a solemn, deliberate echo of the structuring formula used throughout Genesis (cf. Gen 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 11:10). Its use here is not accidental. The author of Ruth signals that this final genealogy participates in the great chain of sacred history — not as a footnote, but as a continuation of the patriarchal narrative. Perez is the starting point. He was born of Tamar's scandalous union with Judah (Gen 38:29), a story of ambiguity, deceit, and ultimately unexpected righteousness — a structural parallel to the story of Ruth herself, another foreign woman who entered the covenant line through an unconventional union. By beginning with Perez, the genealogy deliberately links Ruth's story to that earlier tale of boundary-crossing fidelity.

Ruth 4:19 — Hezron and Ram Hezron and Ram are known from the tribal lists of Judah (Gen 46:12; Num 26:21; 1 Chr 2:9). They are intermediate figures — their names carry weight in Israel's genealogical memory but receive no narrative elaboration here. This restraint is itself meaningful: the genealogy does not linger on greatness but moves with purposeful economy. Each name is a link in a chain forged not by human ambition but by divine faithfulness.

Ruth 4:20 — Amminadab and Nahshon Amminadab and Nahshon are figures of genuine historical stature. Nahshon son of Amminadab was the prince of the tribe of Judah during the Exodus (Num 1:7; 2:3), a leader who according to rabbinic tradition was the first to plunge into the Red Sea before it parted — an act of heroic faith. His presence in the line grounds this genealogy not only in the patriarchal age but in the defining moment of Israel's liberation. The messianic line runs through the Exodus.

Ruth 4:20–21 — Salmon and Boaz Salmon is notable for his connection, in Matthew's genealogy, to Rahab the harlot of Jericho (Matt 1:5) — yet another foreign woman woven into the messianic tapestry. His son Boaz is, of course, the great protagonist of the book just concluded. The mention of Boaz here is a pivot point: in eleven previous chapters he was the figure of gōʾēl (kinsman-redeemer), generosity, and covenant fidelity; now he becomes simply a name in a list, a link in a chain larger than his own story. This is the biblical pattern of sanctified hiddenness: great figures become seeds for something greater.

Ruth 4:21–22 — Obed, Jesse, and David Obed — whose birth was the emotional climax of chapter 4:13–17, the child placed on Naomi's lap as a "restorer of life" — now appears as the penultimate link. He is not named for his own deeds but for his son Jesse and grandson David. The genealogy culminates in David with no fanfare, no title, no flourish: simply "Jesse became the father of David." Yet in the Hebrew imagination, David is never merely a king — he is the anointed one (māšîaḥ), the shepherd king, the man after God's own heart (1 Sam 13:14), and the vessel through whom God promises an everlasting dynasty (2 Sam 7:12–16). The book's final word — David — rings like a bell. Everything that preceded — the famine, the exile, the deaths, the loyalty of a Moabite widow, the midnight threshing floor encounter, the gate-court legal transaction — was oriented toward this name, and through this name, toward One greater still.

Catholic tradition reads this genealogy through multiple lenses simultaneously, and each deepens its significance.

The Typological Sense and the Catechism: The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Old Testament is replete with "types" — persons, events, and institutions that foreshadow the realities of the New Covenant (CCC §128–130). This genealogy is itself a type: it prefigures the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:1–17, which explicitly carries the line from "Abraham, father of Isaac… and Jesse the father of King David" through to "Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born." Ruth 4:18–22 is, in a real sense, the Old Testament matrix from which Matthew's opening chapter grows.

The Church Fathers on Providence: St. Augustine, in De Civitate Dei (City of God, Book XVII), reflects extensively on the Davidic lineage as the visible thread of the civitas Dei — the City of God — moving through history. For Augustine, no name in a sacred genealogy is superfluous; each person is a brick in the structure of salvation history. The presence of outsiders (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth) is for Augustine a sign of the universality of grace, prefiguring the Church drawn from all nations.

The Role of Foreign Women: St. John Chrysostom (Homily on Matthew, II) draws special attention to the irregular unions in the messianic line as evidence that Christ came not to be served by a blameless history, but to redeem a broken one. Ruth's Moabite origin — from a people excluded from Israel's assembly (Deut 23:3) — being incorporated into David's ancestry is a theological statement: grace is not constrained by human boundaries or ethnic limits.

The Davidic Covenant (CCC §2579; §436): The culmination in David is the culmination in the Davidic Covenant of 2 Samuel 7. The Catechism identifies David as the model of the king who prays and whose dynasty God establishes forever. Catholic theology reads this genealogy as the documentary preparation for the Incarnation: "He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David" (Luke 1:32).

The Dignity of the Ordinary: Pope St. John Paul II, in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem (§17), reflects on how women — often overlooked by ancient genealogical convention — appear at key junctures in salvation history precisely to highlight the gratuitousness of divine election. Ruth is the outstanding case in point.

This genealogy invites the contemporary Catholic to take seriously the hidden, long-term nature of God's providence. We live in a culture obsessed with immediate results and visible impact. The ten generations from Perez to David — encompassing centuries of ordinary births, unnamed struggles, and quiet fidelity — remind us that God's plans rarely conform to our timelines. The woman who prays daily for a wayward child may not see the fruit in her lifetime. The father who passes on the faith through mundane family ritual rather than dramatic witness may be, in God's design, a "Boaz" or an "Obed" — a link in a chain whose end he cannot see.

More concretely: this genealogy should transform how Catholics pray the Rosary's Joyful Mysteries and read Matthew 1 at Christmas. When we hear "the son of David" applied to Jesus, we should feel the full weight of Ruth's leap of faith — your people shall be my people, your God my God — echoing down through these ten names. Every sacramental marriage, every baptism, every act of ḥesed (loving-kindness) in a family is potentially another link in a chain God is weaving toward ends we cannot see. Fidelity in the ordinary is never merely ordinary.