Yehudah and Tamar / Boaz and Ruth: Déjà vu? (Vayeshev)
We are fascinated by the story of Ruth, a non-Israelite woman who, at her mother-in-law Naomi’s behest, seduces the much older and -according to tradition – widowed and childless Boaz.
As a childless widow, Ruth’s status mandates a levirate marriage with a kinsman of her late husband in order to bear a child that would carry forward the deceased husband’s lineage.
We all know that Ruth becomes the grandmother of King David. His claim to the throne is based on his descending from Yehudah, the fourth son of Yaakov and Leah.
Yehudah is blessed by his father to be the progenitor of Israelite royalty:
לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר שֵׁ֙בֶט֙ מִֽיהוּדָ֔ה וּמְחֹקֵ֖ק מִבֵּ֣ין רַגְלָ֑יו עַ֚ד כִּֽי־יָבֹ֣א שִׁילֹ֔ה וְל֖וֹ יִקְּהַ֥ת עַמִּֽים׃
The scepter shall not depart from Yehudah,Nor the ruler’s staff from between his legs;So that tribute shall come to himAnd the homage of peoples be his.
Bereishit/Genesis 49:10
Nevertheless, Yehudah’s own legacy does not emerge from any of the sons of his marriage to a nameless woman referred to only as “the Daughter of Shua”. All three of Yehudah’s sons – Er, Onan and Shelah – die intestate and predecease their father.
It is not until Yehudah, now a widower, is seduced by an apparent prostitute (Tamar, the widow of his first son Er) that he fathers a pair of twins, Peretz and Zerah. King David is a descendant of Yehudah via Peretz.
Yehudah’s greatness is made manifest by his readiness to confess that Tamar had righteously bested him, as he was the nearest surviving male relative of her husband Er who was entitled to have his name carried forth through a levirate marriage.
Tamar’s courage, and her ultimate vindication, should earn her the title of the Fifth Matriarch. She is the only one of Yaakov’s daughters-in-law to rise head and shoulders above the rest and empower her father-in-law/husband to emerge as the acknowledged primo inter pares among his brothers.
Now let us fast-forward some 6-700 years and we come upon a virtually identical story.
Ruth is the childless, non-Israelite widow of Mahlon. She is as determined and stalwart as Tamar was, insisting on her right to produce a son that might maintain the name of her late husband, Mahlon.
To achieve this, and following the detailed instructions of her mother-in-law Naomi, Ruth seduces the widowed, childless, unsuspecting, unaware, and much older Boaz in the dark of night. He, too, is away from home, camped out in the field for the harvest.
The textual parallels are exquisite:
וַיֻּגַּ֥ד לְתָמָ֖ר לֵאמֹ֑ר הִנֵּ֥ה חָמִ֛יךְ עֹלֶ֥ה תִמְנָ֖תָה לָגֹ֥ז צֹאנֽוֹ׃
And Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is coming up to Timnah for the sheepshearing.”
Bereishit 38:13
… וַתֹּ֧אמֶר לָ֣הּ נׇעֳמִ֗י קָר֥וֹב לָ֙נוּ֙ הָאִ֔ישׁ מִֽגֹּאֲלֵ֖נוּ הֽוּאֿ
…Naomi told her daughter-in-law, “the man is related to us; he is one of our redeeming kinsmen.”
Ruth 2:20
Both Tamar and Ruth are tipped off, and told where to find Yehudah and Boaz respectively. And both men are away from home attending to end-of-the-season chores.
And note the interesting linguistic use of the root word רגל which appears in both Yaakov’s blessing to Yehudah, and Ruth’s sexual interaction with Boaz:
לֹֽא־יָס֥וּר שֵׁ֙בֶט֙ מִֽיהוּדָ֔ה וּמְחֹקֵ֖ק מִבֵּ֣ין רַגְלָ֑יו…
The scepter shall not depart from Yehudah, Nor the ruler’s staff מִבֵּ֣ין רַגְלָ֑יו
from between his legs…
Bereishit 49:10
Now note how Naomi instructs Ruth:
… וְיָדַ֙עַתְּ֙ אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִשְׁכַּב־שָׁ֔ם וּבָ֛את וְגִלִּ֥ית מַרְגְּלֹתָ֖יו…
…. And you will know where he is laying, and you will come and uncover מַרְגְּלֹתָ֖יו what is between his legs.
Ruth 3:4
Both Yaakov and Naomi deploy the euphemism for the male organ. וּמְחֹקֵ֖ק מִבֵּ֣ין רַגְלָ֑יו in the case of Yaakov’s blessing, and וְגִלִּ֥ית מַרְגְּלֹתָ֖יו in the case of Naomi’s instructions
The stories of Tamar and Ruth are virtually identical:
- Yehudah and Boaz are much older widowers with no surviving sons.
- Yehudah’s deceased eldest son Er, and Naomi’s deceased son Mahlon, are entitled to have their names carried forward by way of levirate marriages for the widows Tamar and Ruth.
- Neither Er nor Mahlon have any living/suitable brothers, hence other kinsmen would have to fulfill this obligation.
- Left with no other recourse, both Tamar and Ruth must seduce Yehudah and Boaz in turn while these men are away in the field harvesting and sheep-shearing respectively.
- Both Tamar and Ruth are tipped off about where the men can be found. And both use subterfuge to have their way – Tamar by posing as a prostitute, Ruth by sneaking into Boaz’s tent in the dead of night while he is in deep sleep.
- We never get any sense that the sons they ultimately have in any way carry their late husband’s legacies. Indeed, they seem to be Yehudah’s and Boaz’s sons in every sense. Er and Mahlon are all but forgotten.
- Tamar becomes the matriarch of the Davidic line. So does Ruth.
The legacy that yields a David belongs to the genetic lineage of Yaakov through Yehudah, Peretz and Boaz. But it belongs no less – and perhaps more – to two very strong willed and non-Israelite women, Tamar and Ruth. And it is the power of these two very motivated women that delivers the Redeemer.
The men in these two stories are essentially passive elements. But the women are formidable characters who take their respective bulls by the horns (or the scepters between their legs). In so doing they literally determine the trajectory of our nation.