Ruth 4:18-22

‘ Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.'

The writer now closes his book in triumph. We have noted already that he has often liked to repeat ideas, and here he does so by adding the genealogy of Perez (already mentioned in Ruth 4:12) which leads up to the birth of King David (already spoken of in Ruth 4:21). King David was the king of Israel/Judah par excellence. He united the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, established Jerusalem, and expanded his empire in all directions, leaving a rich and powerful empire for his son Solomon to inherit. And it was to him that God made the promise that his seed would rule over God's people for ever (2 Samuel 7:11). In consequence of this ‘everlasting covenant' (Isaiah 55:3) the coming expected king (Genesis 49:10) was seen in terms of his name (Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:24; Hosea 3:5), the prophecies finally finding their fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘born of the seed of David according to the flesh, but declared to be the Son of God with power -- by the resurrection from the dead' (Romans 1:3).

The commencement of the genealogy with Perez connects back to the story that we have been considering, for in Ruth 4:12 the elders had prayed that Boaz's house might be as the house of Perez, who had also been born of a widow by means of a kinsman redeemer (Ruth 4:12). In this genealogy it is seen, therefore, that the house of Perez, and the house of Boaz, had both produced King David. And so the prophecy of the elders was fulfilled. That this genealogy is to be seen as an integral part of the narrative comes out in the chiasmus.

To us this genealogy is just a list of names, but to Israel, brought up to know their history, it was of deeper significance. They would be aware that the wife of Perez was Tamar (see on Ruth 4:12), and that Salmon married Rahab the Canaanite prostitute who saved the spies (Joshua 2; compare Matthew 1:5), and would recognise the parallel with Ruth the Moabitess. It will be noted that the genealogy is carefully worked out. There are ten generations from Perez to David, ten indicating a complete divine period, with five coming before the Exodus, and five following it. This reminds us of the ten generation for the patriarchs up to Noah (Genesis 5), and the ten generations from Noah to Abraham (Genesis 11), which probably similarly had omissions.

Perez was the son of Judah, begotten through Tamar (Genesis 38:29), with Tamar, by trickery, making Judah act as near kinsman. Thus Perez was born of a Levirate marriage. It is this parallel which explains why Perez and not Judah is highlighted. Perez then begat Hezron who is spoken of in Genesis 46:12 as being among the ‘sons' of Judah who emigrated to Egypt (being seen as in the loins of Judah, because he was not yet born but was required to make the number up to seventy, the number of intensified divine completeness). Hezron begat Ram, and Ram's son Amminadab is described as the father-in-law of Aaron, Aaron having married his daughter (Exodus 6:23). Amminadab was the father of Nahshon who is spoken of as a leading prince of Judah at the Exodus (Numbers 1:7; Numbers 2:3; Numbers 7:12). Thus the period from Perez to Nahshon, in other words from the departure from Canaan into Egypt, to the Exodus, is, if we ignore names that have been left out, described as consisting of four-to five generations. Timewise this is quite insufficient, but the answer to that is that only the prominent descendants are listed, Perez, as leader of the sub-tribe, Hezron as leader of one of the clans arising from the sub-tribe, Ram as the leader of the extended family, Amminadab as the leader of the family, and Nahshon the prince of Judah a the Exodus.

Nahshon then begat Salmon (or Salmah, a variation of the name - 1 Chronicles 2:11), whom Matthew 1:5 tells us became the husband of Rahab. Thus Salmon was involved in the Conquest. Salmon begat Boaz. That means that two generations at the most are supplied to cover the period from the Exodus to the time of Boaz, and only one generation from the Conquest. From this it will clearly be seen, and the writer would have been aware of it, that if Boaz is considered to be operating in the time of Gideon, some names must have been omitted. If he is seen as operating during the period of the late Judges period even more names have been omitted. But this is not surprising in that such deliberate omissions were in fact quite common in ancient genealogies (Matthew quite patently leaves names out of his genealogies in Matthew 1). Only the crucial names were often included, heads of tribes, heads of sub-tribes, heads of clans, and heads of wider families.

The final section, from Boaz to David, is then seen to consist of three to four generations. This would be sufficient if Boaz was operating in the late Judges period, but not if he was operating during the period of Gideon.

So the genealogy confirms that God's purpose in producing David was fulfilled through levirate marriage (Tamar and Ruth) and through ‘foreign women' (Rahab and Ruth), all of whom were then seen as true Israelites, indicating that God in His goodness reaches outside Israel and incorporates into His people those who are from other nationalities. And it was because of Ruth's involvement in the birth of David that the story of Ruth became accepted as Scripture.

Thus we may sum up what this verse teaches us:

· Firstly, that these are the antecedents of the great King David.

· Secondly, that God accepts foreigners and incorporates them into His chosen people Israel (this would turn into a flood when Jesus called the new Israel, the believing remnant, out of the old, resulting in the incorporation of many Gentiles into the true Israel as seen in Acts).

· Thirdly, that such proselytes, like Ruth, are seen by God as an integral part of His people and not just as second rate, and that their full acceptance is thus guaranteed (Genesis 12:48; this would have been important in the reign of David when many of his most loyal supporters were not native born Israelites, and when as part of his empire other peoples were faced with the claims of the covenant).

· Fourthly, that God works in mysterious ways in the bringing about of His purposes. Who would have seen the tragic circumstances of Naomi, who had deserted Israel and had gone into the land of Moab, and whose deceased sons had married Moabite women, as fertile ground for the birth of Israel's greatest King, and subsequently for the birth of the Messiah (Matthew 1).

· Fifthly, that God hears the heart cry of His people, bringing them from barrenness to fruitfulness. Compare how in Ruth 1:11 Naomi bewailed the fact that God had left her without sons, and how in the closing section of Ruth 4 He gave her a son (Ruth 4:17).