Commentary - Ruth 4:18-22

Bird's-eye view

The book of Ruth concludes with what might seem to modern readers like an afterthought, a simple list of names. But in the economy of Scripture, there are no throwaway lines, and this genealogy is anything but an afterthought. It is, in fact, the very point of the whole story. The entire narrative of Naomi's bitterness, Ruth's faithfulness, and Boaz's integrity has been driving to this exact spot. This is the punchline. God, in His meticulous and often unseen providence, has been working through famine, death, and desperation in a backwater town to bring forth the royal line of David. This genealogy connects the dots for us, running from Perez, the son of the scandalous union of Judah and Tamar, right down to Israel's greatest king. It is a glorious display of God's ability to bring clean things out of unclean, to weave grace into the most tangled of family histories, and to secure His covenant promises across the generations. This is not just a family tree; it is the scaffolding of redemption being erected in plain sight.

What we are reading here is the history of the gospel in miniature. It is a story of how God raises up a king for His people, a king who will ultimately point us to the final King, Jesus Christ. And notice the kind of people God uses. The line begins with Perez, born out of a sordid affair, and it runs through Boaz, whose own mother was Rahab the harlot. And of course, the whole story has just been about Ruth, a Moabitess, a woman from a nation under God's curse. This is the grace of God on full display. He does not build His kingdom with polished stones, but with rough-hewn rocks that He shapes for His own purposes. This genealogy is a declaration that the line of the Messiah is a line of grace, a line of redeemed sinners, which ought to give every last one of us a world of encouragement.

Outline

Context In Ruth

This final section of Ruth, verses 18 through 22, serves as the capstone for the entire book. Up to this point, the story has been intensely personal and local, focused on the plight of two widows and the kindness of a landowner in Bethlehem. But these last five verses zoom out, dramatically. They place this small-town love story onto the grand stage of redemptive history. The birth of Obed in the previous verses was a moment of localized joy for Naomi, but this genealogy reveals that Obed's birth has national, and indeed, international significance. It is the crucial link in the chain leading to King David.

The author is deliberately connecting his story back to the patriarchal narratives in Genesis, specifically to the line of Judah. The blessing of the elders in verse 12 explicitly invoked the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah. Now, the author shows us that this blessing was not just a pious wish; it was a prophetic reality. This genealogy anchors the story of Ruth and Boaz in God's covenant promises to Judah and demonstrates that God has been faithfully, if quietly, at work during the chaotic and often apostate period of the judges. This list of names is the proof that while Israel was doing what was right in their own eyes, God was doing what was right in His, preparing the way for His anointed king.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 18 Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez became the father of Hezron,

The genealogy begins not with Abraham, or Jacob, but with Perez. This is a deliberate and striking choice. Perez was the son of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, a union that was irregular, to say the least. By starting here, the author is reminding us that God's grace operates in the midst of human sin and failure. The line of the king, the line of the Messiah, is not a line of pristine saints. It is a line of sinners saved by grace. God took the mess of Genesis 38 and brought forth the ancestor of the king. This is a foundational principle of the gospel. God does not look for perfect people to work through; He creates a people for Himself out of the dust and mire of our fallen world. The word "generations" is the Hebrew word toledoth, the same word used throughout Genesis to structure the history of God's covenant people. Its use here signals that we are reading a continuation of that same sacred history. The story of Ruth is not a detour; it is the main road.

v. 19 and Hezron became the father of Ram, and Ram became the father of Amminadab,

These names, Hezron and Ram and Amminadab, are not household names for most of us. They represent the quiet, unseen generations. History does not record their great deeds or their notable failures. They simply lived, married, had children, and died, passing the covenantal baton from one generation to the next. And this is a profound encouragement. Most of Christian history is made up of the faithfulness of ordinary people whose names are not recorded in any book but the Lamb's Book of Life. They are the connective tissue of God's plan. God's kingdom advances not just through the explosive ministries of the Davids and the Pauls, but through the steady, plodding faithfulness of the Hezrons and the Rams. They kept the faith during the long years of Egyptian bondage, trusting in promises that they would not live to see fulfilled. Their faithfulness was essential, and God saw it, and He records their names here as a testimony to that fact.

v. 20 and Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon became the father of Salmah,

With Nahshon, we have a name that pops up elsewhere in the story of the Exodus. Nahshon, son of Amminadab, was the prince of the tribe of Judah during the wilderness wanderings (Numbers 1:7). Jewish tradition holds that he was the first man to step into the Red Sea, demonstrating great faith before the waters parted. Whether that tradition is accurate or not, he was a leader of God's people at a pivotal moment in their history. He saw the power of God in the plagues, the crossing of the sea, and the giving of the Law at Sinai. His son, Salmah, or Salmon as he is called in Matthew, is the next link. The line of the king is being preserved through the greatest moments of God's redemptive work in the Old Testament. These are not just names in a list; they are witnesses to the mighty acts of God.

v. 21 and Salmon became the father of Boaz, and Boaz became the father of Obed,

Here we arrive at the central characters of our story. Matthew's genealogy tells us something that Ruth's does not: Salmon married Rahab (Matt. 1:5), the harlot of Jericho. So Boaz, our noble kinsman-redeemer, was the son of a Canaanite prostitute who had been saved by faith. The grace of God in this lineage is becoming more and more explicit. God grafts in the Gentiles. He takes a woman who was dead in her trespasses and sins, a resident of a city devoted to destruction, and not only saves her but makes her a mother in the line of the Messiah. And her son, Boaz, reflects this grace. He sees a foreign woman, a Moabitess, gleaning in his field, and he extends to her a grace that is extraordinary. He redeems her, marries her, and together they have Obed. The name Obed means "servant," and he is the one who will serve the purpose of God by continuing the line. The child born of this union between a faithful Israelite and a redeemed Moabitess is a living picture of the gospel.

v. 22 and Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse became the father of David.

And here is the climax. This is where the whole book has been heading. Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. With the name of David, the story of Ruth is complete. The purpose of this little book was to tell us where David came from. He came from the faithfulness of God, working through the faithfulness of ordinary, and sometimes scandalous, people. He came from Bethlehem, the house of bread, the very town where his great-grandparents had found life and hope in the midst of famine and death. All the themes of the book, redemption, kindness, faithfulness, providence, find their resolution in the person of David, the man after God's own heart, the king of Israel. But of course, the story does not truly end with David. For David is the great type of the one who was to come, Jesus Christ, the Son of David. This genealogy is ultimately about Him. It is the story of how God, in His infinite wisdom and sovereign grace, prepared the way for the birth of His Son, who would also be born in Bethlehem, the Son of David and the Son of God, our ultimate Kinsman-Redeemer.

Application

First, we must learn to see the hand of God in the ordinary. This genealogy is a testament to God's work through the long, slow, and often uneventful process of generational succession. We are tempted to look for the spectacular, but God builds His kingdom through the daily faithfulness of His people. Raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, working diligently at your vocation, being a faithful member of your church, these are the things that build the house of God. Do not despise the day of small things.

Second, we must marvel at the grace of God that runs through this story like a scarlet thread. The line of David is populated by scandalous sinners and foreign outcasts. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth. This is not an accident. This is the design of God to show us that His salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone. If God can use these people to bring about His glorious purposes, then there is hope for you. No matter what your background, no matter what your past sins, the grace of God in Jesus Christ is sufficient to wash you clean and to make you a part of His family and His kingdom work.

Finally, this genealogy must point us to Christ. It ends with David, but David himself points forward to his greater Son. This is the story of how God provided a king for His people. And in the fullness of time, God sent the ultimate King, Jesus, born of this very line, in this very town. The entire Old Testament leans forward, yearning for His arrival. This list of names is a declaration that God keeps His promises. He promised a Redeemer, and He meticulously arranged all of human history to bring Him into the world at the appointed time. Our hope is not in our own family line or our own accomplishments, but in this King, Jesus, the son of David and the Son of God.