page_title: Boaz
section_title: Boaz and Ruth
hierarchical_section_title: Boaz / Rabbinic Jewish tradition / Boaz and Ruth
caption_attribution_description: English: Woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860. Deutsch: Holzschnitt aus "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860. Français&#160;: Gravure en bois pour «Die Bibel in Bildern», 1860.
context_page_description: Boaz is a biblical figure appearing in the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible and in the genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament and also the name of a pillar in the portico of the historic Temple in Jerusalem. The word is found 24 times in the Scriptures, two being in Greek.
  The root בעז, just used in the Bible in relation to "Boaz", perhaps expresses 'quick'. The etymology of the name has been suggested by many as be'oz, "in the strength of", or bo'oz, "in him strength" from the root 'zz, "to be strong", hence the use of the name "Boaz" for one of the pillars at the portico of the temple, although Biblical scholar Martin Noth preferred "of sharp mind".
context_section_description: Although Boaz was the prince of the people, he personally supervised the threshing of the grain in his barn, in order to circumvent any immorality or theft, both of which were rife in his days (Tan., Behar, ed. Buber, viii.; Ruth Rabba to iii. 7). Glad in his heart that the famine was over in Israel, he sought rest after having thanked God and studied for a while in the Torah (Tan., l.c.; Targum Ruth iii. 7; and Ruth Rabba ib.). Aroused out of his first sleep by Ruth, he was greatly frightened, as he thought that she was a devil; and he was convinced of the contrary only after touching the hair of her head, since devils were believed to be bald (Tan., l.c.). When he perceived the pure and holy intentions of Ruth he not only did not reprove her for her unusual behavior, but he blessed her, and gave her six measures of barley, indicating thereby that six pious men should spring from her, who would be gifted by God with six excellences (cf. Isaiah 11:2; Sanhedrin 93b; Numbers Rabba xiii. 11; Ruth Rabba and Targum to Ruth iii. 15; the names of the six men differ in these passages, but David and the Messiah are always among them). Boaz fulfilled the promises he had given to Ruth, and when his kinsman (the sources differ as to the precise relationship existing between them) would not marry her because he did not know the halakah which decreed that Moabite women were not excluded from the Israelitic community, Boaz himself married her (Ruth Rabba to iv. 1). Boaz was eighty and Ruth forty years old (idem to iii. 10.)
caption: Boaz meets Ruth, 1860 woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld
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