Francesco Hayez, Portrait of a woman as Ruth, 1835. In the public domain.

It has happened many times in my life that a brief comment made in passing has had a dramatic impact on my research interests or even changed the course of my life. For example, a throw-away line that some scholars read Jonah as parody, made in the course of a series of lectures on the Book of Jonah by a visiting academic to the University of Sydney,[1] inspired me to research humour in Jonah for my Honours thesis, and then go on to write a PhD thesis on reading Jonah as satire. I hadn’t planned at that stage to do Honours, let alone a PhD, so it was literally life-changing. Humour, parody, irony and satire in the Bible has continued to be my major research focus. So I was intrigued by a comment during a keynote address at the most recent Fellowship for Biblical Studies (FBS) Conference by Professor (Emerita) Suzanne Rutland, outlining the history of academic Biblical Studies in Australia, that Professor Maurice Goldman – the foundation Chair of Semitic studies at the University of Melbourne (1945) and a founder and first president of FBS (in 1950) had an interest in humour in the Hebrew Bible in general and in Jonah and Ruth in particular. His first presidential address on “Humour in the Hebrew Bible” was subsequently published in the Australian Biblical Review in 1952. Goldman cited the frequent use of puns on names in the book of Ruth and wordplays in Jonah as examples. Having now studied humour in the Bible for several years, those ideas are uncontroversial to me, however Goldman’s article apparently caused a bit of a stir at the time – perhaps not surprisingly because religion (and biblical studies) is serious business after all, and most scholars at the time saw little or no possibility of humour in the Bible.

Goldman noted that the Scroll of Ruth has many common characteristics with the story of Jonah. He argued that both were conceived at approximately the same time and both were written in the spirit of a protest against ultra-nationalism and super-patriotism. I was intrigued that Goldman sought to understand the use of humour in these books within their socio-political contexts, and while he and I might come to different conclusions about the historical, political and theological backgrounds, I recognised that we are both on the same page, so to speak. I decided that a closer look at Ruth should be one of my next research projects.

In his article on humour Goldman claims that “the whole scroll is  … full of puns on names” although he dedicates only two paragraphs to them. While this post is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive I’d like to flesh it out further. We are alerted by the (unnamed) writer of Ruth to the use of at least one name-pun:

Call me no longer Naomi, [which means pleasant]; call me Mara, [which means bitter], for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. (Ruth 1:20)

However, by the time we are alerted to this pun on Naomi’s name we have almost certainly encountered several others. First, there is a possible irony in the opening verse which says “there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem [which literally means “house of bread” or “place of food”] in Judah went to live in the fields of Moab”. That may be a coincidence, but in the very next verse we learn that his two sons were named Mahlon (which means sickly) and Chilion (which means frail). Some of the commentaries try to explain these odd name choices by explaining that in the ancient world infant mortality was high and so “Sickly” and “Frail” may not have been unusual names for children who might not have been expected to survive infancy. Seriously?! Are commentators so determined not to find humour that that is the best they can do?! These boys did, however, survive infancy and went on to become adults, marrying, and outliving their father. The text devotes just four verses to them ending, unsurprisingly, with “and they died.” I can think of three possible reasons for these odd names:

  1. These were their actual names, and they literally meant “Sickly” and “Frail”, possibly for the unconvincing reason I’ve just mentioned (well, it’s unconvincing to me). If you want to read Ruth as actual history then you are forced to take this approach.
  2. These were not their actual names, but their real names may have sounded similar to the words for sickly and frail and so the writer is playing with their names. This is a fairly common literary device in the Hebrew word, as I mentioned elsewhere with reference to a wordplay on the name Nabal in a story where his wife says to David “My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured fellow, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him” (1 Samuel 25:25). The pun isn’t obvious in the English translation but the explanation lets us know that one exists. In fact, the Hebrew Nabal נָבָל (more correctly pronounced Naval) means “foolish”, “worthless” or “good for nothing”.  Since it is unlikely his parents hated him so much as to call him “fool” from birth, scholars have discussed how the name might also be understood according to an alternative Semitic root meaning “noble.” The meaning “fool” would be a play on the double meaning of the name. It’s a word-play: his name may actually have meant “noble” but it sounded like the word for “fool” so it would be an easy way to denigrate him.” So here, with Mahlon and Chilion, the writer may have altered their names slightly to change their meanings to create a humorous wordplay.
  3. It is possible that the whole story is made up and these names were devised by the writer to describe the characters. This is precisely what John Bunyin did in his Pilgrim’s Progress with names such as Christian, Evangelist, Obstinate, Prudence, Faithful, and Pilgrim. What better names to give two characters who will die early in the story than Sickly and Frail? It also sets the scene where the dominant, strong characters are women – in contrast to the more typical male-centric patriarchal narratives.

The writer doesn’t stop with these three. The next two characters to be introduced are named Orpah and Ruth. The name Orpah is probably related to the Hebrew word for “neck” and so some scholars have suggested that it means “stiff-necked” or obstinate, although the Hebrew word more precisely means the back of the neck and is related to a verb which means “to turn ones neck” or “turn around”. Ruth is probably derived from a common Hebrew word for “friend” or “friendship”. It’s hardly surprising that as the story progresses Orpah turns around (although not with any negative connotations, she simply returns to her own country following Naomi’s instructions) while Ruth becomes Naomi’s friend (Ruth 1:14-17).

This leaves just two more main characters: Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, and Boaz, who becomes Ruth’s husband. Elimelech is fairly straightforward and means “my God is king” – a good Hebrew name for a faithful Israelite – while the meaning of Boaz is less certain and may come from a root meaning “to be strong” (it was the name given to one of the two pillars at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple [1 Kings 7:21], where “strength” would seem to be appropriate) or quite possibly “lively.” One scholar has suggested it means “of sharp mind.” Whatever it means, it is fairly certain that these two names are positive (in contrast to Mahlon and Chilion). After being married to Mahlon/Sickly, Ruth does much better with husband number two – Boaz/Strong. Ruth and Boaz have a son named Obed, which means “worshipper” and he becomes the father of Jesse, the father of David. The story which began with “My God is king” and journeys through death and despair in a foreign land, ends fairly appropriately with “Worshipper” back in the Promised Land.

What is the point of these puns? Are they simply to entertain, or to impress the reader that the writer is clever? Puns are often used in humorous or satirical contexts (although the mere presence of puns doesn’t mean the text is necessarily humourous), but is Ruth intended to be read that way? In an earlier post I argued that ” it seems that the whole point of the book of Ruth is to explain and perhaps smooth-over David’s Moabite ancestry.” In fact, the story ends with the geneology of David and the very last word of the book is “David” which is perhaps a clue that his connection to the story may indeed be the very point of the story. There certainly are some other side-issues which are worth exploring, such as the friendship between two women from different cultures (although we don’t know enough about the differences between Israelite and Moabite cultures at the time, owing largely to the lack of surviving Moabite literature to conclude much about this); the relationship between Ruth and her new husband Boaz; and the legal role of a kinsman-redeemer. At some time in the future I hope to explore the possible polemic purpose of the book, and the connection to the story of Lot and his daughters as the ancestors of the Moabites.

[1] Prof. Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg, now Professor (Emeritus) of Bible Studies at the Gordon Academic College, Haifa, Israel. At that time, if I recall correctly, he was the Chair of the Department of Bible and Jewish Culture at Beit Berl Academic College.