Naomi’s story

Naomi is as central to Ruth as the title character. She’s the one emptied, then filled; bereft and restored; dead and risen again. The son of Boaz and Ruth is “Naomi’s son,” and this chiastically matches (as several of my students have pointed out) her loss of sons at the beginning of the book. Naomi is the Hebrew widow, and the story, for all its interest in the Moabite Ruth, is also about the redemption of Israel.