15:1–9 Chapter 15 begins a poem about Moab. Relationships between Judah and Moab, its neighbor on the east, were as fraught as relationships between Judah and Philistia—and Judah preserved longer memories of strife with Moab. The reference to Zoar recalled an unsavory story about the ancestor Moab’s origins within Abraham’s extended family (Gen. 19:30–38). Tensions with Moab were part of family relationships, and these can have an extra edge to them. There were more humorous as well as unsavory stories about Judah’s relationships with Moab on the way into the promised land (Num. 22:1–25:5). Thus prophecy warned and statute legislated against relationships with Moab (Mic. 6:5; Deut. 23:3; see also Isa. 11:14; 25:10). But the story of Ruth gives a different picture of everyday life where rel…