Naomi’s Commission: 4:14–15 Three times an unidentified group of Bethlehemite women speaks about or directly to Naomi in the book of Ruth. The first is in 1:19, “Can this be Naomi?” The second is here, in 4:14, Praise (lit. “blessed,” baruk; see 12) be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer (see 11). May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth. The third is in 4:17, “Naomi has a son.”

Structurally, the narrator underlines three key moments in the story by inserting the words of these women like a choros in a Greek play, though not in the rigid, black-or-white, tragic-versus-comic style commonly found in Atti…