Ruth's Mother-In-Law

And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her.

Ruth 1:14 (Spoke 8, Cycle 1)

The bond of human relations is one of the strong themes of the little Book of Ruth. It manifests most clearly in the Chet KeyWords chov (bosom) and chavar (companion), which can be interpreted as the Hebrew Word Picture spelt Chet Beyt (Bosom) Resh (Person) - the "bosom person" is our "friend" indeed! This theme is found with unparalleled clarity in the opening verses with Ruth's vow of feality to her mother-in-law Naomi:

And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Ruth 1.15f (Spoke 8, Cycle 1)

And again, the main theme, with Boaz's action as Ruth's kinsman redeemer:

And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.

Ruth 2:11ff (Spoke 8, Cycle 1)

This theme is a manifestion of one of the primary meanings of Chet as a symbol of the bond (chebel) with a friend (chavar) as discussed in the Chet Alphabetic Verses. The word translated as trust is the Chet KeyWord Chasah. The great theme of Ruth integrates with many of the Chet KeyWords based on binding and enclosing, indeed, the name of Chet itself seems to come from the KeyWord Cheytz, denoting a wall or fence (from the Chet KeyWord Chetzah meaning divide). Exactly the same meaning manifests in another Chet KeyWord, Chomah (Wall), which is closely related to the words Cham and Chamoth which denotes the wife's father-in-law and mother-in-law. This then integrates with the ordinal position of Ruth in the Canon. The Book of Ruth is distinguished by containing 90% of all occurrences of the Chet KeyWord חמות (chamoth, mother-in-law, S# H2545). Here is a graph of the distribution:

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