The very placement of the Book of Ruth in the King James Bible as the transitional book between the era of the Judges and the era of the Kings of Israel and the four books of the kings history, is significant. As an introduction to the Kings of Israel, the ancestry of Christ the Holy King of Israel is set out.

Israel had envied the other nations surounding them. Israel was becoming discontent with their systems of judges and were beginning to desire to have a ruling king like unto the other nations about them. They considered that their weakness in comparison with the other nations was that the other nations had a strong centralized government in a single king and the power of such.

But a system of having a 'king' was not the best system. Israel's system of Judges of judging the people by the Law of Moses was superior and allowed the best exercise of man's individual agency in selecting the righteous way of the Lord over the way of sin. And that was this earth's test of agency to see if man would so choose righteousness over evil. A system of kings tended to take away individual liberties and the agency of the individual and made them subject to act according to the rule, dictates and will of a single figure in a king.

Nephi who had escaped the rule of wicked kings by being place in the land of promise states this about a system of kings, "If it could be assured that the king would always be a righteous king then it would be good to have a king, but since that was not always gauranteed that the king would be a righteous king Nephi warned against having a system of government which had kings. But even in the Book of Mormon the people desired to have kings and Nephi himself consented to be his people's first king.

One of the great dangers of having a king is the unrighteous rule of a dictatorial tyrant. And many of the kings that Israel would have been aquiated with often placed themselve above the people and the rule of law. They even ventured to make themselves 'Gods' as in the case of the Pharoahs of Egypt and the kings of Babylon. They considered themselves as chosen by God, God's representative, and raised themselves to the level of being a God themselve in a number of cases. This line of thought continued through the reign of kings and dictators from the Roman 'Ceasars' down to the British Kings who set themselves as the heads of 'God's Church' in the Church of England.

This was a corruption of the concept of the rule of God himself. Even the Patriarch of the Book of Ruth, who is the legal and rightful ancestory of the Kings of Israel and Christ, bore a name which would remind Israel who was their 'rightful king.' Elimelech was the rightful and legal ancestor to the Kings of Israel beginning with David and on to David's eventual great descendant in the Messiah. And Elimelech's name meant 'God is King.' And even though Elimelech's rightful heirs would become the Kings of Israel and the ancestors to the Christ, it would be well for each of those kings to recognize and subject themselves to God's rule as the Almighty King of Heaven and Earth for Israel's King was and is God.

Now Boaz was the blood ancestor of Obed, Jesse, David and so forth, but the legal and rightful ancestor was Elimelech the Ephrathite or Ephraimite. Boaz, Naomi's near kinsman, a Jew, took upon himself to raise up seed to the dead according to the Law of Moses. The Book of Ruth so states it and the conformities of Boaz's acts the words recorded in the Book of Ruth, particularly the fourth chapter, set out that Boaz was acting according to the Law of Moses in taking a 'brother's widow' to wife inorder to raise up seed to the dead. The dead being the House of Elimelech and his sons Mahlon and Chilion.

Boaz assumes all the property of Mahlon and Chilion the inheritance and birthrights of that family to be placed upon the head of Boaz's and Ruth's first born son. That son was Obed. And Obed became heir to that birthright of the House of Elimelech as there was no male heir of Elimelech. Obed therefore was legally and rightfully the seed and heir of the dead, Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites or Ephraimites of the House of Joseph throuh Ephraim. Thus Christ was legally and rightfully of the tribe of Ephraim though being of the blood of Judah.

As will be seen and presented in other such subsequent itemizations, the Jews even down to and beyond the time of Christ knew and understood this dual nature of the Messiah. And it was not until after the time of Christ that the Jewish Rabbis began to divide the Messiah into two personages. The one being Messiah Ben David (Judah) and Messiah Ben Joseph. This false division has clouded and obstructed the truth of the matter and has caused most all men to have lost a true and complete understanding of the ancestory or Jesus Christ through David the son of Jesse the son of Obed who was the legal and rightful son of Mahlon the son of Elimelech the Ephraimite.

Though the King James Bible places the Book of Ruth immediately following Judges and before I Samuel, there is a debatable question as to were the Book of Ruth belongs in the Biblical Cannon. Many today, including the Jews, do not treat it a either 'historical' or 'prophetical', but merely as a 'woman's story' of faith. Is it merely a ‘Woman’s Book’? Is it a ‘Poetic Book’? Or, is it a ‘Historical and Prohetic Book’? And so on, Etc.,.  And then there is the question as to when it was written and by whom? Many scholars attribute the prophet Samuel as being its author and placing it during the same period of the writing of Judges and 1 Samuel, which are also attributed to Samuel. Others suggest that Ruth was not written until the Babylonian captivity as late as 550 B.C. What is to be made of all this? Perhaps there is truth in various respects to all of this.

For an ‘authoritive source’, I turn to one of the most ancient writers of whom we have his original works, and that is Josephus. In his accounting of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, Ruth is placed as part of the book of Judges and not a separate book at all. This is where Ruth fits historically, being in the days of the Judges and this is were we will leave it to be. Though the current Hebrew Scriptures places Ruth separate and not as a historical book to follow after Judges and before 1 Samuel at all. But this, like a many number of ‘corruptions’ of the ‘Hebrew Cannon’, can either be deemed to have occurred after Jesus’ day and in response to those events to which the ‘Jews’ did take exception to in Christ; or the separation of Ruth from Judges may well have occurred during the Babylonian captivity as part and particle of that period’s editing, added commentary and compilation of the Jewish Cannon in Babylon.

This latter would account for some thinking that Ruth was ‘written’ at the 550 B.C. date in Babylon when in fact I was merely ‘edited’ out of the book of Judges and placed separate with the distinction of adding the commentary as to Obed being descended from Boaz the Jew rather than Elimelech the Ephraimite. After all, by these later dates, the Jews did consider that they had prevailed in Israel because those of the kingdom of Ephraim had been so departed and scattered to be deemed as ‘lost’. And certainly the Jews would declare the ancestry of David to be of that of Judah and they would be quite less likely to subscribe to the fact that Obed was legally and rightfully of the promised covenant line and house of Ephraim. There position at best would have been to ‘let Ephraim declare himself’, we declare the Messiah to be of the Jews. Yet they did reject him when he did come.

But thus it is, that Ruth was not a separate book at all when penned by its original author. It was part and parceled with the historical book of the history of the Judges. And when it is so considered there is much which can be derived as significant which can easily be overlooked when such is not understood. The least of which is the contrast between that the corruption of the judges had become such that there was to be deemed ‘No King in Isreal’, NOT that Jehovah was not their King, but that they had so come to reject the Lord and pursue after the things of the natural man to the extent that they feared not God and looked to the ways of men and sought after a king after the manner of the flesh.

This fact was recorded four times in the book of Judges and in the last verse, verse 25, of chapter 21 of the Book of Judges. It is significant that it was declared that there was declared ‘there was no king in Israel’ just prior to Samuel’s recording, ‘in the same book’ according to Josephus, that there was one man still in the days of the Judges who did so believe that there was yet ‘God as King of Israel’ to have been so named in his elder age by the name of Elimelech, ‘God Is My King’. This ought to have been the position of the whole of Israel and not that one merely one man and his family. There is the subscribed contrast so presented by Samuel in so writing the record as one that is lost when it is so divided asunder by the Jewish editors and compilers of the later ‘Hebrew Scriptures’, which ought to be more properly denoted as the scriptures according to the Jews rather than attributing them to the whole of the Hebrews.

In this light, it would be of no big surprise to find in the brass plates of the tribe of Joseph that the account of ‘Ruth’ is not so separated from the Book of Judges but is included in that record as a part of the same account, history and writing of Samuel the prophet. Samuel after all was of those priestly Levites who did minister unto the tribe of Ephraim in the land of Ramah of Mount Ephraim (1 Samuel 1:1). It seems further quite significant that the priest of the temple had become such a priest of Ephraim, the prophetic writer of the scriptures who followed after such as Moses and Joshua.

And thus it would seem that the Jewish dissection of the scriptures was more than just to establish their point of perspective that Obed was of Judah through Boaz, but also their dissection was further to dissect and down play Ephraim’s connection to the whole of it whether through Joshua, Elimelch or even Samuel the priest of Ephraim. Put these pieces back together properly and there is to be found a strong Ephraimite connection and over tone throughout the whole of it, which has been lost due to the Jewish editing.

When one places the account of Elimelech and his family back as part of the record of the Judges it begins to tie many things together. Judges 21:25 decries Israel state of righteousness as having turned from considering God as their King. This is the cause of the physical famine as well as being the spiritual famine from having among then God’s word and direction. When one associates the famine from being associated with God and God placing the state of famine upon Israel in order to so humble them if possible, the two records come together. And the one family who still holds to God as King have to depart from Israel in order to seek their own survival.

The Jews in their separation of the record into two show forth their hypocritical perspective when they in their traditions discount Elimelech’s sons because of their Moabite marriage associations but fully accept and extol Boaz’s marriage to the same Ruth to whom Mahlon was so married and associated with. This is the fault of declaring the sins of others but accepting the same as righteousness in one’s self. If it was wrong for Elimelech’s sons to associate with and marry a Moabite then it would be just as wrong for Boaz to do. Right? The fact is that the Moabites were just as much Shemites as were the house of Laban from which both Issac and Jacob sought their wives. The Moabites being the descendants of Lot make them all of the same family as from whom Abraham did come. Thus Elimelech and his sons seeking unto Moab for sustenance and for wives is no more out of character than for Isaac and Jacob to seek unto Haran from a wife of their kinsmen in Rebecca and Rachel. Thus Ruth is of that same tradition and not that much out of character though the record of the Jews make it to be so and which committing the same themselves in Boaz’ marriage to that same Ruth to whom Mahlon was also married.

The actual motive of denouncing Elimelech’s actions is but to discount the family of Elimelech and promote the Jews above them through such discriminations against them. The fact is rather that Elimelech was the example that Samuel held up as he who still recognized the ‘God was the King’ of Israel, thus the named he earn so meant and indicated exactly that state in which Elimelech ought to be viewed and found according to Samuel’s original intent.

Further, if one is to remove the later added notations of commentary of the Jewish ancestry by the Jewish compiler in Babylon when he divided the record and declared the Jewish ancestry of Boaz over the Ephraimite ancestry of Elimelech and Mahlon in Ruth’s first born son Obed by Levirate marriage, the whole of the account of Elimelech’s family is more to the declaration of the preservation of the promised seed in Israel by that family of Ephraim than it is of Boaz’s Jewish descent.

After the Jewish compilers of their scriptures separated the account of the family who preserved ‘God As King’ in Israel, Elimelech, from being a part of the record of the Judges, they have placed it one of five ‘Megiloth’ (Scrolls), each of which are read once a year at the times of various Jewish feasts as follows:

And thus is the ‘story of Ruth’ placed between Song of Solomon and Lamentations in the modern Hebrew Bible. Many Christians seem to like this arrangement and perhaps see in the fact that Ruth is read on Pentecost as perhaps suggestive to the Christian Pentecost and consideration of the ‘birthday of the church of Jesus Christ’. But Jesus had already established his church during his day with the ordinances of baptism and with various church officers as the apostles already in place prior to the ‘Christian celebrated Pentecost’.

In the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate and the Talmud, the book of Ruth at least still follows Judges though it is separated from it as opposed to what Josephus has stated concerning its rightful positioning as a part of the book of Judges itself. And with that consideration it ought to be well established that Ruth does seem closely associated and related to the last several chapters of the book of Judges as it was once written as such by its originator to begin with.

In addition to the contrast between all of Israel forsaking their king and claiming to have no king and Elimelech whose name implies that ‘His King is God’, namely Jehovah, the following may also be considered:

This contrast would have been intentional on the part of Samuel. He presided over and was told of God to allow Israel’s turning from God, the failed system of Judges to a king of men. That despair of Israel’s current situation was even then being eventually redeemed and recovered by the restoration of the covenant seed of Elimelech in the vicarious performance of the surrogate parenting of Boaz by Ruth in Obed and that posterity unto Christ. This is Samuel’s message in his contrast. It would not even be surprising to one day find that a part of Samuel’s record even mentioned the Christ more specifically than has been retained by the Jews of that divided and so annotated record by them. Thus Samuel has so presented hope in the face of despair, not leaving his record with a positive outlook as has the present ending of the truncated book of Judges that we have today. This puts back many implied meanings of the often repeated theme of the prophets, that through all of Israel’s failures and departures from God, God is over them still in the covenant and will still preserve and redeem them.

Since Ruth was a part of the book of the history of the Judges, it is presumed that it was all written after the days of the judges as a history of that time by Samuel who transcends the transition from the system of judges to the appointing of Israel’s first two Kings, Saul and later David in the stead of Saul while Saul yet lived. Thus when the account of the family of Elimelech begins with ‘in the days when the judges governed’, it is of little separation from the rest of the book of Judges, as all of the book is of a historical nature, being written after the events of the Judges by Samuel.

Customs evolve, the practices of the Law of Moses concerning the process of establishing Levirate marriage has evolved. That in Samuel’s later days, that which was in Moses day, and even in Boaz’s day could well of so evolved (Ruth 4:7), or being a compiled, edited and with added later commentary in various transcriptions, the note of ‘in former times in

Israel’ could have been an added note at any later such compilation or transcription process. Genesis, of which Moses was the original writer, has many such ‘commentary editorials’ added which were defiantly NOT written by Moses but were later added by such transcribers and compilers of the records. This has even suggested to some that parts of the first five books of Moses were not written by Moses. The fact is they were, but such added notes and commentary to given more modern reads insight, have been so added by such later compilers and transcribers of all the records.

Some suggest that since Solomon was not mentioned in the given genealogy which ties Ruth of the house of Elimelech as ancestor to David, that Ruth was written before the time of Solomon but after David was King. That Solomon was not mentioned is not significant. It might as well denote that Christ’s true linage was not by Solomon at all but David’s son Nathan, which was not known until Christ’s actual birth of Joseph and Mary. Perhaps Ruth was not written before that time. Such reasoning is faulty. Solomon was not mentioned, just as many such kings after David’s covenant promise were also not named, as the most likely time of these additional notes of ancestry in what is Ruth chapter 4 of the English Bible were added at the compilation of the Bible in Babylon at the time of the captivity.

The days and time of Elimelech’s family was probably around 1150, toward the end of the Judges with David, Jesse and even an aged Obed being contemporary with Saul as King. This places Ruth and even Boaz within a generation or two of Saul and likely more towards the age of young Samuel and his mother Hannah. That Boaz’s mother is stated to be Rahab by Matthew, who was of Jericho in time of Joshua before the beginning of Judges some 200 years before. This is likely one of Matthew’s genealogical short cuts to keep 14 generations between each of his groupings. It is more likely that Rahab, if Boaz’s ancestor, would have be further removed by perhaps at least two generations. Jewish tradition make that Rahab of Joshua’s time a wife unto Joshua, thus it is conceivable that one of her daughters by him is the actual nearer ancestor and possible immediate mother of Boaz than presented by Matthew’s purposefully abridged genealogy. And this could will be the ‘kinsman’ relationship between Boaz and Elimelech, both being of that family of Joshua though Boaz would be by ‘maternal’ parenthood, being ‘paternally’ descended from Judah.

Now there are various Biblical timeline perspectives. Some count the duration of the Judges as long as some 350 years, from 1450 to 1100 B.C., and others as little as 150 years, from 1210 to 1060 B.C. An LDS perspective charting yields about about 320 years, from 1360 to 1140 B.C. Whatever the duration, it is quite apparent that Joshua and particularly Rachab who lived some 50 years before that time during the time of Jericho, could possibly be the immediate parent of Boaz who lived and married Ruth towards the end of the Judges according to Josephus and good logical reasoning. And though both Ruth chapter 4 and 1 Chronicles 2, make Boaz son of Salmon or Salma, the time from between the time of Salmon, a supposed contemporary of Joshua, and Boaz, a contemporary of Eli and Elimelech, is so great to necessitate the conclusion that some generations are missing from that genealogy and perhaps purposefully so on the part of the Jews. Even splitting the difference between Rachab and Boaz, Rachab would have been over 100 years old at Boaz’ birth and Boaz would have also been over that old at Obed’s birth. If Rachab was born about by 1400 B.C., Jericho’s battle about 1380 B.C. with Rachab a grown woman and ‘Innkeeper’,  the Judges begin about 1350 B.C. and Rachab has Boaz about 1270 B.C. at age 130+? Then Boaz would be about 130 in 1140 B.C. and 170 if living by 1100 B.C. with the Samuel ending about 1040 B.C. according to the LDS provided chart. That would place Obed’s birth at about 1140 at the time of Eli the Judge and Priest of Israel, Jesse at about 1115 when Samuel would have become Priest and Judge, and David’s birth about 1070 B.C, with

David being anointed to be king by Samuel in his ending days. While Boaz was older than Ruth, it is quite unlikely that he was over 100 years old as this scenario requires. And it is more than likely that Rachab would not have been bearing children in such an elderly condition of 140 years old, making it requisite for Boaz to all the more older, say over 200 years old, when he would have begat Obed of Ruth?

Only Joshua and Caleb so lived to enter the promised land. All others who came out of Egypt of the older generation would have passed on, which includes Nahshon. Though that is not the critical consideration, it does place an additional perspective of age, that Salmon was born before Jericho in the wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel under Moses and certainly many years before the beginning of the Judges. And Boaz lived and married Ruth in the ‘reign of Eli’ toward the end of the Judges, some 300 years apart. What is critical is that Rachab, who would have been born prior to Jericho and had attained her adulthood by then, is supposed to be Boaz’ immediate mother? That is Rachab born about 1400 B.C. is only grandmother of Obed born 1140 B.C., some 260 years later? The logic of reason is not in it. This is NOT the days of Adam. It is the days of the Judges and the Kings. People are not living and bearing Children at such ages any longer. Even Sarah was only 90 when she bore Isaac, and Abraham 100. Rachab and/or Boaz is to be many years much older than that?

It does seem that by way of intellectually muddling his way through the purpose and reason for the writing and placement of the Book of Ruth, Reuss did stumble upon the truth of the matter. And that is that Obed was legally, through Mahlon, the successor and heir of the Ephraimite birthright and that via his son Jesse and his grandson David the Davidic dynasty was really Ephraimitic and thereby had legal right to the covenant of God and ancestry to the Messiah which had been preserved through such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Reuss put forth that Ruth was written to pave the way for a reunion of the two kingdoms by showing that there could be no objection on the part of the Ephraimites. Reuss missed the simple purpose of the Book of Ruth as that of showing the ancestry of the Messiah and that also in its edited rewritings the Book of Ruth had been removed from the large text of Judges and was originally a history of that date and time when Israel sought for a king from among men rather than to rely upon God as their authorized King. The period name of Elimelech itself did so mean and state that God was/is King. (see The Book of Ruth, by Louis Bernard Wolfenson, M.A., A Dissertation submitted to the Board of University Studies of the John Hopkins University with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Baltimore, Maryland (February, 1907) 1911, pages 18-19.)

Now the concept that Obed, Jesse and the house of David is in truth Ephraimite is not just of new and recent date. This though I, the preparer of this text did come across that understanding honestly and of my own investigation prior to any such discoveries that others had so considered it previously for various reasons and causes of their own. In my studies I have come across a number of others who have concluded upon it, but like Reuss their surrounding purpose and reasoning is not alway compatible with the simple truth that Jesus is both Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph. And that also David did have the bloodline of Judah from Boaz as well as being the legal and rightful heir of the covenant through Mahlon and Elimelech back through such as Joshua and Nun and thence through Ephraim and Joseph from Jacob the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham.

Thus I do not claim to have originated the concept as I believe it is there for anyone to so find it as it is so clearly there to be found in the written word of the scriptures and the supporting literature and history of it.