Ruth

Convert to Judaism and Great-Grandmother of King David

By Ariela Pelaia for About.com

According to the biblical Book of Ruth, Ruth was a Moabite woman who married into an Israelite family and eventually converted to Judaism. She is the great-grandmother of King David and hence an ancestor of the Messiah.
Ruth Converts to Judaism

Ruth's story begins when an Israelite woman, named Naomi, and her husband, Elimelech, leave their hometown of Bethlehem. Israel is suffering from famine and they decide to relocate to the nearby nation of Moab. Eventually Naomi's husband dies and Naomi's sons marry Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth.

After ten years of marriage both of Naomi's sons die of unknown causes and she decides that it is time to return to her homeland of Israel. The famine has subsided and she no longer has immediate family in Moab. Naomi tells her daughters-in-law about her plans and both of them say they want to go with her. But they are young women with every chance of remarrying, so Naomi advises them to stay in their homeland, remarry and begin new lives. Orpah eventually agrees, but Ruth insists upon staying with Naomi. "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you," Ruth tells Naomi. "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." (Ruth 1:16).

Ruth's statement not only proclaims her loyalty to Naomi but her desire to join Naomi's people - the Jewish people. "In the thousands of years since Ruth spoke these words," writes Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, "no one has better defined the combination of peoplehood and religion that characterizes Judaism: 'Your people shall be my people' ('I wish to join the Jewish nation'), 'Your God shall be my God' ('I wish to accept the Jewish religion'). (Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph. "Biblical Literacy." pg. 359).

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