I remember in the 90s when you could buy Ruth-based wedding bands at James Avery Jewelers. In Hebrew, around the edge of the ring, it would say, in part, "Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God." So popular was this particular line of Ruth that it became part of the wedding vows in a lot of Christian weddings at the end of the twentieth century. That's probably what the book of Ruth is best known for in my generation. But it really is quite a good book.

Ruth and her sister-in-law Orpah are Moabite women, offspring of the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughters from Genesis 19. Of course, Ruth would not have known anything about that since about 1000 years separate the two stories. Oh, and another interesting thing of no real import: Oprah, the very famous talk show host and businesswoman, was named after Orpah in this story, but people so often mispronounced her name she adopted the current spelling. So there's something to share with people the next time the conversation at dinner comes to a standstill...