Today, (October 8th, 2026) the Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The winner will receive a gold medal and a little over a million dollars. I probably will not be familiar with the esteemed writer or his/her literature. I’m still trying to catch up on my high school English reading list.
Last year the prestigious award was given to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, “for a compelling and visionary oeuvre reaffirming art amid apocalyptic terror.” I’ll stick to Dickens, thank you.
ANYWAY—
I’m not here to talk about the Nobel prize, but the Noble prize.
I just finished a delightful four-week Bible study on the book of Ruth with some of my neighbors. There was a fair amount of head-scratching over some of the cultural references, such as when Ruth uncovered the feet of Boaz in the middle of the night. (As it turns out, it was a marriage proposal. He said yes.) We wondered why Boaz strapped a huge sack of barley on Ruth’s back. (Evidently, it was an engagement present.)
Everything was on the up-and-up.
There was no hanky-panky.
Because these two people were noble.
Boaz was “a prominent man of noble character.” Ruth 2:1
Ruth was “a woman of noble character.” Ruth 3:11
They win the Noble Prize.
In Hebrew Bibles, the book of Ruth comes right after the book of Proverbs,
which closes with a beautiful poem:
“The Wife of Noble Character.”
“A wife of noble character, who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies…
She is clothed with strength and dignity…
She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue…
Her husband praises her:
‘Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.'”
The Proverbs 31 woman just might be Ruth.
Ruth—
the Moabite outcast,
the widow with no hope and no future,
the daughter-in-law of an angry, bitter woman.
Ruth—
who married a godly man and birthed a baby boy in Bethlehem,
who became the great-grandmother of King David,
who continued the line of Judah so the Seed could arrive
and crush the serpent’s head.
Well done, Ruth.
You deserve to be praised at the city gate.
