Ruth & Esther – Two Women who Changed the World

Two books in the Bible are named after women, Esther and Ruth. Both books describe marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew. Esther was a Jewish woman who married the Persian king Ahasuerus. The Moabite Ruth marries Boaz, a prominent Jewish man.

Another similarity is that both women have a special place in God’s plan. God used Esther to save the Jewish people from destruction. Ruth has an important role in the Messianic lineage, her great-grandson is David who is in the lineage of Jesus, see Matt 1:5.

There are also similarities with these books and the book of Job, where human suffering and tragedy is reflected from a man’s perspective. Here in the book of Ruth, the fate of several women is depicted. Two of the most vulnerable groups at this time were widows and foreigners. Naomi is an older widow, and Ruth is both a widow and a foreigner. The book has a positive ending, and this is due to three factors:

1. God has given instructions in Moses’ teaching to take care of these vulnerable groups.
2. There were people who had a good heart and followed these rules during this period.
3. God in his care arranged for the right people to be in the right place at the right time.

The Core Bible

The Core Bible is a new expanded translation. Where necessary, several words are used to try to convey the words of the original text and explain biblical concepts. The aim is to make the Bible accessible in the same way as it was written. However, it is impossible to capture all the nuances, interpretations and meanings, but we want to show the infinite depths of the Bible and inspire people to continue discovering more of God’s word and above all – God himself!
It is a blessing to have several translations. The Word of God is so rich and has so many dimensions, so the more translations you have, the clearer the basic text emerges. The translation uses the same concept as Amplified Bible, but differs in several ways.

The Core Bible uses parentheses and brackets as follows:
() – Expands the meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words.

[] – Additions allow the reader to better understand the passage by including references, modern weights, and measures.
You could say that the content of the parentheses and brackets are notes that are inserted in the text and formulated so that they can be read together with the Bible text if you want to. The reason why the explanations are found as brackets in the text, and not as notes, is that you do not have to jump with your eye to the notes, which often in turn refer to other Bible passages on another page. It is then easy to lose the context as a Bible reader. Instead, there are short, concise explanations in the middle of the text. In the same way that you can read or skip a note in a traditional Bible translation, you can choose to read or skip the text in brackets in the Core Bible.