Richter provides one of the most beautiful summaries of the community in the book of Ruth as the “ideal eschatological community.” She cites Kathernine Doob Sakenfeld’s essay “Ruth 4, An Image of Eschatalogical Hope: Journeying with a Text.” This essay appears in Liberating Eschatology: Essays in Honor of Letty M. Russell.
the book of Ruth presents a picture of the ideal eschatological community and functions as “an extended metaphor for God’s New Creation.” With its picture of a community in which old and young alike are cared for, where there is physical sustenance for all, where ethnic identities cease to divide, and people participate in the divine חסד [kindness or love between people, of piety of people towards God as well as of love or mercy of God towards humanity], Ruth shows an “eschatological vision of future hope.” Sakenfeld notes that the hopefulness of the text stands out especially since the story of Ruth is set in the days of the judges, a time marked by Israelite warfare against enemy nations as well as internecine carnage in which women especially suffer (see, for example, Judg 19-21). So, into the midst of a time of warfare and struggle comes a picture of peace, righteousness, and plenty. God gives blessing and God’s name is blessed, and human fruitfulness is shown not only in the birth of Obed, but also in an entire genealogy of descendants.
The Enochic Watchers’ Template and the Gospel of Matthew. Richter, Amy Elizabeth, 126.
Is the community context of Ruth in the timeframe of the Judges in the minds of first century Christians as they read the Matthean genealogy? Richter references it in her dissertation which, by definition, should engage all the relevant scholarship on the topic, so one could say possibly. In any case, it’s a beautiful picture of the providence of God to fashion the wonderful out of a most difficult circumstance.