1

OLD TESTAMENT INTERPRETIVE COMMENTARY OF RUTH--OVERVIEW

The following research assignment is an independent study meant to reflect your research, study, and work. The
purpose of this assignment is for you to interpret the text from the original author to the original recipients
within the historical and cultural context. Exegesis (interpretive analysis) engages the historical, grammatical,
and literary meaning of the text.
This assignment is teaching you a basic method on how to prepare to teach Scripture from an exegetical
hermeneutic. After the completion of this assignment, you will be able to prepare expository messages based on
an exegetical method which is consistent with the meaning of the text from the original author to the original
recipients.
Your commentary paper will evidence a combination of original thought and insightful comments from
resources. The commentary paper will not be an extensive string of quotes from sources. You should avoid long
quotes that exceed 5 lines and are required to be block quotes.

Week 2: Title Page and Bibliography (26 pts.)

Create your title page and bibliography. The title page and bibliography must conform to Turabian
format. The bibliography should represent exegetical commentaries. The better your resources, the better your
paper. You need a minimum of 5 good resources (more are certainly welcome). Good resources are less than 50
years old and provide exegetical comments based on paragraph or verse units. These resources should not be
primarily devotional in nature. Websites and internet blogs that are not peer-reviewed are unacceptable.
Journal articles are good, but understand that journal articles are often narrow in focus or propose
unique views that are not universally accepted. It is best to use commentaries that focus on detailed exegesis
of Ruth. These resources will make it easier for you to write a substantive commentary. Commentaries such as
the Pulpit, Jamieson-Faussett-Brown, Weirsbe, McGhee, and Matthew Henry are too old or too devotional.
Commentaries such as NICOT, Expositors Bible, MacArthur, New American Commentary, NIV Application,
and Word Biblical are good examples. You should consult with your pastor or others in your community to
gather these sources. There are Bible software programs that provide many of these sources as e-books. Journal
articles can be accessed through the Liberty University Library via the ATLA Religion databases. The LU
library staff is available to help you. There are LU videos to teach you how to access the library.

Week 7: Ruth Commentary (200 pts.)

Submit your completed Interpretive Commentary by the close of Module Seven. Keep in mind that you
are not writing a sermon; you are writing a commentary. You can produce sermons from the commentary, but
the commentary is not sermonic. The application portion of this paper is at the end of the assignment; the
commentary itself is interpretive. Read through your sources and highlight insightful comments that you want to
include in your commentary. You will need to be selective so that the commentary is not primarily a string of
quotes. If you are using digital media, you can cut and paste these comments into your outline. You should have
3-4 citations for each chapter of Ruth. Seek to have balanced research by having your citations evenly
distributed throughout your commentary. Make sure that you provide proper citations and footnotes for all
sources.

As you write your interpretive commentary, include the following 4 components: 1) an introduction to
the historical setting (approximately 200–300 words); 2) an exegetical outline of the book (that provides
structure for the commentary with content-oriented subheadings); 3) an interpretive commentary on Ruth for
chapters 1–4 (approximately 500 words per chapter); and 4) a conclusion that supports at least 3 applications to
the Christian life drawn from the interpretive analysis performed in the commentary (approximately 300–500
words). It is recommended that you use subheadings or subtitles to organize your commentary. Regarding the
 2

outline, this provides structure and a framework for your commentary that is more detailed than the four chapter
breaks alone. Look for breaks and transitions in subject matter (setting, characters, etc.) and literary markers as
you organize your outline. Paragraph breaks in the translation that you are using may provide the structural
breaks for your outline.

See the Obadiah sample commentary for ideas on how your Ruth commentary might develop in
structure, form, and content. This is only a sample—allow yourself some flexibility in how your Ruth
commentary best reflects your own work, analysis, and creativity.