King Daivd’s great-grandmother got her husband by sneaking into his bed with him after he fell asleep.

But it wasn’t her idea. It was her former mother-in-law’s -Naomi. Both were destitute widows at the time. Naomi and her husband had taken their sons from Bethlehem during a drought, and they moved to Moab in what is now Jordan. There, the son’s married Moabite women-Ruth and Oprah. But within about a decade, all three men were dead.

In that male-led culture, widows couldn’t own property and were helpless unless they could remarry or find relative to take them in. Naomi decided to go home, and she urged her daughters-in-law to go back to their parents. Oprah reluctantly agreed. Ruth refused: “I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16).

The two arrived in Bethlehem during barely harvest in early spring. Jewish law said the poor could follow behind harvesters and pick leftovers. Ruth did that, fortunately choosing the field of Boaz, one of Naomi’s relatives. Boaz took an immediate liking to Ruth because of her devotion to Naomi. So he told his harvesters to leave extra grain for her.