And Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. Two more women appear: Rahab the Canaanite prostitute of Jericho who hid the spies and was saved by a scarlet cord (Joshua 2), and Ruth the Moabite widow whose loyalty to Naomi and to Israel's God became the foundation of her place in the covenant community. Both were outsiders who crossed into Israel through faith rather than birth. Ruth 4:17–22 traces the line from Ruth to David with quiet elegance — the foreigner's faithfulness producing the royal line. Matthew's genealogy is already doing what the gospel will do throughout: expanding the boundaries of who belongs to the story.

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