of the Hebrew and the book’s obvious interest in King David (Ruth 4:17, 22) lend to an earlier date. Certain Aramaic phrases have led some commentators to propose it is much later, even after the return of the exiles from Babylon around 500 B.C. Some have suggested that Ruth was written after Nehemiah and Ezra as a response to the problem of foreign wives among the returning exiles (Ezra 9:1ff, Neh 13:23ff). However, this argument is not compelling. Ruth does not strike the reader as a later polemical