Righteous Ibzan

The Biblical Account

The whole of what scripture relates about Ibzan is contained in Judges 12:8-10. He came from Bethlehem and judged Israel for seven years after the death of Jephthah. The text notes that he had thirty sons and thirty daughters; he sent his daughters to marry outside his own clan and brought in thirty wives from elsewhere for his sons, a detail traditionally read as a sign of his standing and the breadth of the alliances he secured. Upon his death he was buried at Bethlehem.

Commentators have long debated which Bethlehem is meant, since the name belonged both to a town in the territory of Zebulun in Galilee and to the more famous Bethlehem in Judah.

Traditional Accounts

Rabbinic tradition, preserved in the Talmud (Bava Batra 91a), identifies Ibzan with Boaz of the Book of Ruth, the kinsman who married the Moabite widow Ruth in Bethlehem of Judah; by this reckoning the couple became ancestors of King David four generations later. This identification is a tradition of interpretation rather than a statement of the biblical text, which names Ibzan and Boaz separately, and it is recorded here as such.