<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>I believe it is the Sefer haTodaah where I saw this. I don't know where it is now, so I am writing from very old memory, and I may not have it all accurate, so please correct me. (Of course he probably brings it from Midroshim). Anyhow, after most of his sons were born, Yishai began to worry that Boaz was not in fact allowed to marry Rus. He then decided to take a shifcha (which would be permitted to a ben-Moavis even if a Moavis was asurah). I am not sure if he divorced his wife, maybe only separated from her. His wife decided to fool him and pretended to be the shifcha somehow. Neither Yishai nor the brothers knew about this and therefore they thought Dovid's birth was highly questionable. Therefore when Shmuel came and asked to see Yishai's sons they showed him
all the others & he had to ask if there was another. Dovid, the outcast, was out with the sheep.</DIV>
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<DIV>As I recall, The Sefer Hatodaah explains that all the strange and seemingly somewhat inappropriate events (all the way back to Yehudah and Tamar) were to hide the light of Moshiach and confuse the Satan.</DIV>
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<DIV>(By the way, I think ahavah-hav is from Michtav Me'Eliyahu).</DIV></div><br>
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