Bible Commentaries

Ruth Goes With Naomi to Bethlehem - Ruth 1

In the time of the judges Elimelech emigrated from Bethlehem in Judah intothe land of Moab, along with his wife Naomi, and his two sons Mahlonand Chilion, because of a famine in the land ( 1:1, 1:2). There Elimelechdied; and his two sons married Moabitish women, named Orpah and Ruth. But in the course of ten years they also died, so that Naomi and her twodaughters-in-law were left by themselves ( 1:3-5). When Naomi heardthat the Lord had once more blessed the land of Israel with bread, she setout with Orpah and Ruth to return home. But on the way she entreatedthem to turn back and remain with their relations in their own land; andOrpah did so ( 1:6-14). But Ruth declared that she would not leave hermother-in-law, and went with her to Bethlehem ( 1:15-22).

Elimelech's Emigration ( 1:1, 1:2). - By the word ויהי the following account is attached to other well-known events (see at Joshua 1:1); and by the definite statement, “in the days when judges judged,” it isassigned to the period of the judges generally. “A famine in the land,” i.e.,in the land of Israel, and not merely in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. The time of this famine cannot be determined with certainty, although itseems very natural to connect it, as Seb. Schmidt and others do, with thedevastation of the land by the Midianites (Judg 6); and there are severalthings which favour this. For example, the famine must have been a veryserious one, and not only have extended over the whole of the land ofIsrael, but have lasted several years, since it compelled Elimelech toemigrate into the land of the Moabites; and it was not till ten years hadelapsed, that his wife Naomi, who survived him, heard that Jehovah hadgiven His people bread again, and returned to her native land ( 1:4, 1:5).Now the Midianites oppressed Israel for seven years, and their invasionswere generally attended by a destruction of the produce of the soil (Judges 6:3-4), from which famine must necessarily have ensued. Moreover, theyextended their devastations as far as Gaza (Judges 6:4). And although it byno means follows with certainty from this, that they also came into theneighbourhood of Bethlehem, it is still less possible to draw the oppositeconclusion, as Bertheau does, from the fact they encamped in the valley ofJezreel (Judges 6:33), and were defeated there by Gideon, namely, that theydid not devastate the mountains of Judah, because the road from the plainof Jezreel to Gaza did not lie across those mountains. There is just as littleforce in the other objection raised by Bertheau, namely, that thegenealogical list in 4:18. would not place Boaz in the time ofGideon, but about the time of the Philistian supremacy over Israel, sincethis objection is founded partly upon an assumption that cannot beestablished, and partly upon an erroneous chronological calculation. For example, the assumption that every member is included in thischronological series cannot be established, inasmuch as unimportantmembers are often omitted from the genealogies, so that Obed the son ofBoaz might very well have been the grandfather of Jesse. And according tothe true chronological reckoning, the birth of David, who died in the year1015 b.c. at the age of seventy, fell in the year 1085, i.e., nine or ten yearsafter the victory gained by Samuel over the Philistines, or after thetermination of their forty years' rule over Israel, and only ninety-sevenyears after the death of Gideon (see the chronological table). Now David was the youngest of the eight sons of Jesse. If therefore weplace his birth in the fiftieth year of his father's life, Jesse would have beenborn in the first year of the Philistian oppression, or forty-eight years afterthe death of Gideon. Now it is quite possible that Jesse may also havebeen a younger son of Obed, and born in the fiftieth year of his father'slife; and if so, the birth of Obed would fall in the last years of Gideon. From this at any rate so much may be concluded with certainty, that Boazwas a contemporary of Gideon, and the emigration of Elimelech into theland of Moab may have taken place in the time of the Midianitishoppression. “To sojourn in the fields of Moab,” i.e., to live as a strangerthere. The form שׂדי ( 1:1, 1:2, 1:22, and 2:6) is not the constructstate singular, or only another form for שׂדה, as Bertheaumaintains, but the construct state plural of the absolute שׂדים, whichdoes not occur anywhere, it is true, but would be a perfectly regularformation (comp. Isaiah 32:12; 2 Samuel 1:21, etc.), as the construct statesingular is written שׂדה even in this book ( 1:6 and 4:3). Theuse of the singular in these passages for the land of the Moabites by nomeans proves that שׂדי must also be a singular, but may beexplained from the fact that the expression “the field (= the territory) ofMoab” alternates with the plural, “the fields of Moab.”

1:2-4

אפרתים, the plural of אפרתי, an adjectiveformation, not from אפרים,as in Judges 12:5, but from אפרת (Genesis 48:7) or אפרתה ( 4:11; Genesis 35:19), the oldname for Bethlehem, Ephrathite, i.e., sprung from Bethlehem, as in 1 Samuel 17:12. The names - Elimelech, i.e., to whom God is King; Naomi (נעמי, a contraction of נעמית, lxx ÍïïììåéVulg. Noëmi), i.e.,the gracious; Machlon, i.e., the weakly; and Chilion, pining - are genuineHebrew names; whereas the names of the Moabitish women, Orpah andRuth, who were married to Elimelech's sons, cannot be satisfactorilyexplained from the Hebrew, as the meaning given to Orpah, “turning theback,” is very arbitrary, and the derivation of Ruth from רעוּת, afriend, is quite uncertain. According to 4:10, Ruth was the wife of theelder son Mahlon. Marriage with daughters of the Moabites was notforbidden in the law, like marriages with Canaanitish women (Deuteronomy 7:3); itwas only the reception of Moabites into the congregation of the Lord thatwas forbidden (Deuteronomy 23:4).

1:5

“Thus the woman (Naomi) remained left (alone) of her two sonsand her husband.”

After the loss of her husband and her two sons, Naomi rose up out of thefields of Moab to return into the land of Judah, as she had heard thatJehovah had visited His people, i.e., had turned His favour towards themagain to give them bread. From the place where she had lived Naomi wentforth, along with her two daughters-in-law. These three went on the wayto return to the land of Judah. The expression “to return,” if taken strictly,only applies to Naomi, who really returned to Judah, whilst her daughters-in-law simply wished to accompany her thither.

“On the way,” i.e., when they had gone a part of the way, Naomi said toher two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each one to her mother's house,” - nother father's, though, according to 2:11, Ruth's father at any rate wasstill living, but her mother's, because maternal love knows best how tocomfort a daughter in her affliction. “Jehovah grant you that ye may find aresting-place, each one in the house of her husband,” i.e., that ye may bothbe happily married again. She then kissed them, to take leave of them (vid.,Genesis 31:28). The daughters-in-law, however, began to weep aloud, andsaid, “We will return with thee to thy people” כּי before a directstatement serves to strengthen it, and is almost equivalent to a positiveassurance.

Naomi endeavoured to dissuade them from this resolution, by settingbefore them the fact, that if they went with her, there would be no hope oftheir being married again, and enjoying the pleasures of life once more. “Have I yet sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?” Hermeaning is: I am not pregnant with sons, upon whom, as the youngerbrothers of Mahlon and Chilion, there would rest the obligation ofmarrying you, according to the Levitate law (Deuteronomy 25:5; Genesis 38:8). Andnot only have I no such hope as this, but, continues Naomi, in 1:12, 1:13, Ihave no prospect of having a husband and being blessed with children: “forI am too old to have a husband;” year, even if I could think of thisaltogether improbable thing as taking place, and assume the impossible aspossible; “If I should say, I have hope (of having a husband), yea, if Ishould have a husband to-night, and should even bear sons, would ye thenwait till they were grown, would ye then abstain from having husbands?”The כּי (if) before אמרתּי refers to both the perfectswhich follow. להן is the third pers. plur. neuter suffix הן with the prefix ל, as in Job 30:24, where הן is pointedwith seghol, on account of the toned syllable which follows, as here inpause in 1:9: lit. in these things, in that case, and hence in the sense oftherefore = לכן, as in Chaldee (e.g., Daniel 2:6, Daniel 2:9; Daniel 2:24, etc.). תּעגנה (vid., Isaiah 60:4, and Ewald, §195, a.), from עגן á λεγ. in Hebrew, which signifies in Aramaean to hold back, shutin; hence in the Talmud עגוּנה, a woman who lived retired in her ownhouse without a husband. Naomi supposes three cases in 1:12, of which each is more improbable, orrather more impossible, than the one before; and even if the impossiblecircumstance should be possible, that she should bear sons that very night,she could not in that case expect or advise her daughters-in-law to wait tillthese sons were grown up and could marry them, according to the Leviratelaw. In this there was involved the strongest persuasion to her daughters-in-law to give up their intention of going with her into the land of Judah,and a most urgent appeal to return to their mothers' houses, where, asyoung widows without children, they would not be altogether without theprospect of marrying again. One possible case Naomi left without notice,namely, that her daughters-in-law might be able to obtain other husbandsin Judah itself. She did not hint at this, in the first place, and perhapschiefly, from delicacy on account of the Moabitish descent of herdaughters-in-law, in which she saw that there would be an obstacle to theirbeing married in the land of Judah; and secondly, because Naomi could notdo anything herself to bring about such a connection, and wished toconfine herself therefore to the one point of making it clear to herdaughters that in her present state it was altogether out of her power toprovide connubial and domestic happiness for them in the land of Judah. She therefore merely fixed her mind upon the different possibilities of aLevirate marriage.

(Note: The objections raised by J. B. Carpzov against explaining 1:12 and 1:13 as referring to a Levirate marriage, - namely, that this is notto be thought of, because a Levirate marriage was simply binding uponbrothers of the deceased by the same father and mother, and uponbrothers who were living when he died, and not upon those bornafterwards-have been overthrown by Bertheau as being partly withoutfoundation, and partly beside the mark. In the first place, the lawrelating to the Levirate marriage speaks only of brothers of thedeceased, by which, according to the design of this institution, wemust certainly think of sons by one father, but not necessarily thesons by the same mother. Secondly, the law does indeed expresslyrequire marriage with the sister-in-law only of a brother who should bein existence when her husband died, but it does not distinctly exclude abrother born afterwards; and this is the more evident from the factthat, according to the account in Genesis 38:11, this duty was bindingupon brothers who were not grown up at the time, as soon as theyshould be old enough to marry. Lastly, Naomi merely says, in 1:12 , that she was not with child byher deceased husband; and when she does take into consideration, in 1:12 and 1:13, the possibility of a future pregnancy, she might eventhen be simply thinking of an alliance with some brother of herdeceased husband, and therefore of sons who would legally be regardedas sons of Elimelech. When Carpzov therefore defines the meaning ofher words in this manner, “I have indeed no more children to hopefor, to whom I could marry you in time, and I have no command overothers,” the first thought does not exhaust the meaning of the words,and the last is altogether foreign to the text.)

בּנתי אל, “not my daughters,” i.e., do not go with me; “forit has gone much more bitterly with me than with you.” מרר relates to her mournful lot. מכּם is comparative, “before you;” not“it grieveth me much on your account,” for which עליכם would beused, as in 2 Samuel 1:26. Moreover, this thought would not be in harmonywith the following clause: “for the hand of the Lord has gone out againstme,” i.e., the Lord has sorely smitten me, namely by taking away not onlymy husband, but also my two sons.

At these dissuasive words the daughters-in-law broke out into loudweeping again (תּשּׂנה with the א dropped for תּשּׂאנה, 1:9), and Orpah kissedher mother-in-law, and took leave of her toreturn to her mother's house; but Ruth clung to her (דּבק as inGenesis 2:24), forsaking her father and mother to go with Naomi into the landof Judah (vid., 2:11).

To the repeated entreaty of Naomi that she would follow her sister-in-lawand return to her people and her God, Ruth replied: “Entreat me not toleave thee, and to return away behind thee: for whither thou goest, I willgo; and where thou stayest, I will stay; thy people is my people, and thyGod my God! where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried. Jehovah do so to me, and more also (lit. and so may He add to do)! Deathalone shall divide between me and thee.” The words יסיף … יעשׂה י כּה are a frequently recurring formula in connectionwith an oath (cf. 1 Samuel 3:17; 1 Samuel 14:44; 1 Samuel 20:13, etc.), by which the personsearing called down upon himself a severe punishment in case he shouldnot keep his word or carry out his resolution. The following כּי isnot a particle used in swearing instead of אם in the sense of “if,”equivalent to “surely not,” as in 1 Samuel 20:12, in the oath which precedesthe formula, but answer to ὅτι in the sense of quod introducing thedeclaration, as in Genesis 22:16; 1 Samuel 20:13; 1 Kings 2:23; 2 Kings 3:14, etc.,signifying, I swear that death, and nothing else than death, shall separateus. Naomi was certainly serious in her intentions, and sincere in the advicewhich she gave to Ruth, and did not speak in this way merely to try herand put the state of her heart to the proof, “that it might be made manifestwhether she would adhere stedfastly to the God of Israel and to herself,despising temporal things and the hope of temporal possessions' (Seb. Schmidt). She had simply the earthly prosperity of her daughter-in-law inher mind, as she herself had been shaken in her faith in the wonderful waysand gracious guidance of the faithful covenant God by the bitter experienceof her own life.

(Note: “She thought of earthly things alone; and as at that time theJews almost universally were growing lax in the worship of God, soshe, having spent ten years among the Moabites, though it of littleconsequence whether they adhered to the religion of their fathers, towhich they had been accustomed from their infancy or went over tothe Jewish religion.” - Carpzov.)

With Ruth, however, it was evidently not merely strong affection andattachment by which she felt herself so drawn to her mother-in-law thatshe wished to live and die with her, but a leaning of her heart towards theGod of Israel and His laws, of which she herself was probably not yetfully conscious, but which she had acquired so strongly in her conjugalrelation and her intercourse with her Israelitish connections, that it was herearnest wish never to be separated from this people and its God (cf. 2:11).

As she insisted strongly upon going with her (התאמּץ, to stiffenone's self firmly upon a thing), Naomi gave up persuading her any more toreturn.

So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived, thewhole town was in commotion on their account (תּהם, imperf. Niph. of הוּם, as in 1 Samuel 4:5; 1 Kings 1:45). They said, “Is thisNaomi?” The subject to תּאמרנה is the inhabitants of the town,but chiefly the female portion of the inhabitants, who were the mostexcited at Naomi's return. This is the simplest way of explaining the use ofthe feminine in the verbs תּאמרנה and תּקראנה. In thesewords there was an expression of amazement, not so much at the fact thatNaomi was still alive, and had come back again, as at her returning in somournful a condition, as a solitary widow, without either husband or sons;for she replied ( 1:20), “Call me not Naomi (i.e., gracious), but Marah” (thebitter one), i.e., one who has experienced bitterness, “for the Almighty has made it very bitter to me. I, I went away full, and Jehovah has made me come back again empty. Why do ye call me Naomi, since Jehovah testifies against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me? “Full,” i.e., rich, not in money and property,but in the possession of a husband and two sons; a rich mother, but nowdeprived of all that makes a mother's heart rich, bereft of both husband andsons. “Testified against me,” by word and deed (as in Exodus 20:16; 2 Samuel 1:16). The rendering “He hath humbled me” (lxx, Vulg., Bertheau, etc.) isincorrect, as ענה with בּ and the construct state simply meansto trouble one's self with anything (Ecclesiastes 1:13), which is altogetherunsuitable here. - With 1:22 the account of the return of Naomi and herdaughter-in-law is brought to a close, and the statement that “they came toBethlehem in the time of the barley harvest” opens at the same time theway for the further course of the history. השּׁבה is pointed asa third pers. perf. with the article in a relative sense, as in 2:6 and 4:3. Here and at 2:6 it applies to Ruth; but in 4:3 to Naomi. המּה, the masculine, is used here, as it frequently is, for the feminineהנּה, as being the more common gender. The harvest, as awhole, commenced with the barley harvest (see at Leviticus 23:10-11).