a. Ruth’s steadfastness (1:6–18)
2. The Return to Judah (1:6–22)
a. Ruth’s steadfastness (1:6–18)
Naomi had no further stake in Moab. The news that the famine that had brought the family there in the first place was over was sufficient to cause her to decide to return home. This led to a problem for her daughters-in-law which they faced in different ways. It brought from Ruth a magnificent declaration of loyalty.
6. Naomi began to return home. The verb translated arose (qûm), though often used of a literal rising from a prone position, is also frequently used to indicate the commencement of an action, especially of a journey (e.g. 1 Sam. 9:3, ‘And Kish said to Saul his son, Take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek the asses’, AV, RV). It is used in such a sense here, cf. RSV, Then she started … The part the daughters-in-law played here is not certain. The verbs are all in the singular, so they describe Naomi’s actions. It seems likely that she took the initiative in setting about her return home, and at first the younger widows associated themselves with her. The reason assigned for her return was that a report reached her in Moab that God had visited his people. This verb is rarely, if at all, used in our sense of going to see someone briefly. It is often used of the divine activity in the Old Testament. It sometimes carries overtones of punishment (e.g. Jer. 25:12, where it is translated ‘punish’); sometimes, as here, of blessing. When God visits, everything depends on the state of affairs he finds. The verb is a warning against presuming on the holiness of God and a reminder that God delights to bless. On this occasion his visit means the end of the famine. The bread now available is regarded as God’s gift. Incidentally, in this verse there is a slight difference in the Hebrew in the two expressions rendered the country of Moab: the first time it is the apparent plural, ‘the fields of Moab’, and in the second the form is singular, ‘the field of Moab’ (see note on verse 1). The fact that there seems no difference in meaning supports the view that in the former we have an archaic singular.
7. The initiative is clearly with Naomi. The verb is singular. She went out. Then it is added that her two daughters-in-law were with her and the next verb, went, is plural. The three of them took the road to Judah. A minor point is that whereas Moab is referred to as ‘the fields of Moab’, Judah is called the land of Judah. The territory of Judah (or Israel) is characteristically referred to in this way with the use of the term ’ereṣ (as for that matter is the territory of most nations).
The impression one gets is of a very poor household, so that Naomi’s preparations for the journey were soon made. The three women could thus walk together in the road to Judah before a final decision was reached as to whether they were all actually going there.
8, 9. These verses introduce us to the author’s characteristic use of dialogue. Over fifty out of his total of eighty-five verses are taken up with dialogue, so it is obvious that he prefers to tell his story through conversations. Naomi now invites the younger widows to leave her and return to their homes. It is no part of her plan to involve them in a change of country. So she tells them to return, each to her mother’s house. It is interesting that she refers to the mother rather than the father. This is a book written from a woman’s point of view. Ruth, at least, had a father alive (2:11) and possibly Orpah did, too. But in a polygamous society the place for such as Ruth and Orpah would be the women’s quarters presided over by the mother (cf. Song 3:4; 8:2). Yet the expression remains curious, all the more so since the ‘father’s house’ is the general Old Testament way of referring to the place of a woman, even a widow returning home as here (cf. Gen. 38:11; Lev. 22:13; Num. 30:16; Deut. 22:21). Naomi prays that Yahweh may deal kindly with them as they have done with the dead and with Naomi herself. We should not overlook the fact that she uses the name ‘Yahweh’, the personal name of the God of Israel. It might have been expected that in speaking of Moabite women in Moabite territory she would use either the general word ‘God’ (’ĕlōhîm) or else ‘Chemosh’ the name of one of the principal gods of the Moabites (Num. 21:29; 1 Kgs 11:7). It is very revealing that in the circumstances Naomi uses the name ‘Yahweh’. For her, Chemosh need not be taken into consideration. She knew but one God and quite naturally she spoke of him. Such a use of the divine name springs from a deep-seated monotheism. Deal kindly with represents a Hebrew expression difficult to translate. The key word is ḥesed, often rendered ‘loving-kindness’. It is a word which on occasion means something very like loyalty, and on occasion something very like love. In the Old Testament it is often related to the covenant, and it indicates the kind of warm and loyal attitude that the parties ought to have for one another. The translation of the AV brings out the thought of kindness that the word includes, but not that of reliability. Naomi recognizes that Yahweh is a God who is faithful and loving and prays that he will deal with the daughters-in-law accordingly. She sees a fitness in this because the young widows have been loyal and loving to their deceased husbands and also to Naomi herself. Thus her prayer is that their constancy may receive an appropriate reward. Knox translates you have shewn kindness to the memory of the dead … This is not quite it. Naomi is thinking of their kindness to the dead men themselves, not to their memory. Slotki takes the words as a statement, ‘the Lord will deal kindly’, but a prayer seems more appropriate.
Naomi adds a prayer for the future prosperity of Ruth and Orpah. Again she uses the personal name ‘Yahweh’, and again she looks for him to be active in the land of Moab. She prays specifically that each of them may settle down with a new husband. RSV reads, The Lord grant that you may find a home, but AV’s that ye may find rest is nearer to the Hebrew mĕnûḥâh (cf. 3:1). It is true that rest with a husband implies a home, but it is the former and not the latter that is meant. It is also to be borne in mind that for the Hebrew ‘rest’ could mean more than a cessation from toil or trouble. To read such a passage as Joshua 21:43–22:8 is to see that ‘rest’ signifies more than the end of war: it means security and the blessing of the Lord, ‘There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel’ (Josh. 21:45, AV, RV). In antiquity there were, of course, few jobs for women, especially in rural areas, so that marriage was almost the only career open to a woman. It was the one thing which promised stability. Naomi saw no future for the young women in her own country. Being Moabites they would be less likely to remarry in Israel. And what else could they do there other than share her poverty? So she kissed them in farewell and the trio joined in the loud weeping which was the Eastern expression of grief.1
10. Orpah and Ruth agree in rejecting the suggestion. They assure Naomi that they will certainly go back with her to her people. There is a difficulty about kî rendered Surely in AV, and No in RSV (also KB, Gerleman, etc.). The conjunction is common in the senses, ‘that, for, when’ (BDB). BDB think that it introduces the exact words of a speaker like the Greek hoti, but Joüon is doubtful whether this usage ever occurs. He thinks the kî of affirmation very rare, and prefers the meaning ‘but’ (as often after a negation). He supposes an original lō to have become corrupted to lāh or else to have dropped out of the text (so also Rudolph). This is perhaps over-elaborate, but an adversative meaning does seem to be required. Perhaps ‘No’ is as good a translation as we can find.
11. But Naomi will not commit them to her uncertain life. They are young and may well remarry in their own land and thus find security. She is too old for marriage. She has no prospect of providing them with a comfortable home. With her there is likely to be nothing but poverty and uncertainty. So she addresses them tenderly as my daughters (they are called ‘daughters-in-law’ three verses back) and tells them to turn back. She points to the hopelessness of their staying with her by reminding them that she will bear no more sons to be their husbands. The reference is to the custom of levirate marriage, whereby the brother of a man who died childless married the widow to raise up an heir for the deceased. The custom is regulated in Deuteronomy 25:5ff. (cf. Matt. 22:24ff.). Evidently the first child was accounted as though the son of the dead man.2 Naomi is saying that there is no prospect of such a marriage in this case. This view is denied by some who affirm that the levirate marriage would be performed by Naomi to raise up the name of Elimelech. This would indeed be so were she not so old. But in any case what of Mahlon and Chilion? They had died childless and their widows might normally have looked to levirate marriage to preserve the names of the deceased. In this verse Naomi speaks of having no sons in her womb. She is not pregnant. In the next she proceeds to the thought that she is too old to remarry.
12, 13. She draws attention to her age. She is too old for marriage. Then she embarks on a somewhat different argument, but calculated, like the preceding, to show the impossibility of the young women’s coming with her. Even should she become a wife again and bear sons, they could not wait for the boys to grow up. Naomi is clear that there is no point in their continuing with her. They should seek marriage elsewhere. Her go your way employs the same curious feminine imperative without the final he that we saw in verse 9 (p. 246, footnote 1). It is also worth noting that she does not employ the usual construction for a conditional in the expression If I should say. Normally one would expect to find the imperfect, a tense which can denote very various degrees of contingency. Naomi, however, uses the perfect tense, which conceives the condition as actual, ‘If I have said … she obtains the maximum effect in bringing out the absurdity of the position by presenting the supposition realistically. There is a further peculiarity in the twice-repeated hălāhēn rendered for them in AV and therefore in RSV. The latter understanding of it views it as an Aramaic word, not Hebrew. But it is not at all certain that the word lāhēn meaning ‘therefore’ exists in Aramaic. Latteys examination of the problem concludes, ‘The case for a lahen meaning “therefore” in biblical Aramaic is thus so weak that it appears safer to treat it as a mistake here, no less than in Hebrew.’3 G. R. Driver also has grave doubts whether this form ever occurs in Aramaic meaning ‘therefore’ and takes the meaning here to be ‘for those things’.4 Joüon amends the text to lāhem, the usual masculine ‘for them’ (he also recognizes the possibility that the feminine lāhen was used in the sense of the masculine, but the end result is the same). There is also the possibility, as Gerleman thinks, of taking the form as a feminine plural used in a neuter sense referring to the conditions Naomi has just laid down, ‘Could you in these circumstances wait?’ (i.e. on the basis of the fulfilment of these uncertain and improbable events). It is possibly best taken as an inexact piece of Hebrew, equivalent to hălāhēm. This yields the meaning for them as AV. ‘For them’ seems also to be the meaning understood by the LXX, Vulg. and Syriac versions, and it should be accepted. From its position it is emphatic, ‘for them’ BDB think the verb rendered tarry (AV, RV) is an Aramaism, but it is found in Hebrew (cf. Ps. 119:166).
So Naomi rejects with decision the thought that Orpah and Ruth should continue with her. Her nay (AV, RV) has a ring of finality about it. This is not an easy decision for her and she goes on to express regret. It grieveth me much (AV, RV) is literally, ‘It is very bitter to me’ (an impersonal use of the verb; in verse 20, God is the subject of the same verb). Your is another example of the use of a masculine form of the pronoun though applied to the women (unless it is a dual; see note on verses 8, 9).
It grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord (AV) does not give the sense of the Hebrew (which is comparative in form) as well as does the RV margin, ‘it is far more bitter for me than for you’. Nor does it accord so well with the context. They had each lost a husband. Naomi had lost a husband and two sons as well. Moreover, the young widows could remarry and thus find security and happiness. For Naomi there was no prospect other than a lonely old age, embittered by the thought that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me (AV). These concluding words arise from a conviction that underlies the whole of this book, namely, that things do not happen by chance. God is a sovereign God and he brings to pass what he will. Thus Naomi can ascribe responsibility for what has befallen her to no-one but him. The hand of the Lord is an anthropomorphism in fairly common use. The Old Testament uses parts of the body freely to express inward states and the like, and does this even when speaking of God. Gods hand is a way, then, of speaking of God’s activity. The verb gone out is sometimes used of an army going out with hostile intent, and this may be behind the usage here (cf. BDB). Naomi cannot encourage the girls to stay with her. Yahweh is her enemy.
14. Naomi’s words provoked more tears. Again the women raised their voice in lamentation. But this time there was also action. The meaning of Naomi’s words sank in and each of the two younger widows reacted. Orpah kissed her mother in law. In verse 9, Naomi had kissed Orpah, but on that occasion Orpah had not realized what was involved and did not take it as final. Now she understood and she took the initiative by kissing Naomi. This was farewell and they both knew it (for the kiss of farewell, cf. Gen. 31:28; 1 Kgs 19:20). Orpah is usually blamed, but J. T. Cleland in IB reminds us of her ‘submissive obedience’. He points out that ‘she was dissuaded by the sensible counsel of the older woman; she returned to Moab. There is no good cause to disparage her. Obedience is not a virtue either to be overlooked or censured.’ We may feel that Ruth showed more imagination and deeper love. But let us not be too quick to blame Orpah. At the same time we must notice that Ruth was not so easily persuaded. She had given her loyalty to Naomi and she would not lightly withdraw it. So when Orpah kissed Naomi goodbye Ruth clung to her (RSV). Cassel points out that ‘the same cause induced Orpah to go and Ruth to remain, the fact, namely, that Naomi had no longer either son or husband. The one wished to become a wife again, the other to remain a daughter.’
15. The subject of said is not expressed, but the context shows plainly that it is Naomi. She uses the example of Orpah as a lever to induce Ruth to follow suit. She does not speak of Orpah as having returned home, or to her own country, but to her people and her gods (AV, RSV) (or perhaps her god [RV]; it is possible to take ’ĕlohîm as either singular or plural, and Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Num. 21:29; 1 Kgs 11:7). Her people means ‘her nation’, not her family as the English expression might perhaps indicate. The reference to the gods is sometimes held to point to a belief that a god and a certain piece of territory were closely connected, so that the god can be worshipped only on the soil of his own country. The classic example of this is said to be Naaman, who, having become a worshipper of Yahweh, took back to Syria with him ‘two mules’ burden of earth’ so that he could worship him (2 Kgs 5:17). But the idea was far from being universally held. There are, for example, instances cited of kings and others in vassal-states worshipping the deities of their foreign overlords. For that matter Solomon worshipped Chemosh on the soil of Judah without the pressure of a foreign overlord (1 Kgs 11:7). We have already noticed that Naomi thought of Yahweh as active in Moab (verses 8, 9, 13), so it is plain that she held no such idea. She may possibly have thought that Ruth would have been attracted by the idea and so referred to it. But her words need mean no more than that the Moabites were the community of Chemosh-worshippers. If Ruth were to continue to worship Chemosh she would be well advised to go where he was venerated. It is perhaps worth adding that, while the Bible never takes seriously the existence of other gods than Yahweh as real gods, it always assumes their reality as objects of worship. Chemosh was certainly worshipped in Moab, and Orpah must be assumed to be worshipping him.
16. Ruth’s answer is a classic expression of faithfulness. She declares her undying devotion to Naomi and refuses to leave her now or at any time. She first tells Naomi to cease to entreat her to leave her. Then she affirms her determination to go where Naomi goes, and to stay where Naomi stays. The verb in the expression where thou lodgest, I will lodge (AV) is not usually used of a long stay (other than in poetry), but this appears to be Ruth’s meaning. She realizes what this means as the following expression indicates. She will be cut off from her own people Moab, but she will make Naomi’s people her own. And her decision has religious implications of which she is not unaware. Naomi’s God will be her God. This does not mean that she has no religious principles or that she rates friendship above faith. In the very next verse she invokes Yahweh, which indicates that already she has come to trust in him (cf. 2:12). Her trust may not have been well informed, but it was real. Simeon remarks, ‘Her views of religion might not be clear: but it is evident that a principle of vital godliness was rooted in her heart, and powerfully operative in her life. In fact, she acted in perfect conformity with that injunction that was afterwards given by our Lord, “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple”.’5
17. Ruth’s determination to be with Naomi is not meant to be short-lived. She will stay with Naomi until death, and die where Naomi dies. As Ruth was much younger than Naomi and would presumably live longer this implies that she will so identify herself with Naomi’s community that she will stay on there after Naomi’s death. The reference to burial seems scarcely to be needed, but we must bear in mind that for the ancient world proper burial was of great importance. Even after death Ruth plans to be with Naomi. She concludes by calling down divine punishment upon herself should she fail to keep her word. The formula she uses is found in this full form only in the books of Samuel and Kings besides Ruth (though a shorter form occurs elsewhere).6 It suggests but does not define the punishment that should follow the breaking of the oath. So was perhaps accompanied by some expressive gesture (touching the throat?). Otherwise it is incomprehensible. The addition and more also to the undefined do so to me indicates the direst possible consequences. There can be no doubt that Ruth is in earnest. We should not overlook her use of the divine name ‘Yahweh’. She does not invoke Chemosh or the gods generally. She has taken Yahweh to be her God and it is upon him accordingly that she calls. AV and RV perhaps misrepresent her point by saying if ought but death part thee and me. KD deny that kî here means ‘if’, and think it introduces the terms of the oath, thus signifying, ‘I swear that death, and nothing else than death, shall separate us.’ But more probably Ruth is saying, ‘if death itself part thee and me’, or as RSV expresses it, if even death parts me from you. This is supported by the emphatic position of the word death in the Hebrew. It accords with this that she goes on to speak of being buried with Naomi. Ruth is determined that nothing, not even death, shall separate them.
18. This little speech greatly impressed Naomi. She saw that Ruth was determined. The verb was stedfastly minded (AV, RV) is used in a great variety of senses, for example, of giving the clouds their place, or repairing the Temple, of physical vigour, etc. It indicates an unshakable firmness. So Naomi accepted the situation and stopped arguing. Indeed after Ruth had concluded with a solemn oath there would have been something impious or very close to it in seeking to dissuade her.