b. The arrival in Bethlehem (1:19–22)
b. The arrival in Bethlehem (1:19–22)
The journey back to Israel is not described, but the reception of the two widows by the women of Bethlehem is. They received a welcome, but Naomi could not but contrast her present difficult state with her condition when she had left the village.
19. The pair journeyed till they came to Bethlehem. As they approached the city there was a buzz of excitement. The whole place was involved. But as soon as we come to a place where the sex can be determined, namely, the verb they said (AV), the feminine form shows that it is the women (RV, RSV) with whom the story is concerned (cf. Knox, all the gossips were saying). This is almost inevitably the case since the men were at work on the harvest (verse 22). The women of Bethlehem saw the pair approaching, and came excitedly out to greet them. They asked Is this Naomi? Years had passed since she lived there, and those years had dealt harshly with her. It would not be surprising, accordingly, if she was sufficiently altered in appearance to make such a question appropriate.
20. Naomi puts stress on the meaning of her name (see on verse 22). Her experiences have been anything but pleasant, and she disclaims the name ‘Pleasant’ accordingly. She suggests that the women (the forms of pronoun and verb are feminine) should call her Mara’, a word which means ‘bitter’ (the form of this word with final aleph instead of he is Aramaic or perhaps Moabitic rather than Hebrew). Her reason is that God has dealt very bitterly with her (cf. Job 13:26). Moffatt brings out something of the wordplay in the Hebrew with, call me Mara, for the Almighty has cruelly marred me. Naomi does not think of chance or of the work of the gods of the heathen. She is sure that her God is over all, so that the explanation of the bitter things she has experienced must be with him. The name she uses for God is šadday, not the commonest of names, and one which appears to mean ‘Almighty’ (see Additional note, pp. 255ff.). Naomi thinks of the irresistible power of God. When he determined that bitterness should enter her life there was no other possibility. It is worth noticing that, while the name šadday is sometimes used in contexts of blessing, it is also found when it is the severity as well as the power of the Lord that is in mind (e.g. Isa. 13:6; Joel 1:15). This is one of very few places where it stands alone in prose (this is not unusual in poetry, but in prose ‘God Almighty’ is more common). F. I. Andersen points out that Naomi’s speech may well be poetry. In verse 22 šadday is found in good, poetic parallelism.
21. Naomi contrasts her departure from Bethlehem with her return. Full and empty occupy emphatic positions in their respective clauses. The latter term is actually the adverb ‘emptily’ and not the adjective which we would have expected (cf. also 3:17, though there the adverb is more in place). Naomi uses the personal pronoun in the first clause, though this is not strictly necessary as the verb would give the meaning by its form. This emphatic pronoun sets Naomi over against the Lord. She for her part went out prosperous, but he brought her back indigent. She uses the covenant name ‘Yahweh’. Yet again there is the thought that this God is supreme in Moab as elsewhere. Naomi asks accordingly why they use her name ‘Pleasant’, since Yahweh has ‘made answer against’ her or perhaps better ‘afflicted’ her. It is a question of the correct vocalization of the text. That behind AV, testified, demands ‘ānâ (favoured by Rudolph), but LXX, Syriac and Vulg. presuppose ’innâ, ‘afflicted’, and this fits the context better (though a difficulty is the following bĕ which is not natural after this verb). Cf. RSV, the Lord has afflicted me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me. Naomi uses the name šadday once more. She is helpless in the face of God’s almighty power.
22. For the Moabitess see on 2:2. This verse simply rounds off the narrative of the return. It locates it at the beginning of barley harvest (i.e. towards the end of April), but otherwise simply says that it took place. As Ruth had not, as far as we know, ever been in Judah the verb returned seems a curious one to use of her. It is perhaps worth noting that this verb (šûb) occurs twelve times in this chapter (of return to Moab, verses 8, 11, 12, 15 [twice], 16; of return to Bethlehem, 6, 7, 10, 21, 22 [twice] and that it is a verb which for the Hebrew was full of associations. It meant a return to the land of God’s people. Used thus of Ruth at the end of the chapter it may be meant to signify something of this.7 The expression barley harvest is found in the Gezer Calendar which speaks of ‘Month of pulling flax. Month of barley harvest. Month when everything (else) is harvested.’8