And Ruth said, Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from [following] after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;
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where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part me and thee!
Naomi has told Ruth to go home, and Ruth answers with a vow that reaches past the journey to the grave itself. She is a woman of Moab, a nation outside Israel, yet she swears by Israel's God that only death will part them.
Two daughters-in-law set out with Naomi, but only one went on. Writers put the difference down to faith, not natural feeling:
It is not mere nature, but faith in the living God that speaks in her reply... So it was real faith that spoke in Ruth's reply, a faith that used the covenant name Jehovah. It had stood the test, because nothing on offer appealed to nature.
Sympathy for God's people can look like faith. Writers point to a different first test:
The natural heart may attach itself to God's people without belonging to them. A woman like Naomi is certainly worth our sympathy, but sympathy is not the sign of faith at work. In the first place faith separates us from idols, causes us to give up our gods, and turns us to the true God.
Ruth swears by the God of Israel. To use that name she had to break with the many gods of Moab:
The gods of Moab were many, the God of Israel was one; and that one God was the true God... The principle of idolatry is an insult to God. It is an insult to His majesty. It stands against His affections, and He wants His people all for Himself. Then Ruth says, "...and your God my God." She made this definite decision. She was cutting herself off from all the gods of Moab, and finding her joy and centre in the one true God.
Ruth held on to the one person who linked her to God. Writers see the same pattern in faith itself:
Just as Ruth clung to Naomi, so faith clings to the Mediator, the one God's purposes centre on. He alone can give a sure relationship with the true God and an unshakable place before Him.
Notice what Ruth asks for. Not a home and a life, but a night's shelter and a grave:
When she made this memorable decision she knew nothing of Boaz, a picture of Christ in His present position of power. She knew nothing of the place of favour and honour that was waiting for her. Her love for Naomi controlled her, and notice that she was content not to settle and live, but to "lodge" and to "die" with Naomi. She took the path of a stranger, and what made up for it was the pleasure of Naomi's company.
Ruth does more than promise. She swears, and the oath ends the argument:
She confirmed this strong declaration with a solemn oath: "May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you." The devotion, resolve and eagerness of this speech convinced Naomi of Ruth's honesty and determination. "And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more."
The same finality is heard in plain terms: her decision had no exit clause built into it.
I am going to go right on to the end. There is no giving up, no turning back; I have made my decision, I have cast in my lot with you, your people and your God, and I am determined to go on.
How does a woman from Moab end up inside Israel's blessing? Not by any right of her own:
Ruth had no claim to the place of blessing; she came in on the ground of sovereign mercy.
The story does not stop with her getting in:
But the law does not keep Ruth out. A Moabite woman though she is, she does enter into the congregation of the Lord. The law is set aside in her favour. Her descendants are not shut out to the tenth generation; her child of the third generation sits on Israel's throne.
- Choice — Ruth's words are the language of faith, not family feeling. The natural heart can love God's people and still not belong to them.
- Break — "Your God my God" meant leaving the gods of Moab behind for good; there was no keeping both.
- Cost — she asked to lodge and to die with Naomi, not to live in comfort. She took a stranger's life before she knew Boaz existed.
- Oath — she asked God to judge her if anything but death parted them. Naomi stopped arguing.
- Outcome — she had no claim to Israel's blessing. Mercy brought her in, and her great-grandson sat on Israel's throne.
And when she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking to her.
Two widowed women stand on the road out of Moab, and one of them has just refused, under oath, to turn back. In verse 18 Naomi stops arguing. Her silence says more about Ruth's choice than any further words could.
Naomi had spent the whole scene urging her daughters-in-law to go home. What stopped her was not an argument but the force of Ruth's reply.
Inward anxiety and unrest were now pressing Ruth to leave her idols and seek the favour of the living God of Israel. But she feared that Naomi's repeated attempts to talk her out of it might turn her from her purpose. So her fervent outburst of devotion and determination came swiftly in reply, and she confirmed it with a solemn oath. The devotion, resolve, and enthusiasm of this speech convinced Naomi of Ruth's integrity and determination.
The same discouragement fell on Orpah and Ruth alike, and it produced opposite results. Even their names carry the difference.
On the other hand, God's sovereignty makes use of everything, and Naomi's coldness becomes the test of whether the faith of her daughters-in-law is real. Without excusing her, the discouragement she offers brings out the true state of both hearts. There is clear natural affection in both — in fact Orpah shows more than Ruth. Their names are suggestive. Orpah, "her neck," or "her back," points to the turning away that marked her. Ruth most likely means "having a shepherd." Her faith shows she is one of the sheep, though a Gentile, to be brought into the fold.
Naomi's husband Elimelech had taken the family away from Bethlehem in a famine, and it all went wrong. Nothing Ruth had seen recommended the God of Israel to her.
Ruth's faith is a beautiful thing to think about. It is striking proof that what God has planted can flourish among contrary circumstances and opposition of every kind. How little Naomi here commends the God Ruth speaks of! The famine in Bethlehem mocked its name as the "house of bread." Elimelech withdrew, denying what his own name expressed, and then he died. There were the marriages to Moabite women, one of them her own, and then the sudden widowhoods. Now her mother-in-law urges her to go back to her people and her gods, as Orpah had gone back. This is all we know of her surroundings. Which of them favours faith? Ah, it is God who favours it and upholds it; and all the opposition only stirs it into a passion of longing and resolve.
Three marks stand out in Ruth's speech. Where the ESV says she was "determined," older translations read "steadfastly minded" — the mark that looks forward.
First, in simple and beautiful "faith" she turns her back on her native land to travel to Jehovah's land. She accepts the pilgrim path, for she says, "Where you go I will go." She takes the place of a stranger with no settled home, for she says, "Where you lodge I will lodge." She identifies herself with the people of God: "Your people shall be my people." She expresses her confidence in God as she adds, "Your God" shall be "my God." Moreover she is marked by devoted love. Orpah may indeed kiss Naomi, but of Ruth we read, she "clung to her." … Last, "hope" marked her too, for we read, "She was steadfastly minded to go." In the light of another world, as it were, she gave up the present one.
Up to now the two younger women had walked one road. Here it forks.
When they come to this point, they must decide; and then comes the dividing line. "I am not ready for that," says one. "I had not counted the cost," says Orpah; "goodbye, Naomi, goodbye. I will always feel kindly towards you, and I hope we shall meet again some day; but I cannot go with you at that cost" — and she turns her back on God and on blessing. From that moment Ruth goes one way and Orpah another; one is decided for God, the other for the world.
Ruth could not see past the next day's walk. Her one choice reached much further.
Here was a wonderful decision. Three good decisions run through this story — one by Naomi, one by Ruth and one by Boaz — and blessing follows each one. Linked together they all end in blessing… The last chapter gives the family line (Ruth 4:18-22), and if we turn to Matthew 1:16 we find that the chain ends in Christ… I am quite sure that neither Naomi, nor Ruth, nor Boaz knew what was happening that day — that they were links in a chain stretching centuries beyond their own time.
- Tested. Naomi's discouragement was not kindness, but God used it to show what was really in each heart.
- Divided. Orpah kissed and went back; Ruth clung and went on. Affection was in both — only one was settled.
- Silenced. Naomi stopped speaking. Ruth's words carried their own proof: devotion, resolve, and an oath.
- Sustained. Every circumstance argued against Israel's God. Ruth's faith held, because God Himself upheld it.
- Crowned. A choice made in the dark on a road out of Moab became a link in the chain that ends in Christ.
And they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they came to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and the [women] said, Is this Naomi?
Two women finish a long walk from Moab and step into Bethlehem, and a whole town stops what it is doing. The stir turns into one question about a woman they once knew, and commentators hear that question in more than one way.
Ruth's decision to stay with Naomi ended the argument, and the pair travelled on together. The townspeople did not see one returning widow. They saw a pair, and the woman from Moab drew as much notice as Naomi.
This settled the mother's mind, and they are next seen approaching Bethlehem. The whole town was stirred over Naomi. But be sure of this — they were stirred just as much by a strange sight. Here was a woman of Moab who had turned her back forever on her gods, her land, and every natural tie. She had come to take her place beside a desolate widow, under the shadow of the Lord.
The question is not confusion over her identity. It is shock at what the years have done to her — the town remembered a different woman.
After being away more than ten years, Naomi returned to Bethlehem. Her arrival with Ruth, the stranger from Moab, stirred the interest and curiosity of the townspeople. Many of them had probably known her before the great famine. Back then her late husband was, it seems, a man of standing and influence in the city. Those who recognised Naomi were astonished at the change in her.
The town asks the question out loud, so Naomi has to answer it herself. Her own reply is the evidence that the ten years in Moab left a mark.
When they reach Bethlehem, the whole place is stirred: "Is this Naomi?" What damage her departure had done! She has to admit the sad truth herself. How much her few words tell.
Others hear something warmer in the commotion. The noise around a returning wanderer matches a far greater celebration elsewhere.
So they go on together to Bethlehem. And when they arrive, "the whole town was stirred because of them." There was a great stir in the place. In the same way, when a sinner repents, all heaven is stirred over the event. "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents." It delights God's heart to see a sinner turn to Him. Heaven rings with music over every case of real conversion.
So commentators hear the same crowd in two ways. Some hear a sting of exposure in the question. Others hear an echo of heaven's joy.
One writer turns the town's reaction into a question for the reader. If a welcome normally follows restoration, then a cold welcome may explain why so few wanderers come back.
The story of Naomi also shows us something wonderful. When someone is restored to the Lord, a welcome among the Lord's people rightly follows. So we read, "when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them." Why is there so little restoration today? May it not be that too often the people of God are so little moved about those who have wandered? May the Lord let us taste a little more of the compassion in His heart. That compassion led Him to go after a wandering sheep until He found it.
Two small words carry the difference between belonging somewhere and living there.
Naomi, who truly was "of" Bethlehem, now comes "to" Bethlehem. She was "of" Bethlehem the whole time she was in Moab, but coming "to" that city changed her entire life. Here we see the difference between being a Christian and living the Christian life.
Another writer finds no warm welcome in this homecoming. He reads the scene on a larger scale: a return that begins in shame and ends in harvest.
There is no light beyond. No Father's arms welcome her. No Father's house opens to let her in. She comes back, as Israel will come back. People point the finger at her and speak the question aloud: Is this Naomi? And yet the cry "I have sinned" is heard, and Bethlehem shall answer to its name. The fields are white and the reapers are ready: it is the beginning of barley harvest.
- Two came. Ruth's refusal to turn back put a woman of Moab on the road to Bethlehem, and the town was stirred as much by her as by Naomi.
- One question. "Is this Naomi?" is the sound of people who knew her before — astonished at the change ten years away had made.
- The cost shows. The question forces Naomi to speak, and her own few words admit the damage her departure had done.
- The stir welcomes. The commotion echoes heaven's joy over one sinner who repents. It also rebukes God's people when wanderers stir them so little.
- Arrival changes everything. She was always of Bethlehem. Coming to Bethlehem changed her life. She arrived just as barley harvest began.