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.
And she said to them, Call me not Naomi -- call me Mara; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
Naomi comes home to Bethlehem after ten years in Moab, and the whole town knows her — but she will not take her old name. She asks for a name that matches her grief, and she lays that grief at God's door.
Her old name and her new one are opposites.
When they reach Bethlehem, the whole place is stirred: "Is this Naomi?" What damage her departure had done, and she has to admit the sad truth herself. How her few words tell the story, her heart not yet fully restored. "Do not call me Naomi (pleasant), call me Mara (bitter): for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me." She calls Him by that name of dread, which points to His power and not to His love and care. As she thinks of her once happy home, she forgets her own part in the change, and she seems to charge the Almighty with it all.
The word she picks names undrinkable water. Scripture uses it again for what it is to leave the Lord.
The primary root means "to flow"; from this comes the idea of the gum that flows from the tree. But since this is extremely bitter, it gives its name to "bile" and other bitter things — the bitter water of Marah, the water of jealousy (Num. 5:18). Naomi called herself Mara, "for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me." … The prophet declares that it is "evil and bitter" to forsake the LORD your God (Jer. 2:19).
Naomi names God "the Almighty." One explanation of that title points to supply rather than force.
Some interpret the name as "Almighty in sustaining resources" (as the mother's breasts for her baby).
Commentators differ over how to read her words. One reading listens to what she left out.
She magnified her own sorrows and trials. She had not one word to say about the goodness of Jehovah, who brought her back safely to His own land, to her own family and city. Whatever her testimony for God may have been in the land of Moab, it was very weak when she stood once more on her own doorstep. … Such were the strange words of complaint against God spoken by a woman of faith!
The other reading takes the same sentence as evidence that God never let go of her.
She admits that however much she had failed, the Lord had not given her up. Speaking of the days of her wandering she admits, "The Almighty has dealt … with me." We may stop having dealings with Him, but He loves us too much to stop dealing with us.
Her phrase "very bitterly" describes how God's correction feels while it lasts.
She says not only that the Lord had dealt with her, but that He had dealt with her "very bitterly." If the Lord deals with us when we wander from Him, we will find that "for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
Her bitterness had a starting point: a move to Moab that looked sensible at the time.
Ten years she and her family had been away from Judah; yet she should never have left Judah, the place where God was known. It was quite natural she should go when there was a famine there, you say. Yes, quite natural, for nature always turns its back on God; but see the folly of it. Could not God have kept them in Bethlehem? … A soul that has slipped away from the Lord and got back into the world wakes up, sooner or later, to find itself in misery and wretchedness.
The name she demanded did not last.
Only yesterday she had said, "The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me" (1:20). But today Naomi saw that He was dealing very graciously with Mara, the name she had given herself. The love of God was lifting the veil of unbelieving complaint from Mara's heart. And soon Mara the bitter would once again be Naomi the pleasant.
Writers also read Naomi's emptiness as a portrait of Israel.
Anyone who accepts the prophetic character of Scripture can hardly question that Naomi pictures Israel under the first covenant. Israel too had lived through a famine in the land. Israel had lost husband, sons, everything out of it. "Call me Mara; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me."
- Departure — the bitterness began with leaving Judah, the place where God was known. The move looked natural. It was folly.
- Bitter — Naomi means pleasant. Mara means bitter, from the root that names the undrinkable water of Marah. Scripture uses that word again for leaving the Lord.
- Almighty — she names God by His power, not His love. Some read that same title as "Almighty in sustaining resources," like a mother feeding her baby.
- Dealt — commentators differ. Some hear complaint from a woman of faith. Others hear her own admission that God never stopped dealing with her.
- Restored — the name did not stick. The God she called bitter was already dealing kindly with her, and Naomi the pleasant returned.