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.
I went out full, and Jehovah has brought me home again empty. Why do ye call me Naomi, seeing Jehovah has brought me low, and the Almighty has afflicted me?
Naomi comes back to Bethlehem after ten years in Moab. She meets the townspeople with a new name and a one-line summary of her life: full when she left, empty when she came back. Commentators hear two things in her words — an honest confession, and an unfair charge against God.
She blames the Almighty for her loss. Then her next words tell the truth about how she left. (The commentators quote an older translation: "I went out full… the Almighty has afflicted me." The ESV reads "I went away full… brought calamity upon me.")
She calls God "the Almighty" — a dread name that puts His power in front of His love and care. She thinks of her once happy home and forgets her own part in the change. So she seems to charge the Almighty with it all. But the next words confess the truth, "I went out full." She chose to go. No one forced her, and she was full when she went… We may make many excuses for leaving God. Circumstances were against us. Friends grew cold. We were misunderstood. Multiply the excuses as we will, one short sentence gives the one reason for leaving God: "I went out full."
The narrative says her husband made the move to Moab. She does not say so.
Naomi takes all the blame for her wanderings, and she does it beautifully. She says, "I went out." The story itself said that "a certain man went to sojourn in the country of Moab." Yet she says no word against her husband. She does not blame others, and she does not excuse herself.
Notice who acts in each half of her sentence. She went; the Lord brought her back.
Naomi takes all the blame for her backsliding. She is right to give the Lord all the credit for her restoration. She can say, "The Lord has brought me back." I did the going out and the Lord did the bringing back… In our moments of self-confidence we may think we can return to the Lord whenever we choose. But no backslider would ever return unless the Lord restored him.
Restoration was real, but it did not undo what the years in Moab had cost her.
Still, she has to admit something that touches the heart. The Lord brought her home, but He "brought me home again empty."… Like everyone who wanders, Naomi has to suffer. Her restoration is real. She truly gets back to her home, the Lord's people and the Lord's land. But she never gets back her husband and her sons. They are gone for ever. She sought ease and rest from conflict and exercise; she found only death and loss.
Yet emptiness was the one condition in which God brings a wanderer back.
We would never come back ourselves. It is only the power of unchanging grace that restores the wanderer; but for that we would still remain in the land of Moab. Grace could not bring us back in any other condition than empty. There must be the brokenness that word suggests, to make the soul willing to yield to God's love.
Commentators differ on how much of her speech to accept. Some hear a good confession. Others hear a charge against God that will not stand.
She spoke as someone who professed faith in Jehovah, the God of Israel. Judged that way, her witness to the Moabite women about His constant care and unfailing goodness was weak, and even false… It was false of her to declare that the hand of Jehovah was against her. His hand had not led the family to Moab. They turned away by their own choice from the land where His hand would have kept their souls alive through the days of famine.
By the last chapter the women of Bethlehem speak again, and their words answer hers.
The women seem to have Naomi's complaint in mind. She had said she went away full, with a husband and two sons, and came back empty, with neither a husband nor a son. But Jehovah, whom she had blamed, had seen her "low estate." He had dealt with her not "bitterly" but generously… In him, the newborn grandson, her dying family possessions had living hope again.
The scene is also read as a picture of a whole people returning under God's testimony against them.
She admits that Jehovah has brought her back empty. In doing this, He has testified against her… She comes back, as Israel will come back, to have people point at her and ask out loud: Is this Naomi? And yet the cry, "I have sinned," goes up, and Bethlehem will answer to its name. The fields are white, and the reapers ready: it is the beginning of barley harvest.
- Out — "I went out" is her confession. She chose to leave, and she blames no one else, not even her husband.
- Home — she went out, but the Lord brought her back. No wanderer returns unless the Lord restores him.
- Empty — the loss was real and permanent. Yet God brings a soul back empty, and that brokenness makes it willing to yield to His love.
- Bitter — she calls herself Mara, and the name "the Almighty" puts God's power in front of His love. One writer calls her charge false: His hand never led the family to Moab.
- Harvest — she comes back as the barley harvest begins. By the end of the book, the women of Bethlehem say God dealt with her not bitterly but generously.