Ruth 1:6

Ruth’s Loyalty to Naomi

6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab.

Ruth 1:6 Meaning and Commentary

Ruth 1:6

Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return
from the country of Moab
After the death of her two sons, and having heard of the ceasing of the famine in Israel, she had a desire to go into her own country, where she would have better opportunities of serving the Lord; and having no heart to stay in Moab, an idolatrous country, where she had lost her husband, and her two sons; and therefore prepared for her journey, and set forward, and her two daughters-in-law with her, to accompany her some part of the way; for it does not appear to be their intention, at least at first setting out, to go with her into the land of Canaan; and therefore it is only said, that they arose

that she might return

for she had heard in the country of Moab:
which was near the land of Israel, the borders of it reaching to the salt sea; the Targum says she heard it by the mouth of an angel, but it is highly probable it was by common fame:

that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread;
that he had been kind and gracious to the people of Israel, by granting them plenty of provisions; which might be their happy case after Gideon had vanquished the Midianites, who came yearly, and destroyed and carried off the fruits of the earth, which had caused a famine; see ( Judges 6:3-6 ) ( 8:28 ) . It seems as if the famine had continued ten years, see ( Ruth 1:4 ) nor need this be thought incredible, since there was a famine in Lydia, which lasted eighteen years ^F2.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 Herodot Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 94.

Ruth 1:6 In-Context

4 who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. And after they had lived in Moab about ten years,

5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and without her husband.

6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab.

7 Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road leading back to the land of Judah.

8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me.