Ruth 1 Study Notes

Menuchah, from nuach (rest), denotes rest (Jr 45:3). Often menuchah signifies resting place as a dwelling place: a homestead (Is 32:18), campsite (Nm 10:33), temple (1Ch 28:2), tribal inheritance (Gn 49:15), or nation (Mc 2:10). Menuchah connotes resting place (Is 66:1). Menuchah indicates rest from enemies (1Ch 22:9), relief from anxiety (2Sm 14:17), or rest (Ru 1:9). It functions adjectivally as quiet (Ps 23:2) or adverbially as easily (Jdg 20:43). A quartermaster is a “master of rest,” supplying troops with physical necessities (Jr 51:59). Menuchah describes Canaan as a restful home for Israel (Dt 12:9).

1:10-14 Orpah and Ruth repeated their desire to return to Israel with Naomi. Once again, however, Naomi pressed them both to return, on the grounds that the best prospect of remarriage lay among their own people. Naomi assumed that no other family in Bethlehem would be interested in marrying Moabite women, and she emphasized the certainty of there being no other sons from her own line who could fulfill the role of levirate marriage (Dt 25:5-10). She was probably at least fifty years old at this time. Even if she were to have more children at once, by the time they grew up Orpah and Ruth would be too old to have children. Besides, Naomi argued, she was herself under a curse: the Lord’s hand had turned against her. There is no hint of Naomi taking any personal responsibility or expressing repentance for her own actions in leaving the promised land. Convinced by Naomi’s arguments, Orpah took her leave of Naomi, but Ruth clung to her—the same Hebrew word used in Gn 2:24 to describe the marriage bond.

1:15-18 The intensity of Naomi’s attempts to dissuade her Moabite daughters-in-law from accompanying her back to Bethlehem suggests that she was not completely motivated by concern for their well-being. Their presence would have been a constant and embarrassing reminder of her tragic sojourn in Moab. Yet Ruth was not so easily dissuaded. In a crescendo of commitment, she bound herself to go with Naomi and to live with her. In fact, she would even die and be buried where Naomi was—the greatest possible commitment in the ancient world. She sealed her commitment with a self-imprecatory oath, taken in the personal name of Naomi’s God, the Lord, i.e., Yahweh. Naomi’s response to this moving speech was remarkably curt: She stopped talking to her.

1:19-22 The townswomen’s question, Can this be Naomi? pointedly and deliberately ignored Ruth’s presence. In response, Naomi urged them to rename her Mara since the Lord had made her bitter rather than “pleasant,” which is the meaning of “Naomi.” It was at Marah that the Israelites found only bitter water to drink on their way out of Egypt, and so they grumbled against the Lord (Ex 15:23-24). Naomi’s heart was similarly turned against the Lord, yet the connection also raised hope that the Lord would heal her bitterness and bring her to a place of rest, just as he did for Israel. Naomi had returned physically to Bethlehem from Moab, but would she similarly return to the Lord in repentance?