Ruth 1:16

16 But Ruth said, "{Do not urge}^[a] me to leave you [or] to return from {following you}!^[b] For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people [will be] my people and your God [will be] my God.

Ruth 1:16 Meaning and Commentary

Ruth 1:16

And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee
Do not make use of any arguments to persuade me to go back: or "do not meet me", or "be against me" ^F8; do not meet me with objections, or be in my way, or an hinderance to me, in going along with thee; do not be against it, for to be against that was to be against her inclination, desires, and resolutions, and against her interest:

for whither thou goest I will go:
let the country she was going to be what it would, though unknown to her, and though she should never see her own country any more:

and where thou lodgest I will lodge;
though in ever so mean a cottage, or under the open air:

thy people shall be my people;
whom I shall choose to dwell among, and converse with; whose religion, laws, and customs she should readily comply with, having heard much of them, their wisdom, goodness, and piety, of which she had a specimen and an example in Naomi, and by whom she judged of the rest:

and thy God my God;
not Chemosh, nor Baalpeor, nor other gods of the Moabites, be they what they will, but Jehovah, the God of Naomi, and of the people of Israel. So a soul that is truly brought to Christ affectionately loves him, and heartily cleaves unto him, resolves in the strength of divine grace to follow him, the Lamb, whithersoever he goes or directs; and is desirous to have communion with none but him, and that he also would not be as a wayfaring man, that tarries but a night; his people are the excellent of the earth, whom to converse with is all his delight and pleasure; and Christ's God is his God, and his Father is his Father: and, in a word, he determines to have no other Saviour but him, and to walk in all his commands and ordinances.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 (yb yegpt le) "ne occurras mihi", Vatablus, Rambachius; "ne obstes me", Tigurine version; "ne adverseris mihi", V. L. Drusius; so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Ruth 1:16 In-Context

14 And they lifted up their voices and cried again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law [goodbye], but Ruth clung to her.

15 And she said, "Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law [too]."

16 But Ruth said, "{Do not urge} me to leave you [or] to return from {following you}! For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people [will be] my people and your God [will be] my God.

17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. So may Yahweh do to me, {and even more, unless} death {separates you and me}!"

18 [When Naomi] saw that she was determined to go with her, {she said no more}.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "You shall not press me"
• [b]. Literally "from behind you"