A study of Ruth 1:14–18
”And they lifted up their voices and cried again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law too.” 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. 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!” When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.“
Ruth 1:14-18 LEB
Definitions of the original language in the context of this passage:
-Orpah: “עָרְפָּה”, “ǒr·pā(h)ʹ”; noun, proper, feminine, singular, absolute — Orpah = ‘gazelle’, the sister in law of Ruth.
-Ruth: “ר֑וּת”, “rûṯʹ”; noun, proper, feminine, singular, absolute — Ruth = ‘friend’ or ‘friendship’, daughter in law of Naomi, wife of Boaz, great-grandmother of David.
-Kissed: “תִּשַּׁ֤ק”, “tiš·šǎqʹ”; verb, Qal, wayyiqtōl (waw-consecutive + imperfect), third person, feminine, singular — to kiss.
-Clung: “דָּ֥בְקָה”, “dāḇʹ·qā”; verb, Qal, qātal (perfect), third person, feminine, singular — to cling, cleave to, stay with, keep close.
-Has Returned: “שָׁ֣בָה”, “šāʹ·ḇā(h)”; verb, Qal, qātal (perfect), third person, feminine, singular — to turn back, return, go back.
-People: “עַמָּ֖הּ”, “ʿǎm·māʹ”; noun, common, singular, construct — nation, people, members of one’s people, countrymen.
-Her gods (v. 15): “אֱלֹהֶ֑יהָ”, “ʾělō·hêʹ-hā”; noun, common, masculine, plural, construct — plural: gods, divine ones: Ruth 1:15 (FSB): Nationality in the ancient Near East was closely tied to religion. For Orpah and Ruth, going back to their people included returning to the deities of that land. The main Moabite deity was Chemosh.
-Return: “שׁ֖וּבִי”, “šûʹ·ḇî”, verb, Qal, imperative, second person, feminine, singular — to return, to turn back, go back.
-My God (v.16): “אֱלֹהָֽי׃”, “ělō·hāʹ”; noun, common, masculine, plural, construct — God, deity, gods; For Ruth, the choice to follow Naomi is also the choice to worship Yahweh (v. 16).
-I Will Die: “אָמ֔וּת”, “ā·mûṯʹ”; verb, Qal, yiqtōl (imperfect), first person, singular — to die, perish.
-Yahweh: “יְהוָ֥ה”, “YHWH”; noun, proper, masculine, singular, absolute — the Lord, the proper name of the one true God.
-Death: “מָּ֔וֶת”, “māʹ·wěṯ”; noun, common, singular, absolute — death; the death that all humans will face.
-Separates: “יַפְרִ֖יד”, “yǎp̄·rîḏʹ”; verb, Hifʿîl, yiqtōl (imperfect), third person, masculine, singular — break; spread; separate; disperse; divide; be out of joint.
-Determined: “מִתְאַמֶּ֥צֶת”, “miṯ·ʾǎm·měʹ·ṣěṯ”; verb, Hiṯpaʿʿēl, participle, feminine, singular, absolute — confirm one’s self in a purpose, be determined.
Observation/Summary (short explanation of what the passage says in your own words):
After Naomi’s continued insistence that Ruth and Orpah return to their families in Moab and remarry instead of coming to Bethlehem with her, they all wept loudly together for a second time. At this point, Orpah kissed Naomi and left, but Ruth clung to Naomi and did not leave. But again, Naomi urged Ruth to follow Orpah who had “gone back to her people and to her gods.” Ruth responded by telling Naomi she would not leave her, but rather, she would stay with Naomi unto death, and Naomi’s God and people would now be her’s as well. After hearing this, Naomi realized Ruth would not be persuaded to leave, and she said no more.
Implication (what does this mean to us):
These verses are the end of an incredibly sorrowful goodbye. Naomi, who was grieving the loss of her sons, and probably still the loss of her husband a decade prior, had heard that “the Lord had visited His people,” and the famine in Bethlehem was over, so she decided to go back, and live out the rest of her days as a childless widow in her homeland. Naomi’s status as a widow without children in her culture and time meant she was on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. And now, she had two widowed daughters-in-law who were in nearly the same situation as her, but with one important difference. Ruth and Orpah were still young enough to remarry and have children, but Naomi was not. As Moabite women, they would have been allowed to come with her to Israel and convert to the worship of Yahweh and enter into covenantal relationship with Him, but their prospects for marriage in Moab would have been far greater than in Israel.
Naomi’s deceased husband Elimelech had brought her and their two sons to Moab from Bethlehem years earlier because there was a famine in the land. This was an understandable decision from a purely practical/materialistic point of view. But we must also remember God had commanded the Israelites to remain in the promised land, and not to mix and intermarry with the pagan people groups around them. It is not always easy to obey the Lord, in fact, there are times when it might even be deadly. So, as famine came, Elimelech faced this exact situation and he decided it would be better to disobey God and look for provision in Moab, instead of obeying God and risking starvation. We should be careful not to be too harsh on Elimelech. He was in a tough situation. He had a wife and two sons to provide for and there was a famine. So, he took them and moved. Today we might read this and say “So, what’s wrong with that?” Again though, we have no commands today as New Testament Christians to remain in a specific geographical location, but Old Testament, Israelite worshippers of Yahweh did have a specific command to remain in the land and to be “holy” or in other words “set apart” to God, and to remain separate from the paganism around them. So, while it would have been very difficult to stay in Israel, it would have been obedient to the Lord, and therefore far better when viewed with an eternal perspective.
The text does not say that Elimilech and his family stopped worshiping Yahweh though, so we should not assume they did. In fact, it seems like they continued to worship Yahweh, because one of the reasons Ruth gives for why she will not leave Naomi is “your God will be my God.” If Elimelech and Naomi had ceased worshiping Yahweh it would have been odd for Ruth to distinguish between their God and the gods of the Moabite people she chose to leave behind. So it seems that in the example of Elimelech and Naomi, we see worshippers of the one true God, who made sinful, spiritual compromises, but did not apostate. We can’t be too sure about Naomi’s husband and sons because we know so little, but we do know Naomi still believed in Yahweh and worshiped Him, because she had made a decision to return to Israel because the “Lord had visited His people (v.6).” More than that, in verses 8–9 Naomi also blessed Ruth and Orpah, and prayed that Yahweh would deal kindly with them, as they had been so kind to her. This indicates that despite the grief (v.9) and bitterness (vs. 13, 20–21) Naomi felt, she still honored Yahweh as the one true God, and even in her anguish, she made the admirable and wise decision to return to Israel.
And in a way this also meant returning to God when we consider the historical and cultural context. It is not that Naomi and the family were outside of God’s sovereignty in Moab. Naomi knew Yahweh is Lord over all, this why she correctly identified that it was God’s will that things went as badly as they did (v.13), and also why she prayed that Yahweh would bless Ruth and Orpah with new husbands in Moab. Naomi knew that God is sovereign over all of time and space, nothing happens apart from His will. But I say she was in a sense returning to God because of the understanding people at this time had about the connection between land and deities. The ancient Mesopotamian worldview that carried on through into the pagan cultures in Naomi’s day was the belief that the universe is governed by a pantheon of gods that is headed up by one more powerful god. Typically in Mesopotamian and Canaanite cultures the top deity was Baal. They believed the lesser gods each had specific land and people groups put under their control, and it was these gods that they worshiped. So they believed specific lesser deities were in charge of specific areas of land and people groups.
Faithful, ancient Israelites like Naomi were not polytheists, but they did believe in the existence of other spiritual beings that were created by Yahweh. And most inportantly, they believed Yahweh is the Most High God who rules over all. And Christians believe this in a similar way too today by the way. We believe God also created spiritual beings with the free will to choose whether or not to follow Him. We also believe some chose to remain faithful, but others rebelled. And we refer to this rebellious group with words like “Satan” or “demons.” The Israelites had a similar but not identical view to the people around them because of how God told them the universe worked through the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9 when God scattered the nations and assigned them to the rule of lesser spiritual beings, created by Him, but who rebelled against Him. And Moses provided more clarity on this topic in Deuteronomy 32:8–9 when he said, “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” Who are the “sons of God” though? In more recent OT manuscripts, like the Masoretic Text, the phrase “sons of God” appears as “sons of Israel” in the Hebrew. But older manuscripts, like those found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, literally say “sons of God” or “benei elohim” in Hebrew. This is why newer English translations that make use of the Dead Sea Scrolls, like the ESV, say “sons of God” instead of “sons of Israel.”
Moses refers to these “sons of God” again in reference to the rebellion of the people in forsaking Yahweh to worship them instead in Deut. 32:16–19 where he calls them “…demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known.” The word used for demons is “shedim” and this word is used to refer to low-ranking spiritual beings in other ancient Near Eastern texts as well. This is not a simple reference to idols made of stone or wood. The Bible frequently references idols as being worthless objects (1 Cor. 8:4), but does refer to real, spiritual beings frequently, and this is one such instance (1 Cor. 2:6–8, 8:5–6, Col. 1:16). The word Elohim or derivatives of it are translated as “gods” in these verses, but “god” or “gods” is not the most helpful translation in English for us today. Elohim is a plural word and it is better understood as “spiritual being(s).” It describes a type of being. In the same way, our God, Jesus, is human, but not all humans are Jesus. Our God, Yahweh (Jesus), is also Elohim, but not all elohim are Yahweh. And Yahweh elohim is the only eternally existent, uncreated being in the universe, elohim or otherwise. Yahweh did create other, lesser elohim, but Yahweh Elohim is the Most High Elohim to whom everything in time, space and the ‘unseen’ spiritual realm are subject to. All other elohim are created by Him and are subject to His authority, just as we humans are. And just as God created humans in His image and gave us the ability to choose whether or not to love and obey Him, He created spiritual beings (elohim) with this same ability. And from passages like Genesis 6:1–4, Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82, Jude 1:6–7, and 2 Peter 2:4, we can tell that like humanity, many of them rebelled.
It was to these lesser, created, spiritual beings or “benei elohim” that God chose to assign the nations and place them under their authority after He scattered the nations at the Tower of Babel (Gen 11). This describes the setup of the “kingdom of this world” in opposition to the Kingdom of Yahweh (God). It is no coincidence that after the Babel account in Gen. 11, we are told about God’s plan to make a nation from the descendants of Abraham. The story we are told is: mankind blew it. Even after the worldwide flood, mankind rebelled against God again and this rebellion culminated in the Tower of Babel incident where God essentially said, “Fine, you don’t want me as your Elohim? I will disinherit you as my people, and assign you to other, lesser and corrupt benei elohim, and they will rule over you.” So, this was a judgment. But God was not done with humanity. In His great love and abounding grace He raised up a new nation, Israel, and through this nation it was always His good and loving intention to reclaim the scattered and disinherited nations of the world into His kingdom, as His children (Gen. 18:18). This is what Israel failed to do by not keeping the OT covenant, and it was Yahweh Himself, in other words, Jesus, who accomplished this through His redemptive work on the cross.
So, Naomi returning to Israel was like returning to God in a sense because people at this time viewed land and people groups as under the authority of spiritual beings. Israelites believed this too, but they believed Yahweh Elohim was the one true God who is sovereign over all, and the other lesser, created, elohim were the rebellious beings that had still been given leave to rule over their assigned portions and peoples of the world. These beings are real, and Yahweh told Israel not to worship them or mingle with people who did lest they be drawn into the worship of these lesser, created and corrupt elohim who are not Yahweh Elohim. In going to Moab Naomi did not think she had left God’s sovereignty, but from the prevailing worldview at this time, she would have understood that she and her family had been disobedient, and they had gone to live in a land under the rule of a fallen elohim. We can liken this to living in sin. Even as Christians, when we stray into habitual sin, we do not leave God’s sovereignty, but we do enter into the territory of other, fallen powers. We allow ourselves to be put under the influence of sinful, fallen forces that will seek to corrupt and destroy us. Naomi found that the shelter they sought in Moab was no shelter at all. Now, she has chosen to return to Israel, to the land and people Yahweh Elohim (Remember Yahweh=Jesus) had chosen and raised up for Himself.
So, in Ruth 1:6–18, as Naomi repeatedly rebuffed the offers of Ruth and Orpah to return to Israel with her, she implored them to return to Moab and by extension, to their false, fallen, elohim. It is clear Naomi still followed Yahweh, but she was in a difficult, embittering place as she processed the death and break up of her family. Whatever Naomi’s cultural and historical setting, the fact is that objectively it would have been better for her to accept Ruth and Orpah’s offer to go to Israel with her. It would have been unexpected for an ancient Israelite to do so, but ignorance to what is better does not change what is in fact better. We can look at Naomi’s life with a different perspective and interpret what would have been better, even as we acknowledge her own perspective is very different from ours today. She had no New Testament missionary mandate like we have today from Yahweh (Jesus) in the great commission (Matt. 28:18–20), but she also had no mandate to drive other people away from Yahweh. She told Ruth and Orpah repeatedly to leave her because Yahweh was against her. And she told them to return to their families and land, which in her understanding, meant returning to their gods as well, and by extension, a doomed eternity separated from Yahweh the one true God. It is unlikely Naomi was thinking of this last point as she repeatedly told them to leave, but the fact remains that this would be the result if they accepted her invitations to leave her. Whether she realized it in the moment or not, Orpah’s choice to return to her land and her gods, meant a higher possibility of a prosperous earthly life but also a certain and horrific eternity. Our choices have eternal significance, and in our grief and bitterness it can be very easy to lose sight of that.
As we read on, Orpah kissed Naomi and returned to Moab and to the worship of the Moabite deity, Chemosh, but Ruth clung to her. It is at this point that Naomi urges Ruth again to return to Moab and to the elohim of Moab by saying, “Look, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law too.” But Ruth would not have any of it. She responded to Naomi with what is perhaps one of the most beautiful and selfless statements of loyalty in the Bible. Ruth tells Naomi that she will go with, live with, die and be buried with Naomi no matter what. And perhaps most significantly Ruth says, “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God…So may Yahweh do to me, and even more, unless death separates you and me!” Ruth knew going to live in Israel meant leaving her people and gods behind. Her desire to go with Naomi was both out of love for her, and because she had learned about Yahweh and His people from Naomi. Ruth had come into contact with worshippers of Yahweh, and even in seeing this worshiper of Yahweh (Naomi) struggle with bitterness and grief, Ruth wanted to enter into a covenantal relationship with Yahweh, even if that meant scraping by as a widow in a foreign land for the rest of her days. Ruth counted the cost of what it would mean for her to forsake her old life and come to the one true God, the Most High, and she wisely and rightly determined it was worth it. She found something, or rather, someone worth living for. And anything that is truly worth living for, must also be worth dying for.
This is precisely what Jesus tells us to do before we decide to follow Him. In Luke 14 Jesus said anyone who wants to follow Him must first consider the cost of doing so. And “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
But there are more echoes of Christ’s character that we can see in Ruth. Lastly, after hearing all this from Ruth, Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, and she said no more. The Hebrew word used for “determined” is “mith’ammetseth” which comes from the word “amats,” which describes strength, firmness and persistence. In addition to her willingness to forsake all and follow Him, Ruth also exhibited a Christ-like persistent, faithfulness to Naomi. Despite Naomi’s repeated rejection of Ruth’s offer and desire to come with her, Ruth would not take no for an answer. And despite humanity’s repeated rejection of Yahweh as the Most High God and Lord, Yahweh, Jesus Christ, has refused to take no for answer. He does ultimately give us a choice of whether or not to accept Him, but His loving pursuit of humanity is relentless. Ruth forsook family and the possibility of re-marriage to stay with Naomi and follow Yahweh. But Yahweh left behind the perfect splendor and unparalleled majesty of heaven to come to us.
Ruth followed Naomi knowing death and suffering were a strong possibility, but Yahweh came to us knowing death and suffering were a certainty. Yahweh has come to us and refused to heed our rebellious rejection of Him, and instead He laid down His own life in order to raise us up to new life with Him. Now, when we, like Ruth, choose to follow Him, He will go where we go and lodge where we lodge. He will be our God, and we will be His people forever. And when the time comes for us to die, He will not abandon us to the grave. He has gone before us into death, and emerged victorious. Yahweh, the Most High, has conquered, sin, death, and the kingdom of this world. Now, where He lives, we will live. Not even death will part us. In fact, death will only bring us closer. Oh death, where is your sting?
“So now, revere Yahweh and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness; remove the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. But if it is bad in your eyes to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve, whether it is the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve Yahweh.”
Joshua 24:14-15 LEB
Application (How does this change how I think, act and pray?):
This passage should cause us to consider who we will serve and what cost we are willing to pay. Ruth and Orpah both had a choice. They could stay in Moab, worship the lesser, created and fallen elohim, but likely experience prosperity in this world. Or they could follow Yahweh, and in their case, likely experience hardship and suffering. That is not always the cost for following Jesus, but it often can be. We must count this cost and we must do so with an eternal perspective. This life is not the end. Everyone will stand before God after death. Only those who have accepted Yahweh’s free gift of salvation by grace through faith in the redemptive work of Jesus will be saved. Everyone who has rejected His free offer of forgiveness and salvation, will get exactly what they want: an eternity separated from Him where they will only know His righteous wrath for sin.
God loves us and He has allowed this world to continue while under the curse of sin and rule of fallen, sinful elohim because to bring an end to all that now would mean bringing an end to all of us. But in His unrivaled patience and loyal love, He has delayed the day of righteous judgment to extend this period of grace where we can repent of our sin and be saved by believing in Him.
Self Reflection:
Have I counted the cost of what following Yahweh (Jesus) in this world might mean? Is He worth it? Is He worthy?
How does understanding that Yahweh rules over all of time and space, and even over the unseen spiritual realm, help increase my understanding of His unparalleled majesty and greatness as the Most High, all-creating, uncreated God of the universe?
How does my understanding of how great Jesus is, as the Most High, increase my appreciation of His love and care for me? How does understanding how low He descended from the throne of heaven help me to understand how much He loves me?
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