CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Are there yet sons? etc. In allusion to the custom of a man raising posterity to his deceased brother by taking his widow (Adam Clarke, Jarci, Wright, Keil). Probably this custom obtained among other nations (Patrick, Scott). Known among the Gentiles before it was given to Israel (Gill, Speaker’s Com.) (cf. Genesis 38:8; Genesis 38:26; Deuteronomy 25:5). That law respects a brother by the father’s side, and not by the mother’s only (Aben Ezra, Carpzov). Not binding on a brother as yet unborn (Gill, Carpzov, etc.). Evidently, however, extended beyond the brother in the strict sense, and applied to the nearest relative, Boaz (Speaker’s Com.) Deuteronomy 25:5, probably to be understood in this wider sense. Turn again [return] go [to your own people] (Targum). If I should say. Rather, suppose that I should say I have hope that I were even to be married this very night, and were even to bear children (Bishop Horsley). In English we might imitate the sentence thus: For (let us suppose) I say I have hope; I have a husband; I have children; will you, etc. (Lange). Another reference to a Levirate marriage, possibly. So Keil, Wright, etc. Not so Rosenmuller, Carpzov. (See on Ruth 1:11.) If I should have an husband, etc. If I were with an husband, etc. And should also bear sons. Shall I yet have any more sons that I may give them to you? (Syriac.) Perhaps you think that I will marry, and that sons will be born to me (Arabic).
Ruth 1:13. Would ye tarry. For לָחֵן read the masculine לחֹם (Houbigant, Bishop Horsley). Rather to be taken adverbially, as “therefore.” “Would you therefore wait,” etc. (Maurer, Rosen., Gesen., Bertheau, Wright). The rendering of the English version (after Sept., Vulg.), “for them” is very improbable (Lange). Omit “for them,” and translate “under these circumstances,” or briefly “then” (Lange). Would ye tarry on these accounts, for these reasons? (Wordsworth.) Would you stay [for them (omit)] from having? etc. Would you therefore shut yourself up, so as not to have an husband? (Wright.) עָגַן From the Chaldean, “to keep back,” “to shut up” (Wright). Does not occur elsewhere in Hebrew. As virgins before their marriage lived in seclusion, so widows who were betrothed to children, while waiting for their coming of age, should keep themselves at home, lest any suspicion should attach to them (Le Clere). And will you be hindered from being married? (Syriac.) Will you be kept back by them from marrying? (LXX.) It grieveth me much. It is much more (Lange), far more bitter to me than to you (Wright, etc.). For it has gone much more bitterly with me than with you (Keil). As in the Authorized Version (Gesen., Bertheau). It may be a trial to you to leave me, but it is a still greater trial to me to be deprived of you; but it must be done, since, etc. (Tremellius, Junius). The LXX. has υπερ υμας, not υπερ υμων; and so Syriac, Arabic (comp. Genesis 19:9). You may have husbands and children, but I can never expect to have either (Wordsworth). The hand of the Lord. Generally signifies the means whereby He accomplishes His counsels (Topsell).
Theme—THE SECOND TRIAL OF AFFECTION
“I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fallen into the scar, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have.”—Shakespeare.
“Our voluntary service He requires,
Not our necessitated; such with Him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how
Can hearts not free be tried whether they serve
Willing or no?”—Milton.
Ruth 1:11.—And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters, etc.
Ruth 1:12.—Turn again … go; for I am too old, etc.
Ruth 1:13.—Would ye tarry for them [Heb. therefore,] etc.?
Here we see in Naomi the same non-proselytising spirit which characterizes her descendants down to the present day (Anon.). Scarcely so. Rather the spirit which would convince before it converts, which loves too well to persuade unwisely, which knows that a conversion made outwardly and in seeming only, is but the beginning of a future apostacy.
Note. (a) To decide any important question on wrong issues or false expectations is inevitably to find the ground hollow under our feet by-and-by.
(b) Love which deals faithfully with us in such moments is likely to prove faithful to us hereafter. It may wound, but it does so with good reasons (Proverbs 27:6).
(c) Love can say “no” sometimes, even when no means “separation.”
With Naomi, in fairness to them, she says “return,”—but in her affection she calls them “daughters.” She can do the latter, but she can do nothing more. They could enter into her house, but not into Israel’s national life (Lange). This the key to what follows. In her own mind, if they go forward with her, the prospect, humanly speaking, is hopeless.
Notice. Grief often says many really unnecessary things in order to conceal others which it dares not say (Lange). When she says that there is no hope for them in herself [i.e., in husbands being born them through her], she implies there will be none elsewhere in Israel. At best they could only be as widows shut up (see Crit. Notes), waiting for a husband never to be born. A dreary prospect even to Naomi. The climax of grief shows itself in the climax of impossibilities adduced (Lange).
We have—
I. A test of true love. If they go forward,
(1) They must die to their own interests. Do not indulge romantic hopes—visionary expectation which can only end in disappointment (Lawson). What her sons had done in Moab was not customary in Israel (Lange). She loves them too much to deceive them,—would rather part with them than do this, or even allow them to deceive themselves; if they go with her, they must go forward with a similar and kindred spirit of self-denial. Note. Thoughts ripened into resolves by serious consideration are likely to be kept (M. Henry).
So Christ dealt with His disciples. He said, “Foxes have holes,” etc. (cf. Luke 9:23-24; Luke 9:58). So a faithful pastor will deal with young converts.
The test here plain, sincerely meant, and founded, as the issue shews, upon good reasons. Naomi’s words follow, and are in agreement with the outward circumstances. We see, too, that they follow the leadings of Divine Providence. To do the one is often, and if we could rightly read the outward circumstances would always be, to do the other.
Note. (a) God sometimes hedges up the path so that there is nothing before us but the strait gate of self-denial. Especially is this true of the spiritual life. Stript of all, we enter the kingdom of God. The gate strait, the way narrow.
“Heaven’s gates are not so highly arched
As princes’ palaces. They that enter there
Must enter on their knees.”
(b) To be joined to the hope of the true Israel of God, we must be ready to deny ourselves of everything else. Esau sold his hope for a mess of pottage. So Orpah.
Again,
(2) If these young women are to go forward with Naomi, love itself must bring its own and only reward. Not a single inducement is held out, not a single promise made. Naomi would be theirs, nothing more. It is this that sends Orpah back, but suffers Ruth to go onward. And why? Orpah saw herself, while Ruth saw only the beloved one (Lange). She went with Naomi, though alone, because she loved Naomi alone.
How true all this is of a real affection for Christ! In love as in life He will be the first and the last. (Comp. Matthew 6:24, with Matthew 23:10; John 21:15; John 21:22.)
We love not Christ at all, unless we love Him above all (Augustine). Compare the Saviour’s description of the stony-ground hearer (Matthew 13:20-21), as seen in the conduct of the Jews (John 6:60-66), with the words of Simon Peter on that occasion (John 6:67-69).
We have—
II. A test of character and motives. Free will is essential to virtue; and that free will may be fairly exercised, there must be no concealment. It must be able to sit down and count the cost. One test is not sufficient. Naomi’s words search Orpah through and through, from many sides and in many ways. Did she desire “rest in the house of a husband”? (Ruth 1:9.) Hitherto this may have seemed possible to her in going forward. Not so now, and she must see it! A dreary blank hopelessness in this direction, the secret of Orpah’s return to Moab.
Of this return notice—
(1) Persuasions which fall in with our own desires are readily accepted.
(2) And that until these come we have not been truly and really tested.
(3) The strongest and purest motives are the only enduring ones.
So in Christian life. Time, and circumstances, and the unfolding of events around us, must and will come in to test the momentary decision for Christ.
Note. This is God’s ordinary and deliberate plan in dealing with men in life.
If heaven could be won by a single struggle, by a single determination, the work would be easy. But experience does for us what Naomi did for these. The test possibly not very severe at first,—the victory on our side (cf. Ruth 1:8-10). Sooner or later we are met by a prospect as blank on the human side as this (Luke 9:23; Mark 10:21). What then of our better resolutions and vows?
We have here—
III. A test involving the deepest and most solemn issues.
(1) Decisive between God and Chemosh. So Orpah understood it, for she went back “to her gods.” So Ruth understood it (Ruth 1:16).
Note. (a) The human love is made the pivot on which a higher affection turns and hangs—the human selfishness or unselfishness decisive of more lasting questions. A principle connected with this, love for the creature leading to and shewing a capacity for, love to the Creator (cf. 1 John 4:20). More particularly must this be seen in a lasting and unselfish affection for the godly.
Note. (b) We may love the image of Christ in His servants, though we have not yet understood the full meaning of our affection. This Ruth’s position. Her affections leaned in that direction, and she was ready to embrace all it involved (Ruth 1:16-17). Another extreme of character shrinks from all contact with Christ’s disciples. A third type exists, in those who love God’s people but merely on the human side. This Orpah’s danger. Note. Earthly affections are frail at best, and often mingled unconsciously with much that is selfish. Such characters fail ignominiously in moments like these.
(2) Decisive seemingly for time and eternity. A choice of mere outward circumstances may involve issues which are to last throughout eternity. Opah took Moab and all that Moab implied and included; Ruth, Israel. This last test seems at first a trifling one; judge it by its results! So always in spiritual things. When we choose the lower path, what is it but that we turn our back upon a higher? The momentary action decisive, the tendency fatal. Christ would give to the world the kingdom of heaven, but they will have the kingdom of earth, and here they part (Luther).
Bernard on this—
I.
That in giving counsel to or fro, it is good so to speak as may declare love and respect to the parties.
II.
That it was a custom among the Jews, for parents and children to speak most commonly one to another in the nearest and dearest terms of love.
III.
That it is a point of wisdom to ask ourselves, Why we will do this or that thing, before we undertake it, or resolve upon it.
IV.
That the true, honest-hearted, and such as fear God, in the kind offers of their friends, deal truly with them, and will not lead them into vain hopes.
V.
That worldly respects are not the motives which should induce any to join themselves with God’s people.
VI.
That the wise will not make promises rashly for others, nor persuade to more than they well know.
On the point of marriage, as taught here—
I.
That while a woman hath hope of children she may marry.
II.
The marriage is for them that are grown up for it and are marriageable.
III.
That it is not good for such as intend to marry to defer off too long.
IV.
That a godly and wise mother-in-law cannot only be willing, but also will persuade her children-in-law should marry again.
“Till this advice was given, the soundness and sincerity of Ruth’s religion did not appear; nor did the rottenness of Orpah’s profession discover itself.”—Macgowan.
“Naomi would not willingly leave her widowed daughters-in-law in Moab. Though she apparently discourages them, it is with the manifest design that they should go with her upon motives that should be permanent and not disappointing.”—Tyng.
“She discharges her difficult task with infinite delicacy. They, of course, had no thought of marrying any sons that might be born to the widowed Naomi. Such a thought could not possibly have entered into their minds. Why then does Naomi lay such emphasis on the utter unlikelihood of her having sons, and of their waiting for them even if she should have them? Simply to convey to them that, if they went with her, they mould have no hope but in herself.”—Cox.
“The surprising delicacy with which this is done is such as to shew clearly how truly a religious love educates and refines. The ultimate cause of the grief occasioned by the separation lies after all solely in the fact that Ruth and Orpah are Moabitesses. Naomi could not bear to tell them that if they, as daughters of Moab, went with her to Israel, they would find themselves in a less hospitable situation than they had hitherto enjoyed. She is too tender to remind these good children of the fact that Israel does not sanction connections with Moab.”—Lange.
“Orpah and Ruth are themselves aware of all that Naomi says to them in these verses. In wishing to go with her, they cannot possibly have a thought of building hopes on sons as yet to be born to Naomi by another marriage. But—and this is what Naomi would make them feel—any other hope than this vain one, they as Moabitish women could nut have in Israel. If I myself—she gives them to understand—could yet have sons, I would take you with me. My home would then be your home too. To me you are deardanghters-in-law, whether in Israel or in Moab, but other prospects have you none. She heaps up improbabilities in order to indicate in this veiled manner that this was nevertheless the only possible ground of hope for them in Israel.”—Lange (condensed).
“We see these young travellers meet with many discouragements to their return. How earnestly Naomi argues with them to search what manner of spirit they were of! How kindly she presses them to go back and find their shelter and their rest among the friends they were leaving! How she presses upon their remembrance that she has nothing to offer them, no hopes, no promises to hold out of present or prospective worldly gain! How she mingles the expressions of her gratitude and her grief in order the more effectually to impress them with a conviction of the earthly poverty of her journey! Again and again she kissed them in token of farewell. Again and again they wept in protestation of their fidelity and determination. How affecting and how promising seems such an interview! Read again these pathetic verses. Did Naomi really wish to discourage them? Did she really desire them to go back? Was she willing to leave them in Moab? Did Orpah gratify her more than Ruth? Far from this. She would try their faith and affection. She would know what was in their heart. She would see how long and how truly she might trust them hereafter. And therefore she lays before them the sorrows of the journey and the barrenness of the earthly prospect.”—Tyng.
“We cannot [but] notice here what seems an interesting fact—the thorough tolerance of Naomi. She indicates not the slightest shadow of intolerant dictation or overbearing advice, the most obnoxious form that advice can take. She recognizes in the two, when then say they will return with her, their indefeasible right, though her own children by marriage, at least to think and to decide for themselves. She felt her business was to give them clear and trustworthy information, but not to exercise even maternal influence in precipitating what they might blame her for when they came to taste the possible bitterness of her position, and to experience poverty, it might be, with the knowledge of the true and living God. She sets to us a most righteous example. Never try to coerce the judgment, or to force the conscience, even of the nearest and dearest; a victory gained at such expense is worse than a defeat. Respect the intellect, revere the conscience; say what you would like, urge what you would prefer, but leave to each individual connected with you perfect liberty to decide and act for themselves. To tempt, to coerce, or compel by fear, or by reward, or by force, is to intrude your hand into the holy place which the human conscience is, even in its aberration,—to lay a rude hand, as it were, upon the ark of God, and to assume prerogatives for yourself which God alone is exclusively competent to exercise.
“As there was to be no coercion or violence on the part of Naomi, there was on the other hand to be no concealment. There are two ways of bringing another over to what we like; we may either coerce the person, which is most criminal, or we may conceal—which is most dishonest—the actual state of things, and draw over to us unawares one who will afterwards, on discovering facts as they are, repent and regret the step. Naomi was candid. She shews them that there was no earthly prospect whatever of bettering their condition.”—Dr. Cumming.
“I cannot think very highly of Naomi’s character when I see the advice she gave to her daughters. She loved them, it is true; but her love was of too carnal a nature; for she had more respect to their temporal welfare than to the welfare of their souls. Should not the advice of Moses to Hobab have been hers to both of them, “Come with me, and God will do you good”? (Numbers 10:29-32.) Naomi, thou hast given us a picture too often realized in the present day: in her we see a mother more anxious about the providing of husbands for her daughters than the saving of their souls.”—Simeon.
“A Jesuit might raise the question, is it wise to tell the whole truth under circumstances like these? The Christian conscience is satisfied in knowing that it cannot be sinful.”—B.
Theme.—RESIGNATION IN SUFFERING
“Oh, ’Tis good
To wait submissive at Thy holy throne,
To leave petitions at Thy feet, and bear
Thy frowns and silence with a patient soul.”—WATTS.
Nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me … that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.
Three widows remaining, the solemn and affecting monuments that God will not be forgotten. Here is the end of all the wanderings of the past! Naomi’s sorrow, bitter as it is, intensified by the helplessness of those who have shared her calamities with her, her afflictions finding an increasing heaviness because of her unselfish desires for their welfare. [Some translate, “It is far more bitter to me than to you,” or, “It has gone much more bitterly with me than with you.”] God has reduced me to such mean services that I can do nothing for you (Gill). Note. (a) To a gracious spirit it is an increase of sorrow to see others involved in the fruit of our sins. The heaviest burden of many a parent’s heart explained in this (cf. 2 Samuel 12:15-23). Even a monarch’s crown brings no exemption from the law (2 Samuel 24:17). (b) True love takes to heart a friend’s afflictions in its own troubles (Bernard). Human life, alas! shews too often the other extreme, a hardness and callousness of heart to all the expressions of Divine displeasure as they concern ourselves, and a total insensibility to the result of our sin, as it may affect others. (c) Calamities like these not only bring sorrow for the dead, but grief for the living.
Notice,
I. The source of this affliction. Men generally see in details like these (Ruth 1:1-5) the natural and ordinary sequence of events. Naomi saw something else beyond and behind, infinitely more worthy of note. Her loss proceeded from no other by-causes, but from the hand of God (Fuller). As the showers come from the clouds, so her afflictions from the Lord (Topsell). Why doubt this, though they had stolen upon her a thousand times more naturally, gently, and insensibly, were that possible? Stoics ascribe calamities to inevitable fate; Epicureans and atheists, to blind fate; Philistines, to chance; Christians, to that One by whom the very hairs of our head are all numbered (Macgowan). Note. This is one of the distinguishing marks of God’s children in all ages. Afflictions come of the Divine hand. Their measure, their continuance, their purpose, all appointed of Him “with whom we have to do.”
A caution necessary here. God’s people may sometimes without good reason think that the hand of the Lord is gone forth against them (Lawson). Job thought so when the hand of Satan had despoiled him of his substance and his children (Job 1:12; Job 1:21; Job 2:6; Job 2:10). So also there is a slothful way of giving assent to Divine judgments. We say it is His hand when it is the hand of our own sloth and folly. Eli, with a resignation which would have been beautiful under other circumstances, said, “It is the hand of the Lord” (1 Samuel 3:18). Note. This a common phrase in the mouth of the wicked. Under this covert we often hide our impatience as well as our sinful carelessness.
II. The spirit in which afflictions should be borne. (a) With resignation. Naomi does not complain. Seems to bow to the inevitable future. Doubtless found comfort in the fact that it was the hand of the Lord—that God, with whom is mercy, and not another, had wounded her heart. Note. Every other way of receiving chastisement folly and madness (Acts 9:5; Isaiah 1:5; Romans 2:4-5). (b) With candour. She acknowledged evidently the sinful cause of all the discipline through which she has passed as in herself—“the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Otherwise the passage reads like an accusation against God. Note. Some have even represented life in this way as a conflict with God (cf. Job 9:34; Job 13:21; Job 16:12-21, etc.). A terrible thought, if true, and there is a sense in which it is true of the wicked. Naomi, however, looked upon her afflictions as a judgment for lingering in the country of Moab (M. Henry). (c) With wise thought-fulness. She obeys and returns (M. Henry). (d) With unselfish care and regret for the evil estate of others. Grief too often hardens the heart to all other sorrow outside our own. It is not so here. Naomi’s gentle unselfish spirit shines out conspicuous among the Old Testament saints. It grieveth me much for your sakes.
Topsell on this:—
First, that all our afflictions come from the Lord, that He might chastise His own, and confound the ungodly (Job 34:36). Neither the godly escape, nor the wicked go scot-free (Deuteronomy 31:18). This the confession of Moses and of David, a man more exercised in trouble than all the world beside (Psalms 119:71).
Secondly, that the godly are so patient in all their tribulations, even from this consideration, that the Lord’s hand afflicteth them (2 Samuel 16:10-12; Job 2:10).
Bernard on this:—
I.
The most godly sometimes take their afflictions very heavily (Job 3; Jeremiah 20:9-12).
II.
Afflictions are the more grievous for friends wrapped therein, so as one cannot help another.
III.
That all afflictions come by the power and providence of God—as by a hand upon us (Lamentations 1:12-17; Amos 3:6; Amos 4:6-11; 2 Chronicles 15:6).
IV.
That the godly in common calamities take themselves to be especially chastised. This good woman applied the whole cross to herself. They think upon their own sins, and not upon other men’s misdeeds.
“And if there be some things which we believe to be inflicted by the Lord, to whom can we render our patience better than to the Lord? Nay, He teacheth us to rejoice moreover, and to be glad in that we are thought worthy of Divine chastisement. As many as I love, saith He, I chastise. Oh, blessed is that servant on whose amendment the Lord is bent; with whom He deigneth to be angry; whom He deceiveth not by hiding His admonitions from him!”—Tertullian.
“Patience … adorneth the woman, approveth the man; is loved in the boy, praised in the young man, respected in the old; is beautiful in every sex, in every age. Come now, let us describe her form and her demeanour. She hath a countenance serene and placid; a forehead smooth, contracted with no wrinkle of grief or of anger, her brows evenly and cheerfully relaxed, her eyes cast down in humility, not in melancholy. Her mouth beareth the seal of honourable silence. Her colour is such as those have who are free from care and crime.”—Tertullian.
“God Almighty in mercy makes this world unpleasing to good men by affliction, that they may set the less value upon it. This is the voice of the rod, and of Him that hath appointed it, which every wise man ought to hear and answer with all obedience, submission, and thankfulness; and when affliction hath wrought this effect, its business is in a good measure ended, and for the most part it is thereupon eased or removed.”—Hale.
“ ‘Oh,’ saith the people, ‘God hath justly sent this plague for the corruption of the magistrates.’ ‘It is justly inflicted,’ saith the magistrate, ‘for the disobedience of the people.’ ‘Herein,’ saith the poor man, ‘God hath met with the oppression and extortion of the rich. ‘Herein,’ saith the rich man, ‘God hath paid home the muttering and the repining of the poor.’ ‘Now,’ saith the prodigal, ‘God punisheth the covetousness of old men.’ ‘Now,’ saith the old man, ‘He scourgeth the prodigality of such as be young.’ Far otherwise Naomi, who, though the arrows of God did glance and rebound, to the wounding of Orpah and Ruth, yet she thought herself was the mark at which God did level His shafts. ‘the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.’ ”—Fuller.
“We are never nearer to God than when we are lowest in our own estimation; and never more pleasing to Him than when we abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes.”—Charles.
“To be dejected is natural; but to be overcome by dejection is madness, and folly, and unmanly weakness. You may grieve and weep, but give not way to despondency, nor indulge in complaints. Weep as wept your master over Lazarus, observing the just limits of sorrow which it is not proper to pass.”—Chrysostom.
“He who possesses religion finds a providence not more truly in the history of the world than in his own family history; the rainbow which hangs a glistening circle in the heights of heaven is also formed by the same sun in the dewdrop of a lowly flower.”—Jean Paul Richter.
“Disappointments meet us at every turn; where we expected we should be particularly favoured with helps and advantages.… we behold ourselves left destitute; so that we have no more a place of refuge upon earth, no more a dear counsellor or friend who is as our own soul. By this means we are compelled, as Noah’s dove was, by the wide watery waste which did not afford a single resting-place, to fly to the Ark, and to take shelter there.”—Venn.
“Be still in sorrow! As God wills!
Let that thy motto be;
Submissive ’neath His strokes receive
His image stamped on thee.
Be still in God! Who rests on Him,
Enduring peace shall know,
And with a spirit glad and free,
Through night and grief shall go.”
Sturm.
“And if in our unworthiness
Thy sacrificial wine we press;
If from Thy ordeal’s heated bars,
Our feet are seamed with crimson scars,
Thy will be done!
Strike, Thou the Master, we Thy keys,
The anthem of the destinies,
The minor of Thy loftier strain,
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain.
Thy will be done!”
Whittier.
“The good we have enjoyed from Heaven’s free will;
And shall we murmur to endure the ill?”
Dryden.