CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—So they two. Types of the Jewish and Gentile Churches (Macgowan). Amicitia sit inter binos qui sunt veri, et bonos qui sunt pauci (Trapp). Went. They were obliged to travel on foot (Patrick, Gill). If the more southern route was chosen, they would descend from the high table-land of Moab, cross the plain at the southwestern extremity of the Dead Sea, part of the once larger vale of Siddim, where stood the cities of the plain, the soil of which is entirely covered with salt (Eadie), then turn northwards up the Wady Sudier to Engedi, and so to Bethlehem. If the more northern route, they would cross the two fords of Arnon and Jordan. In either case one of the most weird and desolate landscapes in the world, the scene of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, lay before them (cf. Deuteronomy 29:23). Came to Bethlehem [cf. Intro., p. 13]. All the city was moved [cf. 1 Samuel 4:5; 1 Kings 1:45]. All the city was in a commotion about them (Benisch). ἥχησε ἡ πολις. The city rang with the news (LXX.). All the city rejoiced at them (Arab, Syriac). The E.V. rightly uses the more comprehensive term which may include curiosity, surprise, gladness, etc. Amazement not so much at the fact that Naomi was still alive and had come back again, as at her returning in so mournful a condition (Keil). And they said. They in the Hebrew is feminine. The women of Bethlehem said (Speaker’s Com.). Not exactly, dicebantque mulieres, as the Vulg. has it; the population of the city are the subject of the verb, but in a matter of this kind women would naturally be so prominent as to lead the narrator insensibly to use the feminine. Perhaps Naomi arrived in an hour of the day when the labours of the field left none but women in the city (Lange). The Midrash makes the scene still more dramatic by the explanation that the concourse of the inhabitants was occasioned by the fact that the first wife of Boaz had that very day been carried to her grave (Lange). May possibly have been some such public occasion.
Ruth 1:20. Call me not Naomi [pleasant. See on Ruth 1:2, p. 14]. Call me Mara [bitter; LXX. πικαν; comp. Exodus 15:23]. I have no more anything that is pleasant about me: my life, like a salty, bitter spring, is without flavour or relish (Lange). A similar allusion to the meaning of names, Genesis 27:36; Jeremiah 20:3 (Speaker’s Com.). From this we gather that Naomi was not the name given her at first by her parents, but a popular name commonly given her by her neighbours, because of her comely presence and courteous behaviour (Patrick?) The Almighty [Shaddai]. The name Almighty is almost peculiar to the Pentateuch and to the Book of Job, in which last it is found thirty times. It occurs twice in the Psalms and four times in the prophets (Speaker’s Com.). Why is Shaddai used here? Must be connected with its pregnant, proper signification (Lange), the source of fruitfulness and life. Used continually as in Genesis 35:11; I am El Shaddai: be fruitful and multiply. The word must therefore unquestionably be referred to a root שָׁדָה still used in Arabic in the sense “to water, to fertilize.” [See Lange in loco.] Naomi was rightly named, when with a flourishing family she went to Moab; but now Shaddai, who gave the blessing, has taken it away (Lange). Rashi and Adam Clarke explain Shaddai to mean self-sufficient. Hath dealt very bitterly with me; has worked against me (Bertheau); hath testified against [lit. hath answered] me (Wordsworth); hath inflicted bitter sorrow upon me (Lange); hath made me very sad (Wright). [Comp. Exodus 20:16; 2 Samuel 1:16; Job 10:17; Malachi 3:5.] A metaphor from adversaries at law (Trapp). So Job says, “Thou writest bitter things against me” (Job 13:26).
Ruth 1:21. I went out full. That is, in the rich possession of a husband and two sons (Steele and Terry). Home again empty. The very reverse of Jacob’s experience (Genesis 32:10): “With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.” Cf. Hannah’s song (1 Samuel 2:5), “They that were full have hired out themselves for bread.” Though the Hebrew “full,” there meaning full of food, is quite different from that here used, which is the opposite of empty (Speaker’s Com.). The Lord [Jehovah] hath testified against me. Και κυριος εταπεινωσε με (LXX.). The reading of the LXX., “He humbled me,” was justly departed from, for it is only a paraphrase of the sense (Lange). Quam Dominus humiliavit (Vulg.). The Lord has brought me back in vain (Syr.), has sent down upon me a terrible punishment (Arab.). On the whole, we incline to prefer the ordinary translation (Wright). So Lange, Tremel., Drusius, Gesen., Rosenm. That which considers to be the difficulty of the passage, that it makes God to testify against a person, while elsewhere only men bear testimony, is precisely the special thought of Naomi. “I went,” she says, “and God has testified that this going was a sin” (Lange). In the loss of my children and family, says Naomi, I perceive that He “declares me guilty,” as the Targum excellently renders it (ibid). Comp. for a similar turn of thought. 1 Kings 17:18, followed at Ruth 1:20 by the identical word here rendered hath afflicted, there thou hast brought evil (Speaker’s Com.).
Theme.—COMPANIONSHIP IN PROGRESS
“Along the solitary plain we went,
As one who unto the lost road returns,
And till he finds it seems to go in vain.”—Dante.
“Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way,
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to day.”—Longfellow.
So they two went until they came to Bethlehem.
In life action is everything, and joy and sorrow come of themselves (Goethe). Onward with these two means that they are nearer every moment to Canaan, the land of promise, and Bethlehem, the house of bread. A rough way, but the right way (Philpot)—a difficult journey, but a wise one; onward from weakness to strength, poverty to riches, disquietude to rest. Moab behind them, the promised and in front.
“Linked hand in hand they went, tears in their eyes,
As faint and beautiful as eyes of flowers.”—Alexander Smith.
Note. Pilgrimage is the appointed lot of God’s saints; for true life is always moving onward, progressing.
We have here,
I. Companionship in Progress. They two went. Their principles were one, the life and love of God in the soul. Their object was one, to come and trust in the shadow of the Divine wings (Ruth 2:12). Their interest was common, the salvation of their souls and communion by the way (Macgowan). So Lot and his daughters went hand in hand out of Sodom, led of the angels to a place of safety. Note. The world is our wilderness, and we are happy only as the path leads us onward to a place of rest. They came to Bethlehem [the house of bread]. How many accompany each other to Bethaven! [house of iniquity.] Our travellers are an emblem of the righteous, who hold on their way, etc. (Macgowan). They went together lovingly, they ceased not to go on, they did not linger, they took no by-paths, neither forgot they whither they were going, till they came unto Bethlehem (Bernard). See also on Ruth 1:6-7; pp. 32–36.
II. Mutual sympathy in affliction.—The Holy Spirit mentioneth not what discourse they exchanged by the way; yet no doubt they were neither silent, nor busied in unprofitable talk (Fuller). Note. Two things prevented them sinking into despair, their piety and their mutual love. An instance here of God’s faithfulness in restoring comfort to His mourners. Elimelech and his sons taken. Ruth given as a fast friend. When Abraham lost Sarah, Rebekah is brought into her tent (Macgowan). Note. (a) True companionship embraces three things, love, unity, and constancy. Friends must be of one mind and one heart, if they would journey together. These united in an indissoluble bond of love (Cox). (b) Only in looking heavenward, not in looking earthward, do what we call union, mutual love, society, begin to be possible (Carlyle).
III. Fellowship and communion in desire and hope.—Both are journeying to join the Israel of God. Probably they were beguiling the way by anticipations of the future; for now that Naomi has taken Ruth more closely to herself, their interests are inseparable, whatever may unfold. Note. They are to be admitted unto our fellowship, whom we find to be constant in a good course, and true lovers of goodness, whatsoever they were before (Bernard). Thus God’s angels deal with us; they will account us their fellow-servants when we turn to God (ibid).
IMPROVEMENT.—
(1.) God leaves His saints generally neither companionless nor comfortless. Luke, Mark, Titus, Timothy given and sent at different times to Paul [cf. 2 Corinthians 7:6]. And where man’s company fails, He will send His angels. Jacob was comforted of heaven when earth failed him (Genesis 28:12). And when the disciples slept in Gethsemane, an angel appeared strengthening the Saviour.
(2.) Success always attends our efforts when they are in accordance with Divine purposes. They came to Bethlehem. Naomi is at home once more; and for the first time Ruth stands on the sacred spot where the Saviour is to be born. How much depended upon the journey, humanly speaking! Fit emblem of another journey to another land of promise.
“Is it a long way off?
Oh! no, a few more years,
A few more bitter tears,—
We shall be there.
Sometimes the way seems long,
Our comforters all go,
Woe follows after woe,
Care after care.”
’Tis no uncertain way
We tread, for Jesus still
Leads with unerring skill
Where’er we roam;
And from the desert wild
Soon shall our path emerge,
And land us on the verge
Of our dear home.”—E. W. Dic. of Poetic Illustrations.
“Naomi’s heart throbs with mingled feelings is they pass along the way traversed by her and her venerated dead some ten years before. The sight of the beloved city and the familiar spots quickens a crowd of painful memories. Those who have returned to their native country and their childhood’s home after a prolonged absence know too well how everything looks familiar yet strange, old yet sometimes new, and a thousand thoughts throng to the mind, and tearful emotions surge in the heart, at every turn of the way.”—Braden.
“A man may turn whither he pleases, and undertake anything whatsoever, but he will always return to the path which nature has prescribed for him.”—Goethe.
“Often again in his course of life man feels as a feathered seed driven by winds; as if, without weight or power, he slowly floats or is swiftly hurried, but rests nowhere. He feels that within him is life, but knows that he is as yet an embryo. He is confusedly conscious of what his tendencies are, but cannot tell what his outgrowth will be.… Let him but find resting place, and he also will put forth buds and boughs, and array himself in beauty.”—Lynch.
“Life is only bright when it proceedeth
Towards a truer, deeper life above;
Human love is sweetest when it leadeth
Towards a more divine and perfect love.
Learn the mystery of Progression duly;
Do not call each glorious change decay;
But know, we only hold our treasures truly
When it appears as if they fade away.
Nor dare to blame God’s gifts for incompleteness—
In that want their beauty lies: they roll
Towards some infinite depths of love and sweetness,
Bearing onwards man’s reluctant soul!”
Adelaide A. Proctor.
“Men’s mid-day, cold, and slow pace to heaven will cause many a man to want his lodgings at night, and to lie in the fields.”—Fuller.
“To walk with Love in Love’s own country will be as easy as it is happy; but here, where love is put upon its trial, it is not so. It is to walk as with a thorn in your foot, which gives great pain at every step—new pain in an old wound.”—Lynch.
“Permanent rest is not to be expected on the road, but at the end of the journey.”—Dillwyn.
“Though God may bring us into the wilderness, yet if He speak comfortably to us, the wilderness will be turned into a paradise.… If the road is rough, let us not complain, for it leads to a glorious rest which nothing shall disturb.”—Charles.
“Make all plain and clear, and what sphere is there left for that trust by which the soul learns to lean upon God Himself? To see all the pathway, and know whither it leads, and what are the difficulties in the way, and how they are to be avoided, that is sight, and not faith. But when ‘light is given, and yet the way is hid,’ when the little we know points to a deeper mystery, and beyond there is the darkness and uncertainty from which the spirit shrinks and life holds back, when we stand like the Israelites at the Red Sea, the swollen waters in front, the mountains on either hand, the enemy behind, and none to help us but God; it is then that faith either falters and fails, or triumphs and shows itself inestimable, most precious when most needed, just as the miner’s candle is valued beyond all else when the gloom is densest and the way most intricate.”—B.
“The more the cross, the more the longing:
Out of the vale man upward goes;
Whose pathway through the desert lies;
He craves the land where Jordan flows:
When here the dove finds no repose,
Straight to the ark with joy she flies.”
Schmolk.
“It is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness.… There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs, but he grieveth the less.”—Bacon.
“Then I saw in my dream, they went very lovingly on together, and had sweet discourse of all things that had happened to them in their pilgrimage.”—Bunyan.
“It is with Christians as with burning coals. If these are scattered far apart, one after the other is easily extinguished, but when collected together, the fire of one preserves that of the other, and the glowing coals often ignite others that lie near.”—Franke.
“ ‘Daughter,’ ye softly said—‘Peace to thine heart;
We too—yes, daughter!—have been as thou art,
Tossed on the troubled waves, life’s stormy sea;
Chance and change manifold proving like thee,
Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed, seeing in part,
Tried, troubled, tempted, sustained as thou art:
Our God is thy God; what He willeth is best:
Trust Him as we trusted, then rest as we rest.’ ”
Caroline Southey.
Theme.—A CITY IN ASTONISHMENT
“The blast of death
Hath stript our roof trees; the guardian boughs
Hang like sad willows o’er the stream of life,—
Where drifting slowly by our native shores,
Familiar faces smile on us no more.”—Mackay.
And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?
Naomi’s return was no common occurrence. Probably the inhabitants of Bethlehem never expected to see her more (Lawson). The city, and especially the women, were thrown into a peaceable uproar. Everybody ran, told the news, and wondered (Lange). The great change in Naomi’s circumstances apparent in her appearance, in her very way of entering Bethlehem. Ten years ago she had left under far different circumstances. She went out with a husband, children, wealth; as she herself says, “full.” The story well remembered, for the family was a prominent one in Bethlehem; natural that the news of her return, poor and sorrowful, should spread like wildfire, and create what to her was an unpleasant sensation (Lange). Is this Naomi? Note. No questions cut so keenly as those which remind us of beloved ones who have passed into the shadow of death (Braden).
See in these words,
I. The language of surprise and astonishment. Strange! Wonderful! Is this she who was once so wealthy? How quickly is a river of riches drained dry! (Fuller.) Is this, can it be, Naomi? Time and sorrow, too, had wrought their cruel work upon her. Ten years, and such troubles as hers, leave terrible marks at her time of life (Braden). The rose withered unlike what it was when blooming (Matt. Henry). She that formerly was so fair, now one can scarcely read the traces of beauty in her face (Fuller). Is this Naomi? Note. (a) The more renowned any are in prosperity, the more remarkable are they in adversity (Bernard). Men are more carried away by the consideration of the outward means how things come to pass, than of the power and pleasure of God to make such an alteration (ibid). And so (b) God’s providential doings are a continual cause of surprise—as full of mystery as they are of mercy; necessarily so if faith is to have its perfect work. He brings about great changes in persons, families, cities, countries. And that often in ways least expected. The poor are exalted, the rich cast down; empires seemingly established for ever, like Babylon and Rome, coming to nought; cities destroyed, etc. (Cf. Lamentations 2:15, “Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty?” etc.; Revelation 18:15-17.)
II. The language of condemnation. May be feared there was more blame than pity in the exclamation (Cox). See! see! this is she that could not be content to tarry at home to take part of the famine with the rest of her fellows (Fuller). Perhaps they were moved about her, lest she should be a charge to the town, she looked so bare (Matt. Henry). Men judge mainly by outward appearances.
“Virtue without success
Is a fair picture shown by an ill light.”—Dryden.
Under the old economy, too, adversity was looked upon largely as meaning punishment. Only the nobler spirits seem to realize the meaning and ministry of suffering. A trace of this to be found among the heathens, as in the seven years’ probation of Eneas:—
“Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Sabian realm, and built the destined town.”—Virgil.
But even this was associated with fate and “the wrath of the gods.” Note. The multitude in all ages have traced afflictions to the anger of the Deity. (See Job 8:6; Job 11:20, etc.) Difficult for Christians to realize always that “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”
So that we may have here,
III. The language of contempt. The crowd come and look upon a spectacle like this, and then pass away to their usual avocations, some at least pointing the finger of scorn. David was cursed of Shimei in his affliction, and God’s prophet saluted with the cry, “Go up, thou bald head.” The man of God must expect to be misunderstood in all that concerns him, even in the Divine dealings with him. Christ said to His disciples, “The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service.” Note. Hatred to the good seems inherent to the evil heart; and poverty brings contempt upon the best. Proud hearts take contempt in adversity as worse than death (Bernard); but we must learn to bear it as Naomi, as David, as Christ did.
We may have here,
IV. The language of pity and commiseration. Alas! alas! is not this that gracious woman, that godly saint, which formerly by her charity relieved many in distress? How soon is a full clod turned into parched earth! one that supplied others into one that needeth to be supplied by others! (Fuller.) “How has the gold become dim!” Those that had seen the magnificence of the first temple wept when they saw the meanness of the second (Matt. Henry). There are always hearts that are touched in a right way at the sight of sorrow and trouble. The priest and the Levite may come and look on and pass by on the other side; but some good Samaritan draws nearer sooner or later to pour in oil and wine into the open wounds. Naomi evidently moved by the expression, Is this Naomi? She utters no word of reproach afterwards against the inhabitants of Bethlehem. Note. Good and godly people do not less esteem the virtuous because of their outward low estate and poverty (Bernard). The poor around us test the sincerity of our professions of religion. Christ will say at last, “Inasmuch as ye did it not,” etc.
IMPROVEMENT.—
(1) The same language may have a very different meaning in different lips.
(2) Our very surprise at adversity should be mingled with compassion, and meted out with sympathy. Idle words, how they wound the broken heart! Is this Naomi? brings back the memory of all the past.
(3) In adversity we should be comforters, not as Job’s friends, who sat down and censured him, nor as Christ’s and St. Paul’s, who forsook them (Bernard), not even as Naomi’s, whose casual words open the fountains of grief afresh; but as those who themselves have suffered, and have the meek and gentle spirit suffering only can bring.
(4) When we remark the sad changes which numbers suffer, we should be reminded to prepare for changes ourselves, especially the last great change (Scott).
“Their exclamation, ‘This Naomi!’ expresses the general astonishment at the change which had passed upon her. No doubt the little hamlet had been all aflame with gossip when, ten years before, the rich sheep-master Elimelech had left it, and many pious brows had been shaken over his sin in going to sojourn among the heathen. And no doubt, on Naomi’s return, many who would have shared that sin if they could, and many who had committed far worse sins than any of which she had been guilty, once more shook their heads in grave rebuke, and were forward to recognize the judgments of an offended God in the calamities which had befallen her.”—Cox.
Naomi was formerly a woman of good quality and fashion, of good rank and repute; otherwise her return in poverty had not so generally been taken notice of. Shrubs may be grubbed to the ground, and none miss them; but every one marks the falling of a cedar. Grovelling cottages may be levelled to the earth, and none observe; but every traveller takes notice of the fall of a steeple. Let this comfort those to whom God hath given small possessions. Should He visit them with poverty, and take from them what little they have, yet their grief and shame would be the less; they should not have so many fingers pointed at them, so many eyes staring on them, so many words spoken of them. They might lurk in obscurity. It must be a Naomi, a person of eminence and estate, whose poverty must move a whole city.”—Fuller.
“If we would truly sympathise with others, we must beware of hastily estimating the manner and degree of their trouble.… Comforters must come as inquirers, not judges; come to bestow consolation, not criticism.”—Lynch.
“To seek the applause of man is wrong; but to merit it is most desirable. A man of worthless character creates no respect in the minds of others, so that if ill befall him, he finds but little sympathy in the bosom of those around him; whereas a good man under misfortune excites a lively interest in his affairs.”—Simeon.
“The feelings of men are easily excited for those who have met severe and peculiar afflictions; but in the generality of mankind those feelings soon die away, and, even while exciting, rarely produce any practical effect. ‘The whole city was moved’ about Naomi, but we are not told that one door was opened to receive her, and we soon find her rejoicing in being allowed to partake of the last and lowest resource of the destitute. Few remember how large a proportion of pure and undefiled religion consists in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction.”—Macartney.
“Outward contact never accords with the epoch of inner culture, and therefore, as it cannot further us, must necessarily injure us.”—Goethe.
“We all suffer from the want of genuine human help and sympathy. But often, to meet our particular case, it is required that those around us possess a higher than the average goodness. We must not curse humanity because we cannot find the man we want.”—Lynch.
“There is ‘salvation in fulness,’ and there is ‘salvation by fire.’ There is the ‘abundant entrance’ into the kingdom of God, and there is the getting in with something like ‘difficulty.’ One man may be conducted to his ‘joy and crown’ through thronging multitudes, amid outstretched hands and reverberating hosannas, and along the great public thoroughfare of the city; while another shall advance with hesitating step; be glad to get an entrance without observation; be met by no congratulating crowds; creep stealthily by some unfrequented street to his undistinguished abode; tremulous with a thankful, though shaded joy, that he is saved at all.”—Binney.
Theme.—SPIRITUAL DESPONDENCY AND DEPRESSION
“Grief hath changed me,
And careful hours, with Time’s deformed hand,
Hath written strange defeatures in my face.”—Shakespeare.
“We overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination, given us to bring down
The choir of singing angels.…
to rake
The dismal snows instead; flake flowing flake,
To cover all the corn.…
O brothers! let us leave the shame and sin
Of talking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of Grief,—holy herein,
That by the grief of one came all our good.”—Mrs. Browning.
Call me not Naoimi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, etc.
Ten years have turned Naomi into Mara (Bp. Hall). Ten years and departure into the far-off land (cf. Luke 15:14). This is what sojourning in Moab meant then and always; affliction, barrenness, want, even to those who are least guilty. So Israel had to come out from Egypt, though they found a Goshen there for awhile, “in haste,” and as from a land of bondage. Note. Man goes, but God brings home (Lange). The departure is all our own, the return is His with whom we have to do.
Remark,
I. On the changes incident to human life. Its sweet and pleasant things become bitter, its fulness emptiness, its prosperous goings out disastrous. Note. (a) This is not by chance, but by the providence of God. A peculiarity of piety, that it ascribes the issues of all the affairs of life to God (Lange). He turns Naomi into Mara, mirth into mourning, sweet into sour, honour into dishonour (Bernard). As examples we have Job, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Herod, beyond the memorable instance of the text. Outward glory is but as a lading flower, and as the warm sunshine of a cold wintry day, soon gone, and all the delight thereof (Bernard). Note. (b) Every man’s estate is in the hands of the Lord to alter as He will.
Remark,
II. On the meaning and manner of these changes.
(1) Life means discipline, and therefore pain is a secondary question to that of our perfection. God denies and takes away, just as the sculptor does with the marble, that he may bring out the ideal form beneath. He finds it sometimes best to cross the likely projects of His dearest children (Bishop Hall). “If God have loved thee,” says Bengel, “thou canst have no lack of trouble.”
Again,
(2) Experience comes in this way: we grow strong, not only in conflict, but in times when we must bear as well as do. “Thou therefore, my son, endure hardship,” etc. (2 Timothy 2:3). The soldier must pass through his baptism of fire, and the Christian his baptism of suffering.
Once more,
(3) We never understand life aright until we see in it two wills in conflict, the human and the Divine. Our thoughts and purposes at best are not His with whom we have to do. Mark, the choice in life is with us, the issues with Him. There is the exercise of free will on our part, and there are His foreordained purposes. And note, Hits purposes will be accomplished, even though He deal bitterly with us. In all our projects we must expect that God may testify against us as against Naomi. He does so as seeing the end from the beginning, the true meaning of life amid its outward and plausible appearances. Man in his abundance, too, is apt to forget God. Adversity, denial, is the Divine way of calling our thoughts back again to Himself. No doubt God does deal bitterly with men at times. The profoundest love may show itself in this way, as with the parent when he corrects his child; the most far-reaching wisdom, as with the physician when he cures with distasteful remedies. [See also on Ruth 1:13, pp. 50–52.]
Remark,
III. On spiritual depression as accompanying these changes. Usually, the natural man, even as a beggar, still desires to shine (Lange). Not so Naomi. Her humility regards not a glorious name in a dejected state (Malt. Henry). She hates this hypocrisy, and since God hath humbled her, desires not to be respected of men (Bishop Hall). A poor widow now, though once a noble woman. Call me not Naomi, she says, call me Mara. Note. We have in this the bitterness of grief, not of impatience; something of that shadow which has fallen at times upon the noblest spirits. We call it spiritual depression, religious despondency, melancholy, etc., and in it the heart does not so much murmur against the burden of life as feel it. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Enquire
(1) As to some of the causes of this spiritual depression. Sin in ourselves, wrong-doing of others, peculiar mental and physical conditions, unsolved problems of this our existence. Or, as here, adverse circumstances, and the lowliness of human life (Psalms 88:8). Naomi’s losses have followed one another like Job’s, hence her bitter cry. So Elijah in the hour of depression said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life.” Note. With all men there is a cloudy and dark day; and the world within us generally reflects the world without.
“Many of God’s most precious gifts are sad;”
and so far in the world’s history the best songs, like the nightingale’s, have been sung in the dark.
Again with Naomi, God Himself seems to be against her, afflicting her. Her loving heart takes all God’s judgments on itself (Lange). She is humble, repentant, but also keenly sensitive and alive to the hand above her. A great alleviation of pain to see God in our afflictions [cf. on Ruth 1:13, p. 50, div. I.], but there is a dark side even to this. “The Lord hath testified against me.” It is not only God hiding Himself, but God against her, as an advocate pleading, as a witness testifying on the other side. This the bitterest drop in her cup of affliction, which makes her ready to disclaim her very name, and all the past of her history. So, too, in a more mysterious sorrow the cry went up, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Note. God testifies against His own children. His saints are by no means perfect in love, in faith, in obedience; and He will continue to testify until His own purposes are accomplished in them.
Enquire
(2) As to the Divine meaning in connexion with spiritual depression. Afflictions (a) sent as chastisement, (b) allowed as discipline, (c) part of a wider problem in the history of the human race.
So with that chastened, humbled, and even sorrowful frame of mind, which accompanies them. Undue sorrow is better than undue security. Where the showers fall most, there the grass is greenest (Spurgeon). Just as some islands owe their fertility to the humidity of the atmosphere, the very clouds that darken and the rains that deluge the land, so many Christians owe their richest and divinest experiences to the sorrow which has darkened all their life. No chastening, says the Apostle, for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; but afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11). And Christ Himself likens the disciples, in the hour of His trial, to a woman in travail (John 16:20-22).
“The night is darkest before the morn:
When the pain is sorest, the child is born;
And the day of the Lord is at hand.”—Kingsley.
Again, just as the capacity for sorrow proves man above the brute, so this very sensitiveness to God’s dealings shows the saint superior to the worldling. “Sanctified afflictions,” says Dodd, with deep insight into God’s dealings with His children, “are spiritual promotions.” He treats us as sons (Hebrews 12:7). And so the godly sorrow, our burden to-day, will be our glory to-morrow. Paul felt this when he said, “Our light affliction,” etc. (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:11-13; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; 2 Corinthians 6:8-10).
LESSONS.
(1) The condition of creatures is soon changed (Macgowan).
(2) Afflictions may make that which was once our glory seem and sound like irony to us. With Naomi, the very remembrance of her name increases her grief.
(3) Those who are truly humbled are not ashamed that the world should think them so. In all forms of good there are more that care to seem than to be (Bishop Hall). Many that are debased and impoverished, yet affect to be called by the empty names and titles of honour they formerly enjoyed (Matt. Henry). Not so Naomi.
(4) When our condition is brought down, we may and must expect our spirits to be humbled with it.
(5) Neither dignity of place, highness of birth, nor fruitfulness of children, may minister comfort to those whom the Lord has humbled (Topsell). The hand that smites is the only hand that can heal; and worldly misery is only abated entirely by everlasting felicity.
(6) It is not an affliction itself, but an affliction rightly borne, that does us good (Matt. Henry). “So, friend, I see that thou hast not yet forgiven God Almighty!” the rebuke of Ebenezer Adams to a lady of rank, a widow, he was visiting. The reproof produced such an effect, that she immediately had all her trappings of grief destroyed, and went about her necessary business and avocations. So many calamities have been lost upon you if you have not yet learned how to suffer (Sen. ad Helv.). Behold us willing to suffer in this life the worst it may please Thee to bring upon us; here lay Thy rod upon us; consume us here, cut us to pieces here, only spare us in eternity (St. Augustine).
(7) It is no part of religion to harden ourselves against the rod. “Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved” (Jeremiah 5:3), is the charge the prophet brings against Jerusalem; but we nowhere find them condemned for feeling too keenly (Macartney).
“She put her mouth in the dust, and spake in a low language, suitable to her present condition; God had afflicted her, and she would carry her sails accordingly. Many are humbled, but not humble; low, but not lowly. These have lost the fruit of their affliction, saith Augustine, and are therefore most miserable. God, saith another, calls no man Benjamin, but those whom their own hearts call Ben-oni in their humility. He salutes them not Naomi, beautiful, who do not humbly feel themselves Mara, bitter.”—Trapp.
“If all our afflictions come from the Almighty, it is in vain, as well as impious, to contend with Him that smites. Shall the potsherds of the earth strive with their Maker, who has all power to do with them as He pleases? He cannot effectually be opposed, and He can do nothing that is wrong. Weak mortals may injure their fellow-creatures for their own advantage, but what profit can it be to the Almighty that He should oppress the work of His own hands?”—Lawson.
“We ought not so to lament the comfort we have lost, as to think that all our future days must be spent in bitterness.”—Ibid.
“Wonder not at David, if he crieth in the anguish of his heart; at Job, if he complaineth in the bitterness of his soul; at Jeremiah, if he lamenteth in the extremity of his grief; for even then they are swallowing of a potion which is bitter unto flesh and blood.”—Fuller.
“It will always remain a wonder to the majority of men what the agonies of some spirits mean. Questions which scorch the spirit like burning lava, pitiful wailings after light, gaspings of the oppressed soul for fresh air and liberty, they know nothing of. I have met men and women who had been familiar with sorrow in many forms. Fortune had not favoured them—fortune is strangely capricious: in whatever direction the golden veins run in this world, they had never somehow struck into one; the gifts of health had been niggardly doled out to them, and the common enemy death had passed through their homes, and his footsteps had dried up the springs which, amid all the world’s weariness, had been so refreshing. These trials they had borne patiently and humbly. But the pain which was almost impossible to bear, the blow which made the soul stagger and reel was this, the light went. They were left in mental darkness; there was nothing to guide the soul by; perplexity, uncertainty, bewilderment throughout the whole realm of religion.”—Morlais Jones.
“Now I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough that was in the midst of the plain, and they being heedless did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was DESPOND.”—Bunyan.
“Men spoil their own lives, and then complain that life is evil; they mar and rend the picture, and murmur because its beauty has disappeared; they run the ship upon the rocks, and weep to find her a wreek; they crush the flower with a rude hand, and are disappointed because it withers.”—Thomas Jones.
“As torrents that are dried up in the heat of summer, when there is most need of them, so all comforts fail in the extremity, that are not derived from the fountain of life.”—Dr. Bates.
“Sorrow is the substance of man’s natural life, and it might almost be defined to be his natural capability of the supernatural; nothing has a lasting interest for man which is not in some way connected with sorrow; sorrow is the poetry of a creation which is fallen, of a race which is in exile in a vale of tears.”—F. W. Faber.
“The cross is always ready, and waits for thee in every place.… Why hopest, then to avoid that from which no human being has been exempt? Thou art deceived, wretchedly deceived, if thou expect anything but tribulation; for this whole mortal life is full of care, and signed on every side with the cross.”—Thomas à Kempis.
“What is sixty years’ pain to eternity? We never think of sorrow in our dreams; wherefore should we in the dream of life?”—Jean Paul Richter.
“A few in every age have known the divine art of carrying sorrow and trouble as wonderful food, as an invisible garment that clothed them with strength; as a mysterious joy, so that they suffered gladly, rejoicing in infirmity, and holding up their heads with sacred presages; whenever times were dark and troublous, let the light depart from their eyes, that they might by faith see nobler things than sight could reach.”—Beecher.
“Darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw before.”—Moore.
“The cares and infelicities of life, which are spoken of as ‘hindrances to grace,’ may be hindrances, but they are the only helps it has in this world. The voice of provocation is the voice of God calling us to the practice of patience.
“A man in his old age is like a sword in a shop window: men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the process by which it was completed. Man is a sword. Daily life is the workshop, and God is the artificer; and those cares which beat him upon the anvil, and file his edge, and eat in, acid-like, the inscription upon his hilt,—these are the very things that fashion the man.”—Beecher.
“No men have need to be so vigilant, so attentive, so listening, so appreciative, as those who are in deep trouble. Sorrow is Mount Sinai. If one will go up and talk with God face to face, he must not fear the voice of thunder, nor the trumpet sounding long and loud.”—Beecher.
“I have read of a fountain that at noonday is cold, and at midnight it grows warm; so many a precious soul is cold Godward, and heaven-ward, and holiness-ward, in the day of prosperity, that grows warm God-ward, and heaven-ward, and holiness-ward in the midnight of adversity.”—Brooks.
“Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God’s favour”—Lord Bacon.
“The good man suffers but to gain,
And every virtue springs from pain;
As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.”
Goldsmith.
“I see not a step before me as I tread the days of the year,
But the past is still in God’s keeping, the future His mercy shall clear;
And what looks dark in the distance may brighten as I draw near.
For perhaps the dreaded future has less bitterness than I think;
The Lord may sweeten the water before I stoop to drink,
Or if Marah must be Marah, He will stand beside its brink.
So I go on not knowing. I would not if I might;
I would rather walk on in the dark with God, than go alone in the light;
I would rather walk with Him by faith than walk alone by sight.
My heart shrinks back from trials which the future may disclose,
Yet I never had a sorrow, but what the dear Lord chose;
So I send the coming tears back, with the whispered word, ‘He knows.’ ”
Theme.—PAINFUL REMEMBRANCES
“This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.”—Tennyson.
“Brothers, hush! the Lord Christ’s hands
Ev’n now are stretched in blessing o’er the sea and o’er the lands.
Sit not like a mourner, brother! by the grave of that dear past;
Throw the present! ’tis thy servant only when ’tis overcast.
Give battle to the leaguèd world; if thou’rt worthy, truly brave,
Thou shalt make the hardest circumstance a helper and a slave.”
Alexander Smith.
I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home empty again: why, then,? etc.
Sooner or later the time comes in the history of good men when things begin to show themselves as they are. Appearances deceive us no longer. The scales fall from our eyes. Life stands out in its true relationships, and we read, plain as the handwriting on Babylon’s walls, the lessons God would have us learn from the past. We come more completely to ourselves, and that moment, even to the best of men, is one of contrition and regret, and often of painful self-accusation.
Naomi is evidently passing through such a time in this the hour of her return. A penitent feeling pervades her lamentation (Lange). She left her people in the day of famine, and now she comes back to them, the famine in her own heart. Life has narrowed itself to a question between herself and God. Her emptiness is of Him, but her going away is all her own. She went out of her own free will, though others led her; and in contrast with this comes the doings of the God of the Israel she left behind. I went because it was my will to go, not God’s; now God’s judgment has sent me back (Lange).
Note. (a) To go out of God’s way is to go out of His protection (Macgowan); but (b) to go against His will is to come under the sweep of His chastisements.
We have here,
I. The true conception of human life.
(1) God dealing in it personally, individually, with men. A Scriptural doctrine found from Genesis to Revelation. Pre-eminently a Christian doctrine: “Even the very hairs of your head,” etc. More than this, it is a reasonable doctrine. If there be no special providence, there is no providence at all; only blind fate, or resistless law. On any other theory which recognises a Deity, we are at the mercy of what is worse than chance—a God who thinks it beneath Him to regard His creatures; or worse still, a God who is chained and overmastered by His own laws.
(2) Its departures and wanderings our own. “I went out.” If any might have blamed others, Naomi might. But not so, she blames herself alone. Note. Self-condemnation a constant attendant upon Christian life. “I went out full.” So did the prodigal. People usually get full before they go out from God’s way and habitation (Macgowan). She went out not for want, but for fear of want (Bernard, Trapp). (See on Ruth 1:1, pp. 10–13.) She went out full of family happiness, of joy in her sons, and of hope of a cheerful old age, surrounded by children and children’s children; but empty now of all these, without possessions and without hope (Lange). What a vivid picture of those who leave the way of God’s ordinances and sanctuary privileges! They go out for gain, but they meet with gall and wormwood instead of honey (Macgowan). Note. Our blindness oftentimes carries us into the perils we seek to eschew (Bishop Hall).
(3) Its better leadings and holier impulses, its repentance and return to God. “The Lord hath,” etc. Just as the planets are brought into their appointed orbits by the central and attractive force of gravitation, so it is between man and God. (See on Ruth 1:7, div. I., p. 35). Mark, (a) that she was brought home again. Afflictions are not a consuming but a refining fire to the godly (Secker). And mark (b) how she was brought back. By weeping cross, Trapp says quaintly. “Home again empty,” says the text. Jehoshaphat’s ships were broken; Lot lost all; Josiah came home short (Trapp). Note as true always of such returns, that the backslider retraces his steps
(1) with many tears and self-reproaches,
(2) with conscious emptiness,
(3) with total self-renunciation. Naomi renounces even her right to her former name. Why call me Naomi? Why speak a single word to remind me of my former glory? In my losses and in my loneliness, in all that belongs to my life, “the Lord hath testified against me.” Men call her Naomi (pleasant, gracious, lovely); but she reads her life in a different fashion, and says, Call me Mara (bitterness). Note. We fall short in the eyes of God, however we may seem in the eyes of our fellow-men. Repentance and a change of heart always brings us to see this. The old nature and the old life is no longer Naomi, rather it is Mara to us.
We have here,
II. The true explanation of afflictions.
(1) Always from God, if not always for punishment. This one of the great lessons taught in the book of Job. So here. Naomi, not worse, not even so bad, as many around her who had so far escaped calamity. But God has a right to deal severely with the best of His children for their ultimate good. Mark the distinction; He corrects His children, He punishes the wicked. The one act looks forward to a future perfectness, the other looks back only upon the past. The one is remedial and continual until the end is accomplished; the other waits and lingers in hope of repentance, but comes at last, swift as lightning, and sudden as the whirlwind. (Cf. Hebrews 12:5-11, with Psalms 37:9-13; Psalms 37:20; Psalms 37:38.)
(2) Always having a meaning and a message, though not always in anger. (See last outline, div. II.) Afflictions are represented here as God’s testimony against those who have wandered from His ways. “The Lord hath testified,” etc. He puts the straight way of His judgments side by side with our crooked ways. As that One who brings all things to pass, He brings our folly to fruition to confound us. He ripens our plans, and lo they are our undoing! It is not that He thwarts us; oftentimes He gives us the desire of our heart, and it is the strongest testimony to our sin. Note. God not only testifies by word, but by act; not only in revelation, but in providence. Our life a testimony in its circumstance, etc. God’s will is being accomplished in it, as well as our own.
LESSONS.
(1) The vanity of earthly possessions. So uncertain is that which we call fulness in the creature, an hour may strip us of all. Like a bladder, so is worldly prosperity; a puff doth make it swell, but a prick doth make it fall again (Topsell).
(2) It is a sign of true grace when we ascribe the ills which come in life to the hand of God, while we take all the blame to ourselves. What is it but the child recognizing even in chastisement the hand of the Father?
Bernard on this:—
I.
That it is a fault, voluntarily for safety of goods, through distrust, to leave God’s people, and go to live among idolaters.
II.
That there is no certainty in worldly wealth.
III.
That oftentimes the ways and means which men take to prevent want, by the same they bring it on them.
IV.
That such of God’s children as go astray, He will bring home again, but yet with correction.
V.
“Why then call ye me Naomi?” etc. That the humbled and afflicted take no pleasure to be remembered of their former prosperity by names and titles.
VI.
That man’s comfort is nothing able to allay the bitterness of God’s discomforts on us.
VII.
That afflictions are commonly the Lord’s witnesses against us for something amiss in us.
“The Lord giveth, and the Lord hath taken away.” When He gives, He is under no necessity of securing to us the possession of what He gives. We may soon provoke Him, by our sins, to bereave us of all that He hath given us; but however careful we may be to please Him, we cannot merit the continuance of His favours, and without any special provocation on our part He may have good reasons for impoverishing us, and placing us in conditions quite the reverse of those to which we have been accustomed. And one great reason why God so frequently changes men’s prosperous condition into misery is to teach us the folly of trusting to our present enjoyment. ‘But this I say, brethren, the time is short. It remaineth,’ etc.”—Lawson.
“It is hard to come down in the world through upright dealing, but harder still to stoop to dishonest dealing in order to keep up in the world. If the loss of temporal gain be the gain of eternal good, then the reverse of fortune is the reverse of misfortune.
“It is difficult to mourn without murmuring. We are permitted to weep and moan under the hand of God, but it is not easy to weep, to sorrow without excess; at once to feel the rod and to kiss it, to adore and to bless a correcting and bereaving God. How noble the spirit, and how pious the language of Job, when he exclaimed, ‘The Lord gave,’ etc.”—Toller.
“There are times when we reason thus: the darkness is around us, therefore it will always be dark; the winter has been long and cold, hence summer will never arrive; troubles are come upon us, consequently we are to expect nothing but trouble. Thus does the mind take a melancholy pleasure in tormenting itself. We turn our back to the light, look at our own dark shadow cast upon the ground, and then cry out in sorrow that all things are and will be against us.”—Thomas Jones.
“Afflictions are a testimony against men that they are sinners, but they are not always a testimony that the sufferer is guilty of some particular sins for which God chastiseth him” (Job 2:3).—Lawson.
“God made men to be blessed. If the cry of broken hearts goes up to heaven, it is not His institution.”—Baldwin Brown.
“Men think God is destroying them because He is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the string upon the musical rack.”—Beecher.
“She utters not a breath of accusation against Elimelech, or of excuse of herself. Properly speaking, the fault did lie with her husband and sons. They were the originators of the undertaking that ended so disastrously; but of this she has no memory.”—Lange.
“She takes the whole blame on herself. She confesses that, in leaving ‘the land of promise,’ she was walking after her own will, not the will of God. But though she confesses her own sin, she utters no reproach against the beloved dead. ‘I went because it was my will to go; and now God has taught me, by all I have suffered and lost, that it was wrong to go. He has justly emptied me of all my possessions, all my hopes.’ ”—Cox.
“It is nearly the same utterances as fell from her lips in parting with Orpah. Grief makes her almost fierce. The name she bears sounds like irony and a reproach.”—Braden.
“It is good at times to be in distress, for it reminds us that we are in exile.”—Thomas à Kempis.
“Those trials which come from God are never without benefit to us, when we receive them worthily, since there is always a rich harvest of spiritual blessings for the afflicted religious heart. If human nature at first shrinks from sorrow, faith and Christian hope soon come to its support; the trial then appears easy to be borne. Receive it as from (God, and its bitterness is past.… Indeed, the peace which is always found in this submission is itself a great blessing. even without any exterior alleviation of sorrow. It is a peace so much the more pure as it is unconnected with the world.”—Fenelon.
“But the problem of our life is solved in and by Jesus Christ. He has explained its nature, purpose, and ending. Without Him the world is a haunted house, disturbed by strange noises—half-formed apparitions glide through the gloom, and the inhabitants are sore afraid; but possessing His revelation, we know it to be the outer court of the heavenly temple, and we hear already the harmonious voices of the worshippers in the inner sanctuary praising God for their existence. Christ is our refuge from fear.”—Thomas Jones.
“The martyrdom of an hour is sudden glory, but the martyrdom of a life—there needs something more than human to endure this.”—Spurgeon.
“Oh ye who suffer, whatsoe’er it is
Hath brought this fellowship with Christ to try the heart,
Know that the angel ministering is God’s;
And suffering e’en as doing is the better part.
And ye who, cumbered with much care or pain,
Sleep not, but count the weary hours, and wish for morn;
Lo! from the pentecost of sorrow yours to-day,
The pentecost of joy to-morrow shall be born.
And ye who sorrow for a light that’s quenched
For love that gladdened all the morning of life’s day;
By all the sacred tears that Jesus wept,
The dead ye mourn are sleeping, and not lost for aye.
Our friend he sleepeth, said the Master once,
So named He man’s last hour, when fails the feeble breath.
A sickness to God’s glory; through the ages thence
New meaning lurks to us in sorrow, suffering, death.”—B.