CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Which returned out of the country [territories or fields] of Moab. The description by which Ruth was commonly designated [cf. Ruth 2:6]. (Speaker’s Com.). As the same expression occurs at Ruth 4:3, in connexion with Naomi, it may be supposed that it became customary to speak of Naomi and Ruth as “the returned from Moab,” or, as we should say popularly, “the returned Moabites” (Lange). Here the phrase applies to Ruth, as at Ruth 2:6, but in Ruth 4:3 to Naomi (Keil). Dr. Cassel translates, “And so Naomi was returned home, and Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her [who accompanied her] after [or on] her departure from the fields of Moab.” And she desired to return with her [that is, with Naomi] with the whole heart; and they came from the land of Moab, etc. (Syr.). The Douay, following the Vulgate, trans., “So Naomi came with Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, from the land of her sojourning” [from the land of her pilgrimage (Wyeliffe)]. Aben Ezra thinks this to be understood of her returning at another time (Gill). In the beginning of barley harvest. The harvest as a whole commenced with the barley harvest (Keil). The beginning of spring, for the barley harvest began immediately after the passover, and that feast was held on the 15th of the month Nisan. which corresponded with our March (A. Clarke). They came to Bethlehem on that day in which the children of Israel began to mow the sheaf of barley which was to be waved before the Lord (Targum). The firstfruits of the barley harvest were. as we know, presented at the passover, before which it was not lawful to begin the harvest (Kitto). In the next chapter (Ruth 2:23) it is related that Ruth gleaned “until the end of barley and of wheat harvest.” This book was therefore appointed by the ancient Hebrew Church to be read in the synagogues at the feast of weeks or Pentecost, when the wheat harvest began (Wordsworth) [cf. Intro., p. 1, par. 2]. They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest. Opens the way for the further course of the history (Keil). Explains the narrative in the next chapter. Keil questions whether the Bethlehem mentioned in connexion with Ibzan in Judges 12:8-10 is the Bethlehem of the text, as Josephus affirms.
Theme.—THE WANDERER HOME AGAIN
“I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return, and die at home at last.”—Goldsmith.
“We leave
Our home in youth—no matter to what end—
Study, or strife, or pleasure, or what not;
And coming back in few short years, we find
All as we left it outside: …
But lift that latehet,—all is changed as doom.”—Bailey.
So Naomi returned … and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest.
This first chapter of the book of Ruth is in itself a perfect poem, as well as an epitome of human life and a parable of the soul’s pilgrimage. The theme is that of “the wanderers.” It has its prologue in the famine, and its epilogue in the return. Blow follows blow until the catastrophe is complete in the death of all who left the land of promise, save one. Then out of the dark night of sorrow hope is born and the return begins. Love lights up the picture, a love surpassing the ordinary and usual love of woman, and the chastened spirit bows at last, not to fate, but God. It is a poem complete in itself, rich with contrasting lights and shadows, and as Goethe has well said, “the loveliest thing in the shape of an epic or idyl which has come to us.” Penned by inspiration, it has no equal and no second.
See here then, in conclusion,
I. The wanderer home again. The most friendless of human beings has a country which he admires and extols (Sydney Smith). The greatest wanderer, some place dear above all else which he thinks of as home. Even the prodigal, sitting in the far country among the swine, remembers he has a “father’s house,” and turns longingly towards it. So with Naomi. [For the return, see on Ruth 1:6-7, pp. 32–36, and on Ruth 1:19; Ruth 1:21.] Note. (a) The home ties the strongest, the home claims the most binding in human life. True friendship as well as true religion centres there. Bethlehem was Naomi’s proper place, and the whole scope of the narrative is to show that in leaving it she had gone out of the way of God’s providences, as well as of His ordinances. (b) Christian love begins its work at home. Christian manhood shows its best there, and the circle of genial influence spreads and widens from that centre.
II. Home again in a fortunate way. Led of God; for she recognizes that the Lord had brought her home again (Ruth 1:21). Naomi’s extremity was God’s opportunity. So with David (1 Samuel 23). The statement of the text made in order to intimate that the help of God did not tarry long (Lange). Note. (a) When God leads, it is not ours to linger. Beware of by-paths and idle goings, keep straight on (Bernard). These came from Moab to Bethlehem; they had no idle vagaries that we read of. Old Naomi desired to see her country, and young Ruth was not wantonly disposed, but constantly kept her company (Bernard). (b) They arrive safely, whom God conducts. He neither slumbereth nor sleepeth. He led Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and landed them safely in Canaan at last. So always in lawful journeys, so especially in the heavenward one. Only let us see to it that we are of the same mind as Moses, “If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence” (Exodus 33:15), and all our journeyings must come to a prosperous issue.
III. Home again at a fortunate time. At the time of the barley harvest (see Crit. and Exeget. Notes). When there was at least gleaning to yield them sustenance, and the summer before them. In the beginning of the passover, saith the Chaldee Paraphrast, taking the fittest opportunity both for soul and body (Trapp). Here we see the providence of God, in ordering and disposing the journey of Naomi, to end it in the most convenient time. Had she come before harvest, she would have been straitened for means to maintain herself; if after harvest, Ruth had lost all those occasions which paved the way to her future advancement. God therefore, who ordered her going, concludes her journey in the beginning of harvest (Fuller). Note. There is a fulness and fitness of time for every event (Macgowan). The redemption from Egypt; the coming of Shiloh when the sceptre was departing from Judah; the soul’s conversion; deliverance from affliction, etc. (ibid). God’s time is always the best time.
IMPROVEMENT.—(a) When the heart is truly repentant, past error and sin, the humiliating experiences which have left their scars upon our inmost souls, may become to us blessed monitors urging us onward in the path that God has appointed. (b) Like the wounded hart, the bruised and troubled spirit turns homeward in its last extremity, if perchance it be only to die there.
“Tender and dear memories cluster around many a spot: none so sacred, so hallowed as this; for once again she is standing in the place consecrated by a thousand memories of the sacred dead. Returns like these ought to be significant of rest and privileges restored, as well as of new consecration to God; and this, although the past has been a barren past of worldly compromise and spiritual deadness.”—B.
“There is a latter as well as a former rain in spiritual things; covenant mercies to be manifested in our declining years, as well as in the days when the kingdom of heaven was but newly entered. Our youth may have been given in part to folly, the more reason that old age should be consecrated unmistakably to God. And perhaps we, like Naomi, shall best find the Protector of our declining years in the Bethlehems of our youth.… Understand the meaning of this place to Naomi. No dreamy haze of mysticism rests upon it, no unreal sanctity. It is a place where the heart writes bitter things against itself, where the icy fountains of the great deep within break up, a place where the past seems a failure, and the future hopeless; and yet for all this it is a place where the winter time of the soul is ending, and the new summer life of prosperity begins to dawn.”—B.
“The wandering of men from the perfect Home has brought with it degradation and scourging. Their return will be to find a Divine birthright restored in Christ.”—Pulsford.
“Woe for my vine-clad home,
That it should ever be so dark to me,
With its bright threshold and its whispering tree,
That I should ever come,
Fearing the lonely echo of a tread
Beneath the roof-tree of my glorious dead!”
N. P. Willis.
“Perhaps this world of sorrows presents no sadder picture than that here brought before us—the return of a childless widow to the spot she had left a happy wife and mother.”—Macartney.
“Thou needest not, then, sit down in weariness and hopelessness, whatever of earlier years thou hast lost, whatever grace thou hast forfeited; though thou hast been in a far country, far away in affections from him who loved thee; and wasting on his creatures,—nay, sacrificing on idol altars, with strange fire, the gifts which God gave thee that thou mightest be precious in His own sight.”—Pusey.
“Landed property in Palestine is of very little value, except the possessor has the means of cultivating it; and as it was under the Jewish law unalienable, strangers could not purchase it. A landed proprietor might thus be reduced to beggary, and in times of general distress might long remain so. Such seems to have been the case with the family of Elimelech, and they were therefore forced to remain in Moab. Even upon the return of Naomi and Ruth, though the family property was still theirs, they were completely destitute. Their property was valueless, because they did not possess the means of cultivating it. This will serve to explain the peculiar position of Naomi and Ruth on their arrival in Bethlehem.”—Kitto.
“Many a Swiss has sunk a martyr to his longing after home. The malady is commonly brought on by hearing the celebrated national air of the ‘Ranz des Vaches,’ sung at an unexpected moment, or when under the influence of dejected feelings. Overcome with the recollections which it awakens, he sheds tears; and is only to be consoled by the prospects of immediately returning to that home, his exile from which he deplores. If unable to accomplish this wish of his heart, he sinks into a profound melancholy, which’ not unfrequently terminates in disease and death.”—Percy.
“It was the custom, and still may be, at the coronation of our sovereigns, that every peer of the realm should come forward, and placing his hand upon the crown, swear that he would maintain due allegiance to it in his own realm and upon his own estate. So true hearts give themselves to God—in that which is truly theirs, at least, He shall reign supreme.”—B.