CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
Ruth 1:6-7. Then [and] she arose. She arose in order to return. Et surrexit ut in patriam pergeret (Vulgate). With her daughters-in-law. Both the young women set out with the intention of going to Bethlehem (Bertheau and others). That she might return. לָשׁוּב (to return) applies strictly and grammatically to Naomi only. For she had heard. By the month of an angel (Targum). The cause of her rising to return was not the death of her sons, but the message (Speaker’s Com.). That the Lord had visited, etc. Because of the righteousness of Ibzan the judge, and because of the simplicity of the pious Boaz (Targum). פקֹד occurs repeatedly for such a return of Divine remembrance (Lange). The language (comp. Luke 1:72; Luke 7:16), especially in the LXX., can hardly fail to draw the mind onward to that used in connection with the coming of Christ (Wordsworth). In giving them bread. Psalms 107:35-37; Luke 1:68. From the turn of the language it may properly be inferred that the famine was not the result of war, but of drought (Lange). And they went on the way. And they already went, etc. (Lange). From this verse it appears plain that all started out for the land of Judah (Bertheau)? Until now Naomi had looked on her daughters-in-law as only bearing her company for a while (Dr. Cassel, in Lange). The journey to the borders of their own land would probably be an act of oriental courtesy, whether they intended to proceed further or not (Speaker’s Com.). The sense here demands that this should be read with the following verse: i.e., “On their way Naomi said,” etc.
Theme—THE AWAKENING IN MOAB
“Ah, graceless heart! would that it could regain
From the dim storehouse of sensations past
The impress full of tender awe, that night
Which fell on us! It was as if the Christ
Had been drawn down from heaven to track us home.”
Jean Ingelow.
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law.
No rest, no comfort, no profit in Moab. Perhaps Naomi had said, “I shall die in my nest” (Job 29:18). Not so, the nest is broken up. Now she was ready to say, “I would rather have been a beggar in Canaan, with my husband and my sons about me, than be the possessor of everything in Moab without them” (Tyng). Note. How vain and empty the world will seem to us when the day of a similar awakening comes! (Luke 15:16-17.) Enjoyment gone, wealth vanished, hope departed, loved ones taken away, Moab begins to shew itself in its real character. Like the prodigal, Naomi “came to herself,” and remembers now that there is bread enough and to spare in the Father’s house.
We have here—
I. The result of a mind’s transition. “She arose,” a decided, and, in this case, a decisive step. The expression similar to that used in Luke 15. In all probability there would be several preliminary stages: first, the longing for home, then the resolve, then the act. Note. (a) Right purposes are good so far as they go; to be profitable they must be followed by prompt and decisive action. This is especially true in the critical moments of humanlife. Note. (b) It is time to leave the place of our abode when the godly are taken away, and none left but the wicked to converse with (Bernard).
The awakening, no doubt, was painful; but mark, it is the beginning of a new life. Naomi’s experience a very common one,—through sorrow to repentance, through bitterness to decision. Note. (c) Adversity saves multitudes whom prosperity would possibly have destroyed. The world becomes distasteful, the pleasures of Moab delight us no longer, rather they weary us. Then comes the old longing for home. Many a prodigal, many a backslider, has been brought to himself again in this way. Note. (d) Such awakenings are the work of the Holy Spirit, though brought about by natural causes. Possibly she had heard the Divine voice saying, “Arise ye, depart,” etc. (Micah 2:10, Isaiah 52:11) in a still more unmistakable manner. A simple word aroused Jacob, and sent him back to Bethel (Genesis 35:1). The best men need such at times. (See next outline.) We have here—
II. The influence of a right and wise decision, not only upon her own course of action, but upon “her daughters-in-law.” If Elimelech’s going to Moab had been the fatal thing in connection with his sons, Naomi’s return is to be a blessing to one of the wives at least. This influence argues much in favour of Naomi’s piety (cf. Ruth 1:16) and her sweetness and beauty of character. Note. The truly virtuous are of an attractive power (Bernard). Goodness, even among infidels, will make itself friends. Orpah and Ruth ready to forsake their kindred, their country, and even their own mother, for a stranger whose affinity died with her sons (Bishop Hall).
We have here—
III. The reason of this immediate and decisive step. She had heard that the Lord had visited, etc. Note (a) that God’s mercy is here as elsewhere the keynote of man’s return. The pious Hebrew saw God in all things (Cox). Second causes had not as yet hidden the Almighty. A lesson for to-day;
(1) in temporal affairs.
“Happy the man who sees a God employed
In all the good and ill that chequers life.”—Cowper.
(2) in spiritual matters. In the larger sphere of human history, the fact that God has visited His people (Luke 1:68) is the great reason for man’s return unto Him. More than this, (b) We never shall return unto Him until we have seen the hand of God in human affairs. Naomi’s faith quickened her footsteps homeward, a faith which came by hearing: “She had heard.” She believed, and a simple trust in God solved all her difficulties. Hence “she arose.” The reasons for her remaining in Moab had ceased, if they ever existed. Now it was dangerous to remain. See the hand of God in all this leading her (Isaiah 57:18). Recognize it even in the rumour, etc. Trifles in the moment of indecision may be angel-hands, guiding us homeward and Godward, Note (c) Not all that is in Moab can keep the godly there, when God calls them away (2 Corinthians 6:17-18).
Bernard on “How that the Lord had visited His people”:—
I.
That God seeth His people in adversity and want, and cometh in His due time to help them. We are not to think ourselves forgotten in great extremities (Exodus 3:7-8), but rest in the stability of His love and promises.
II.
That God hath ever had more specially a people for His own, called His people, called the sons of God (Genesis 6). Not chosen out of any merit in them, but of His mere love (Deuteronomy 7:8; Ephesians 1:4).
III.
That corporal food and the necessaries of this life are God’s gift. (Deuteronomy 11:14-15; Hosea 2:8-9; Joel 2:19). He makes the earth fruitful. Man without Him can do nothing (Psalms 127:2; Haggai 1:6; Deuteronomy 8:18).
Fuller on this—
By bread is meant all sustenance necessary for the maintaining of our lives, whereof bread is the chiefest. As the temple of Dagon principally leaned on two pillars, and fell to the ground when Samson took them away, so the buildings of our bodies chiefly rely on bread and water for outward sustenance, which being taken away, they cannot but presently decay. Let others, therefore, wish those dishes which curiosity hath invented rather to increase than satisfy hunger, which are more delightsome to the eye than pleasing to the palate, yet more pleasing to the palate than wholesome to the stomach; let us pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Bread is a dish in every course: without this can be no feast, with this can be no famine.
“In all the ways of earthly feeling which man can take in order to seek his happiness, he must sooner or later fall into a death-like absence of joy; it becoming clear to him that he has fallen into a grievous delusion.”—Lange.
“There had been a famine in Judah, but ah! she found a far worse famine in Moab.… Her poverty when she arrived back again seems to argue other troubles besides bereavement.… Far better was this beginning of a return with conscious emptiness to God than her former going out ‘full.’ ”—Tyng.
“We know not precisely how the change was effected.… Perhaps the Divine Spirit wrought by the power of memory, thawed the ice away from the frosted spirit by sunny pictures of the past—by the vision of the ancestral home.”—The Prodigal Son, Morley Punshon.
“Whilst her husband and her sons lived, I hear no motion of retiring home; now these earthly stays are removed, she thinks presently of removing to her country. Neither can we so heartily think of our home above, while we are furnished with these worldly contentments; when God strips us of them, straightway our mind is homeward.”—Bishop Hall.
“How often is it that in this way the darkest day is the beginning of the brightest life. Reverses, difficulties, trials, are often amongst God’s best blessings. From the loss of property is brought out very often the latent energies of character, a power to suffer and to act which, in the querulous being, without a wish ungratified, you would have scarcely said existed at all.”—Robertson.
“To Naomi there comes the voice, ‘Arise, this is not your rest, it is polluted.’ Like the prodigal, for the first time she felt in her heart, if she did not give utterance with her lips, ‘I will arise and go to Bethlehem, the house of bread, my Father’s house.’ ”—Dr. Cumming.
“It has been well and beautifully said that woman has no life but in her family. While her husband and sons lived, their home was hers—there was the scene of her duties, there of her affections; but now those ties were broken, she was called on to act for herself; and with energy and with dignity she did act. Israel was her proper home; and now it was seen, perhaps for the first time, that her heart was there.”—Macartney.
“All are not taken; there are left behind
Living beloveds, tender looks to bring
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices to make soft the wind:
But if it were not so—if I could find
No love in all the world for comforting,
Nor any path but hollowly did ring
Where ‘dust to dust’ the love from life disjoined,
And if, before those sepulchres unmoving,
I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb
Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth),
Crying, ‘Where are ye, O my loved and loving?’—
I know a voice would sound, ‘Daughter, I AM;
Can I suffice for HEAVEN, and not for earth?’ ”
Mrs. Browning.
“When Naomi, the aged widow, proposed to return to Bethlehem, the two young widows were so charmed with her faith, so struck with her meek submission beneath a load that would have crushed the strongest giant in the land of Moab, so convinced that this aged widow had some spring of consolation that the world had not, some sweet source of peace that they knew not of, that both the young widows, under impulsive attachment to a beautiful character, resolved at all hazards to go with her.”—Dr. Cumming.
“I suppose when any messenger arrived in Moab out of the land of Canaan, Naomi did presently repair unto him and load him with questions concerning the estate of her country. For nine years Naomi had no news, but of want and scarcity; yet the tenth year there came a man who brought her word that the valleys began to laugh and sing with plenty.”—Fuller.
“Let none therefore pretend in needless excuses to linger in the land of Egypt when they may return unto the honey-flowing land of Canaan. Joseph must not tarry, with his wife and son, when he is dead that sought the life of the child.”—Fuller.
Theme—THE HOMEWARD PILGRIMAGE
“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind
In the primal sympathy
Which having been ever must be,
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”—Wordsworth.
Wherefore she went forth out of the place.
The real commencement of the narrative as it concerns the true history of Ruth. All else preparatory, explanatory, introductory. A fresh starting-point in the history of Naomi. Poor, solitary, and almost broken-hearted,—yet this is the most promising hour of her life. Her prosperity dates from it, begins to dawn when the night of affliction seems darkest. Divine wisdom has put a boundary to this deep sea of affliction, and said, “Here thy proud waves shall be stayed.” Christ suffered Peter to sink, not to perish—Jonah to be overwhelmed, not destroyed—sent Titus lest Paul should be swallowed up of sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:6). Note. No state so bad, no circumstance so desperate, as to be considered altogether hopeless. With God’s children the smoking furnace of temptation usually precedes the smiling lamp of gospel consolation.—Macgowan.
In connection with this return, notice—
I. The thought and purpose. The home ties which bound Naomi to Moab exist no longer. Her husband dead; like Israel, happy only as she realizes that her Maker is her husband (Isaiah 54:5), all things are ready, and now her face is set towards Bethlehem. Returns like these the human response to the Divine appeal, “I am married unto you” (Jeremiah 3:14). When they spring up in the heart of the true Israelite, where else can they lead but to the land of the sanctuary and the promises? Necessary then and always that men should renew their spiritual youth—trace back the path until they have assurance that they are standing on holy ground. Jacob responded to a similar appeal, and went back to Bethel, the place of the covenant (Genesis 30). Note. (a) Homeward with such often, perhaps always, means Godward. Life seems to move in a circle sometimes, departing only to come back again; wandering afar to return at length, finding itself at last at the point from whence it started. Christian experience knows something of this. With many, as years advance, there is a return to the old landmarks, to the simplicity of old experiences, to the faith and theology learnt around a mother’s knee. You may picture many an experience in this way—an oasis of childhood and an oasis of old age, and between them the barren waste, scorched of passion, and laid desolate of sin, which men call life. With Naomi, and with all, the past irreparable, but the future availing. Note (b) in connection with this return, the Divine intention must have embraced two things—
(1) The renewal of a past consecration;
(2) The revival of a past spiritual life.
Notice,
II. The significant fact. Men may rise from this lowness and deadness, to this earnestness and newness of life, in a moment and with a word. Samson is caught in the Delilah spell, and bound with the Philistine bonds, but something of the old strength lingers (Judges 16:8-15). Note. (a) A plain distinction between the true Israelite and those who know not God—enough for hope, not enough for presumption. The child carries the home instincts wherever the path may lead; the alien has never known them, though he lives in the Father’s house. Naomi an illustration of this. Life without God, a desert to which the sweet rains of heaven bring no fertility. But life with this thought of God in the heart, hidden, slumbering, like the parched and thirsty earth, which may revive again in the time of the latter rain. Naomi’s past history in Moab may have been a dead and barren one. In no single point had her condition been improved by the change. Her experience the type of a very common Christian experience. The freshness of first love—gone. The glow of zeal and the ardour of devotion—a thing of the past. The joy of believing—well-nigh forgotten. Now love has torments, and faith is full of fears, and devotion is a burden. Note. (b) For such there is a return:
(1) it may be now;
(2) it may be accepted;
(3) it may be final and for ever. We are to think of it as necessary—as not impossible—as not too late.
“In December, the days grow shorter till the twenty-first, the shortest day, when, at a precise moment, the sun pauses and begins to return towards the north.… So there is a precise moment when the soul pauses in its departure from God, and begins to return towards Him. The fruits of that return may not be at once visible; there may be long interior conflicts before the coldness and deadness of the heart is overcome; but at length the good will triumph, and instead of winter and desolation, all the Christian graces will spring up in the summer of divine love.”—Beecher.
“With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,
Envying our fathers in their peaceful grave.
The strangers’ bread with bitter tears we steep;
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
‘Neath the murk midnight we steal forth to weep.…
The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;
Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead Thy children home,
And Canaan’s vines for us their fruits shall bear,
And Hermon’s bees their honeyed stores prepare.”
Milman.
“Like Bunyan’s pilgrim when he had slept in the bowers of ease, there is to be that humiliating journey, which is not forward, but backward, until the lost treasure has been recovered.”—B.
“The Bethlehem of the past may become the Bethlehem of the future, once again ‘a house of bread’ to God’s chosen people, if they will only turn their faces thitherward. It may seem a pilgrimage of penitence and sorrow—the path slopes backward and downward—but new consecration is new life, and this is the repentance which needs not to be repented of.”—B.
“As in music there are particular keynotes, so also in the whole wide life of the world and of man. Life has a deep keynote which answers to the note of life in its bloom. It is called return—return to God—return home—and it is accompanied with a longing after home.”—Lange.
“She arose to return, not to another idolatrous land, but ‘home.’ ”—Tyng.
“Memory is busy, and upon her painted fancy she pictures the home-scenes of the happy past.… Anxiety is busy, and she projects her wonder into the nearing future, and speculates upon the probabilities of her reception.”—Punshon.
“There is not a trouble so deep and swift-running that we may not cross safely over, if we have courage to steer, and strength to pull.”—Beecher.