Would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.
The hand of the Lord is gone out against me - i:e., I am not only not in a condition to provide you with other husbands, but so reduced in circumstances that I cannot think of your being subjected to privations with me. The arguments of Naomi prevailed with Orpah, who returned to her people and her х 'ªlohiym (H430)], gods. But Ruth was clinging to her, and said, 'Thy God shall be my God.' These expressions of Ruth, are as much plural as that of Naomi in the preceding verse; and yet our translators have very properly rendered them in the singular, "God." The language indicates the most devoted affection; and even in the pages of Sterne, that great master of pathos, there is nothing which so calls forth the sensibilities of the reader as the simple effusion he has borrowed from Scripture-of Ruth to her mother-in-law (Chalmers). The name Ruth was a Moabite name Hebraicized; or perhaps, as some suppose, that Moabites may, in consequence of their descent from Lot, have spoken a Hebrew dialect.