Ruth 1 - Introduction
_ELIMELECH, BEING DRIVEN BY FAMINE INTO MOAB, DIES THERE; NAOMI, HIS WIFE, RETURNING TO HER OWN COUNTRY, IS ACCOMPANIED BY RUTH, HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW._ _Before Christ 1376._... [ Continue Reading ]
_ELIMELECH, BEING DRIVEN BY FAMINE INTO MOAB, DIES THERE; NAOMI, HIS WIFE, RETURNING TO HER OWN COUNTRY, IS ACCOMPANIED BY RUTH, HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW._ _Before Christ 1376._... [ Continue Reading ]
IT CAME TO PASS—WHEN THE JUDGES RULED— Though these words point out the general epocha of this event, yet they leave us at a loss to determine under what particular judge it happened. Bishop Usher places it in the 2686th year of the world, one hundred and thirty-three years after the conquest of Can... [ Continue Reading ]
THE NAME OF THE MAN WAS ELIMELECH— That is, _God is my king._ According to the Jews, he was a man of great wealth and dignity: his wife's name was _Naomi; 1:_e. _amiable, agreeable;_ see Ruth 1:20. If we are to believe the Jews, she was the daughter of Salmon, and niece of Nahshon prince of the trib... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY TOOK THEM WIVES OF THE WOMEN OF MOAB— We must necessarily conclude from this, that these women had become proselytes to the Jewish religion; for otherwise it was not lawful for Jews to have married them. The case is plain with respect to Ruth (see Ruth 1:16.); and it appears to me, that Orpah n... [ Continue Reading ]
ARE THERE YET ANY MORE SONS IN MY WOMB, &C.— Naomi refers in these words to that very ancient custom, which seems to have existed from the beginning of the world, of the brother marrying the widow of his brother when the latter has died without children. See Genesis 38 and Deuteronomy 25:5. There is... [ Continue Reading ]
AND ORPAH KISSED HER MOTHER-IN-LAW— Houbigant reads here after the LXX, _and returned to her people._... [ Continue Reading ]
THY SISTER-IN-LAW IS GONE BACK UNTO HER PEOPLE, AND UNTO HER GODS— It is not by any means a just consequence from hence, that Orpah had never been proselyted to the Jewish religion. The contrary is a much more natural deduction; for if she had not once left them, she could not have returned to them.... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LORD HATH TESTIFIED AGAINST ME— The former part of the verse expresses what Naomi means by the _Lord's testifying against her:_ she _went out full;_ happy in a husband and two sons; but returned deprived of all, a lonely widow, worn with care, with poverty and age. See ch. Ruth 2:2. Several of t... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY CAME TO BETH-LEHEM IN THE BEGINNING OF BARLEY-HARVEST— The Chaldee paraphrast thus explains these words: "They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the passover, on the day that the children of Israel began to mow the sheaf which was to be waved, which was of barley." See Leviticus 23:10. REF... [ Continue Reading ]