Ruth 1:1

THE BOOK OF RUTH

-Year before the common year of Christ, 1186.

-Year from the Flood, 1162.

-Year before the first Olympiad, 410.

-Creation from Tisri, or September, 2818.

-This chronology is upon the supposition that Obed was forty years of age at the birth of Jesse; and Jesse, fifty at the birth of David.

CHAPTER I

Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and

Chilion, flee from a famine in the land of Israel, and go

to sojourn tn Moab, 1, 2.

Here his two sons marry; and, in the space of ten years, both

their father and they die, 3-6.

Naomi sets out on her return to her own country, accompanied by

her daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth; whom she endeavours to

persuade to return to their own people, 7-13.

Orpah returns, but Ruth accompanies her mother-in-law, 14-18.

They arrive at Beth-lehem in the time of the barley harvest,

19-22.

NOTES ON CHAP. I

Verse Ruth 1:1. When the judges ruled] We know not under what judge this happened; some say under Ehud, others under Shamgar. See the preface.

There was a famine] Probably occasioned by the depredations of the Philistines, Ammonites, c., carrying off the corn as soon as it was ripe, or destroying it on the field.

The Targum says: "God has decreed ten grievous famines to take place in the world, to punish the inhabitants of the earth, before the coming of Messiah the king. The first in the days of Adam the second in the days of Lamech; the third in the days of Abraham; the fourth in the days of Isaac; the fifth in the days of Jacob; the sixth in the days of Boaz, who is called Abstan, (Ibzan,) the just, of Beth-lehem-judah; the seventh in the days of David, king of Israel; the eighth in the days of Elijah the prophet; the ninth in the days of Elisha, in Samaria; the tenth is yet to come, and it is not a famine of bread or of water but of hearing the word of prophecy from the mouth of the Lord; and even now this famine is grievous in the land of Israel."