Ruth 1:14

_AND THEY LIFTED UP THEIR VOICE, AND WEPT AGAIN: AND ORPAH KISSED HER MOTHER IN LAW; BUT RUTH CLAVE UNTO HER._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

6-14 Naomi began to think of returning, after the death of her two sons. When death comes into a family, it ought to reform what is amiss there. Earth is made bitter to us, that heaven may be made dear. Naomi seems to have been a person of faith and piety. She dismissed her daughters-in-law with prayer. It is very proper for friends, when they part, to part with them thus part in love. Did Naomi do well, to discourage her daughters from going with her, when she might save them from the idolatry of Moab, and bring them to the faith and worship of the God of Israel? Naomi, no doubt, desired to do that; but if they went with her, she would not have them to go upon her account. Those that take upon them a profession of religion only to oblige their friends, or for the sake of company, will be converts of small value. If they did come with her, she would have them make it their deliberate ch...

Verse Ruth 1:14. _AND ORPAH KISSED HER MOTHER-IN-LAW_] The Septuagint add, Και επεστρεψεν εις τον λαον αυτης, _And returned to her own_ _people_. The Vulgate, Syrian, and Arabic, are to the same purpose....

The kiss at parting as well as at meeting is the customary friendly and respectful salutation in the East. The difference between mere kindness of manner and self-sacrificing love is most vividly depicted in the words and conduct of the two women. Ruth’s determination is stedfast to cast in her lot with the people of the Lord (compare the marginal references and Matthew 15:22)....

EXPOSITION RUTH 1:6 THEN—the conjunction in Hebrew is the common generic copulative _and—_she arose. She had been _sitting_, as it were, where her husband had settled, and she now rose up to depart (see Ruth 1:4). SHE, AND HER DAUGHTERS-IN, LAW. The word for "her daughters-in-law—" כַּלּתֶיהָ—is literally "her brides," that is, the brides of her sons. That she might return—an admirable rendering into English idiom. The phrase in the original is simply "and she returned," that is, "and she began to return." FROM THE COUNTRY OF MOAB: FOR SHE HAD HEARD IN THE COUNTRY OF MOAB HOW THAT THE LORD HAD VISITED HIS PEOPLE IN GIVING THEM BREAD. Or, more literally, "_for _she heard in the country of Moab that Jehovah"—or, rather, ...

AND THEY LIFTED UP THEIR VOICE, AND WEPT AGAIN,.... Not being able to bear the thought of parting, or that they must be obliged to it: AND ORPAH KISSED HER MOTHER IN LAW; gave her the parting kiss, as the Jews e call it; and which was used by other people f; but not without affection to her, and took her leave of her, as her kiss testified, since it must be so; and being moved by her reasons, and having a greater inclination to her own country than Ruth had; of the kiss at parting, see Genesis 31:28 BUT RUTH CLAVE UNTO HER; hung about her, would not part from her, but cleaved unto her in body and mind; forsaking her own people, and her father's house; neither the thought of them, nor of her native country, nor of not having an husband, or any likelihood of it, nor of poverty and distress, had any manner of influence upon her, but determined she was to

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS CHAPTER 1 The Story of Naomi: Orpah and Ruth _ 1. Naomi and her sorrows (Ruth 1:1)_ 2. The return (Ruth 1:6) 3. Orpah turning back, Ruth cleaving (Ruth 1:14) 4. Naomi and Ruth in Bethlehem (Ruth 1:19) The story begins with a famine. Elimelech, “my God is king,” and Naomi, “pleasant,” leave Bethlehem, “the house of bread,” to go to the land of Moab, the heathen country. The story ends in Bethlehem with a marriage. Naomi far from the land, in unbelief and bitterness, bereft of Elimelech, her two sons also dead, Mahlon, which means “sick,” and Chilion “pining,” pictures Israel's condition, away from

RUTH AND NAOMI. Bethlehem ceased for a time to be what its name signified a house of bread. Under stress of famine Elimelech, with his wife Naomi, left his Judæ an home, and went to sojourn in the land of Moab, where he died. His two sons married women of Moab, Orpah and Ruth, but died childless, so that Naomi and her daughters-in-law were left together in lonely widowhood. Ruth 1:1. Seen from the uplands of Judea, the mountains of Moab are like an immense wall rising beyond the mysterious gulf of the Dead Sea. Ruth 1:2. Elimelech, meaning my God is king, is an ancient Palestinian name, which occurs in the Amarna tablets. Naomi means my sweet one, a mother's fond name for her child. Ephrath was a district round about Bethlehem (_cf._...

_Orpah kissed her mother in law_ and, it is implied, said good-bye....

AND ORPAH KISSED HER MOTHER-IN-LAW— Houbigant reads here after the LXX, _and returned to her people._...