Ruth 1:22

_SO NAOMI RETURNED, AND RUTH THE MOABITESS, HER DAUGHTER IN LAW, WITH HER, WHICH RETURNED OUT OF THE COUNTRY OF MOAB: AND THEY CAME TO BETHLEHEM IN THE BEGINNING OF BARLEY HARVEST._ In the beginning of barley harvest - corresponding to the end of our April....

19-22 Naomi and Ruth came to Bethlehem. Afflictions will make great and surprising changes in a little time. May God, by his grace, fit us for all such changes, especially the great change!, Naomi signifies "pleasant," or "amiable;" Mara, "bitter," or "bitterness." She was now a woman of a sorrowful spirit. She had come home empty, poor, a widow and childless. But there is a fulness for believers of which they never can be emptied; a good part which shall not be taken from those who have it. The cup of affliction is a "bitter" cup, but she owns that the affliction came from God. It well becomes us to have our hearts humbled under humbling providences. It is not affliction itself, but affliction rightly borne, that does us good....

Verse Ruth 1:22. _IN THE BEGINNING OF BARLEY HARVEST._] This was in the beginning of _spring_, for the barley harvest began immediately after the passover, and that feast was held on the 15th of the month _Nisan_, which corresponds nearly with our _March_. The _Targum_ says, "They came to Beth-lehem on that day in which the children of Israel began to mow the sheaf of barley which was to be waved before the Lord." This circumstance is the more distinctly marked, because of Ruth's gleaning, mentioned in the succeeding chapter. 1. THE native, the amiable _simplicity_, in which the story of the preceding chapter is told, is a proof of its _genuineness_. There are several sympathetic circumstances recorded here which no _forger_ could have invented. There is too much of _nature_ to admit any thing of _art_....

EXPOSITION RUTH 1:15 AND SHE SAID, BEHOLD, THY SISTER-IN-LAW IS GONE BACK TO HER PEOPLE, AND TO HER GODS: RETURN THOU AFTER THY SISTER-IN-LAW. The expression that stands in King James's version thus, "and to her gods," is rendered by Dr. Cassel "_and _to her God." The same interpretation, it is noteworthy, is given in the Targum of Jonathan, who renders the expression, "and to her Fear" (וּלְוַת דְּחַלְרָּהּ). Such a translation assumes that the Moabites were not only theists, but monotheists. And yet in the mythology, or primitive theology, of Moab, we read both of Baal-Peor and of Chemosh. As to the former, see Numbers 25:8, Numbers 25:5;...

SO NAOMI RETURNED,.... Aben, Ezra thinks this is to be understood of her returning at another time; but it is only an observation of the writer of this history, to excite the attention of the reader to this remarkable event, and particularly to what follows: AND RUTH THE MOABITESS HER DAUGHTER IN LAW WITH HER, WHICH RETURNED OUT OF THE COUNTRY OF MOAB; to Bethlehem, the birth place of the Messiah, and who was to spring from her a Gentile; and which, that it might be the more carefully remarked, she is called a Moabitess, and said to return out of the country of Moab: AND THEY CAME TO BETHLEHEM IN THE BEGINNING OF BARLEY HARVEST; which began on the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, on the "sixteenth" of Nisan, which answers to our March, and part of April, when they offered the sheaf of the firstfruits to the Lord, and then, and not till then, might they begin their harvest,...

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._...

THE MOABITESS. So called five times. In Deuteronomy 23:3, it is masculine, and does not affect Ruth. BARLEY HARVEST. Therefore at the Passover....

_which returned out of the country of Moab_ A superfluous expression after _Naomi returned_, and possibly an insertion from Ruth 2:6, unless we regard it as a standing description of Ruth. _in the beginning of barley harvest_ i.e. in April. Barley was the first crop to be cut, Exodus 9:31 f., 2 Samuel 21:9....

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. REFLECTIONS.—On now they travelled, and sweetly, no doubt, beguiled the tedious way in such discourse as might confirm Ruth's holy purpose, and comfort them together, in hope of God's blessing upon them. On their arrival at Beth-lehem notice is taken, 1. Of the reception they met with. Collecting together on the rumour of her return, the women, who remembered her former beauty and affluence, and now beheld her wrinkles and poverty, some perhaps in pity, some in scorn and upbraiding, and some in surprise, said, Is this Naomi? _Note;_ (1.) Age and wrinkles make strange