Ruth 1:19

NAOMI AND RUTH ARRIVE IN BETHLEHEM

"So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass that when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and the women said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, call me not Naomi, call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and Jehovah hath brought me home again empty; why call ye me Naomi? seeing Jehovah hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me. So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the country of Moab; and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest."

"All the city was moved" (Ruth 1:19). "It appears from this that Naomi was not only well known, but highly respected in Bethlehem. This is proof that Elimelech was of high consideration in that place."[28]

"And the women said, Is this Naomi?" (Ruth 1:19). This emphasis upon the women came about, in all probability, because all of the able-bodied men were busy in the barley harvest.

"Call me not Naomi, call me Mara" (Ruth 1:20). Naomi (sweet) and Mara (bitter) were contrasting names that illustrated the disastrous changes that had come in the life of Naomi. Significantly, the bitter waters of Mara, encountered by Israel during the wilderness wanderings, were again brought into memory by the use of this name (Exodus 15:22ff). Naomi's thoughts of what she believed that God had done unto her were by no means correct, but she knew of none other upon whom she could fasten the responsibility, and she had not learned the great lesson that Christ brought to mankind at a later time, namely, that the saints of God frequently SUFFER, sustained by the marvelous promise, that, "If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him."

In the dramatic events of this Book, God was in the process of founding the family among the children of Israel who would eventually bring about the birth of the Holy Messiah unto the redemption of all mankind who would receive him. This family came from a BLENDING of both Jews and Gentiles - Ruth the Moabitess appearing here as one of its mothers, and her husband Boaz also having come of the Gentile Rahab, the harlot of Jericho!

"Jehovah hath testified against me" (Ruth 1:21). Joyce G. Baldwin has noted that the RSV rendition here, "The Lord has afflicted me" is, "an emendation that changes the construction and alters the form of the verb."[29] Like many other `emendations,' which are merely human changes from what God's Word says into what men think it SHOULD have said, this one also should be taken with a grain of salt!

"They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest." (Ruth 1:22). The time indicated by this was "during the last of the month of April."[30] The skill of the narrator appears in the introduction of this fact just here in the story, because the barley harvest was the occasion for all of the dramatic developments that came quickly afterward.