Ruth 1:19
So they two went until they came to Beth-lehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Beth-lehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? So they two went until they came to Beth-lehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Beth-lehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?
The verse belongs to a pastoral account of the private, simple home life of a devoted family in troublous times, a gentler side story set within the sterner history in and near the close of the time of the judges. Naomi's former home was Bethlehem, which she had left when famine drove her family to Moab, and to which she returned from Moab after her husband and sons died there. The two traveled and arrived together, with Ruth accompanying her mother-in-law back by her own choice out of dutiful love for her.
Ruth's choice to go with Naomi revived Naomi's hope because she still had kinsmen in Bethlehem. Their arrival stirred the whole city with surprised recognition, for the townspeople were so struck by Naomi's changed appearance and condition that they asked whether she was Naomi. With the book as a whole, the account of Ruth's choice shows the result of abiding faith in God and a consistent life.
Bethlehem becomes the setting where Ruth enters the lineage of Israel's kings, showing God's care for the line leading to Christ. Ruth became one of His ancestors, in the family line that leads through Obed and David to Jesus. The book presents the near kinsman as a type of Christ.