Ruth 1:21, commentary and pictures

The words are Naomi's answer to the people of Bethlehem when they are moved at her arrival with Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, from Moab at the beginning of barley harvest. Her family had moved from Bethlehem to Moab during a famine, and her husband Elimelech and her two sons died there, leaving her widowed and childless to come home with Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law. She had gone out full with her husband and sons, with her family and what she needed and with means, as a well-to-do family. She was brought home empty, bereaved of husband and sons, poor and old and without means, and without a son to preserve the family inheritance, so that the inheritance seemed likely to be sold and the family name lost.

She questions why they still call her Naomi, meaning pleasant, saying it no longer suits her changed circumstances. She asks to be called Mara, bitter, as the true expression of her condition and grief over her loss. The scenes of happier days in Bethlehem sharpen her sense of loss. She attributes her emptiness and loss to the providence of God, declaring that the Lord brought her home empty. She declares that Jehovah testified against her and that the Almighty dealt very bitterly with her and afflicted her, interpreting her bereavement as divine affliction.

Her going out full shows the family was not forced by drought or hard times to go to Moab but could have stayed as others did. Her saying the Lord testified against her and afflicted her acknowledges that the Lord had not approved the move, for Elimelech disobeyed God in going to live among the heathen for mere mercenary gain and her sons also disobeyed in marrying Moabite women. Yet the Lord overruled the wrong move for good in the conversion of Ruth. Her words about God dealing bitterly with her express oppressive sorrow, not a lack of faith. Ruth's decision to accompany her gave her a last ray of hope because she still had kinsmen in Bethlehem.

The verse belongs to the story of Ruth's choice, which brings to view the private life of a devoted family in troublous times and shows the result of abiding faith in God and a consistent life, summed up in Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. It marks the coming of Ruth with Naomi to Bethlehem, where Ruth left a record of filial love and gave to posterity a lineage of kings as the believing Moabite maiden. Her great-grandson David was born in Bethlehem and was anointed there by Samuel to be king of Israel in the place of Saul. Her return empty is paralleled by a little girl returning home with her purse empty after spending its contents.