And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.
The verse closes a sojourn of about ten years in Moab, a foreign, heathen land, after the family went from Bethlehem to Moab because of famine in Israel. After Elimelech's death, his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, who had married the Moabite women Orpah and Ruth, also both died without children. Their deaths left Naomi without husband or either son and left Ruth and Orpah as widows.
With no son left to preserve the family name and hold the inheritance, the family inheritance appeared lost and the family line in danger of ending. That danger created the need for a near kinsman to fulfill the duty of a go'el by preserving the deceased family's name and inheritance. The verse leaves Naomi in Moab in poverty and bereavement, with desolation reigning where there had been joy. Having gone out full and well-to-do, she felt the hand of the Lord gone out against her, with no more sons and too old to marry again, a condition she herself called bitter under the name Mara.
The family had been able to remain in Bethlehem like others and was not forced by drought or hard times to leave. Elimelech left to live among the heathen for mere mercenary purposes in disobedience to God, and his sons further disobeyed by marrying Moabite women, a move the Lord did not approve. From that loss Naomi resolves to return to Bethlehem in the land of Judah on hearing everything was prosperous there. She urges her two daughters-in-law, still young women in girlhood's bloom, to go back to their homes and remain with their own people.
The verse leaves her standing with them for a tearful last farewell on Moab's fertile plain of vintage and grain, palm-tops, and the river Arnon flowing to the Dead Sea. She later returned to Bethlehem with Ruth. Naomi's painful experiences in Moab are an example of how God uses human actions and sorrow to accomplish His eternal purpose. He overruled the disobedience for good in the conversion of Ruth, and He had them in His sight to turn darkness into light, counting all tears, so that shadows become sunlight and there is no cause to doubt when life appears dim and weary.
The verse closes a sojourn of about ten years in Moab, a foreign, heathen land, after the family went from Bethlehem to Moab because of famine in Israel. After Elimelech's death, his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, who had married the Moabite women Orpah and Ruth, also both died without children. Their deaths left Naomi without husband or either son and left Ruth and Orpah as widows.
With no son left to preserve the family name and hold the inheritance, the family inheritance appeared lost and the family line in danger of ending. That danger created the need for a near kinsman to fulfill the duty of a go'el by preserving the deceased family's name and inheritance. The verse leaves Naomi in Moab in poverty and bereavement, with desolation reigning where there had been joy. Having gone out full and well-to-do, she felt the hand of the Lord gone out against her, with no more sons and too old to marry again, a condition she herself called bitter under the name Mara.
The family had been able to remain in Bethlehem like others and was not forced by drought or hard times to leave. Elimelech left to live among the heathen for mere mercenary purposes in disobedience to God, and his sons further disobeyed by marrying Moabite women, a move the Lord did not approve. From that loss Naomi resolves to return to Bethlehem in the land of Judah on hearing everything was prosperous there. She urges her two daughters-in-law, still young women in girlhood's bloom, to go back to their homes and remain with their own people.
The verse leaves her standing with them for a tearful last farewell on Moab's fertile plain of vintage and grain, palm-tops, and the river Arnon flowing to the Dead Sea. She later returned to Bethlehem with Ruth. Naomi's painful experiences in Moab are an example of how God uses human actions and sorrow to accomplish His eternal purpose. He overruled the disobedience for good in the conversion of Ruth, and He had them in His sight to turn darkness into light, counting all tears, so that shadows become sunlight and there is no cause to doubt when life appears dim and weary.