Ruth 1:7
Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah.
The verse resumes a family history that began about ten years earlier, when Elimelech took his wife Naomi and their two sons Mahlon and Chilion from Bethlehem to settle in Moab because of famine in Israel. After the deaths of Naomi's husband and both sons, she heard that conditions in Israel were prosperous and decided to return from Moab to her former home and family inheritance in Bethlehem in the land of Judah, though she was old, had no son to preserve the family line, and faced losing the inheritance through poverty. The verse depicts her going forth out of the place where she was in Moab on the way back toward Judah, with her two widowed Moabite daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth traveling with her because both proposed to go with her.
On the way Naomi urged both women to turn back to their own kindred and people in Moab as every way to their earthly advantage, telling them they would do better to remain because she had no more sons and was too old to marry again, and grieving for their sakes that the hand of the Lord had gone out against her, which tested their fidelity. Orpah, after withstanding with tears, kissed Naomi and went back to her people and to her gods, is mentioned no more, and her connection with the people of God ceased forever. Ruth refused to leave or return from following Naomi in a deliberate choice made after counting the cost, vowing to go where she went, lodge where she lodged, take her people for her people and her God for her God, die where she died and be buried there, with an oath that only death would part them.
The journey brings Ruth to Bethlehem, where she marries Naomi's kinsman and becomes an ancestor of David and through David's line of Jesus Christ. Ruth's choice to accompany her gives Naomi renewed hope because she still has kinsmen there who can redeem the inheritance. As part of a story of Israelite home life, it shows God's care for the family line leading to Christ, honors Ruth with a place in the chief family in Israel, preservation of her history in the Bible as a precious legacy, and her name in the Lamb's book of life, proving that only those whose hearts are steadfast are accepted.