Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Elimelech the Bethlehemite, driven by famine, sojourns in Moab with his wife Naomi and two sons: there, after all have died, Naomi alone, a widow, returns to Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth.
Vulgate Text: Ruth 1:1-22
1. In the days of one of the judges, when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a man went from Bethlehem of Judah to sojourn in the region of Moab with his wife and two children. 2. He was called Elimelech, and his wife Naomi, and the two sons, one Mahlon and the other Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem of Judah. And having entered the region of Moab, they dwelt there. 3. And Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she remained with her sons. 4. They took Moabite wives, of whom one was called Orpah, and the other Ruth. And they remained there ten years; 5. and both died, namely Mahlon and Chilion: and the woman was left bereft of her two children and her husband. 6. And she arose to return to her homeland with both her daughters-in-law, from the region of Moab: for she had heard that the Lord had visited His people and given them food. 7. She went forth therefore from the place of her sojourning, with both daughters-in-law, and now set on the road of returning to the land of Judah, 8. she said to them: Go to the house of your mother; may the Lord show you mercy, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9. May He grant you to find rest in the houses of husbands whom you shall obtain. And she kissed them. And they, lifting up their voice, began to weep, 10. and to say: We will go with you to your people. 11. To whom she replied: Return, my daughters; why do you come with me? Do I still have sons in my womb, that you might hope for husbands from me? 12. Return, my daughters, and go: for I am now worn out with old age, nor am I fit for the bond of marriage; even if I could conceive this night and bear sons, 13. if you wished to wait for them until they grow up and reach the years of maturity, you would be old women before you could marry. Do not, I beg you, my daughters: for your distress presses upon me more heavily, and the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. 14. Then, lifting up their voice, they began to weep again: Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and turned back; Ruth clung to her mother-in-law. 15. To whom Naomi said: Behold, your kinswoman has returned to her people and to her gods; go with her. 16. She answered: Do not press me to leave you and depart: for wherever you go, I will go; and where you dwell, I too will dwell likewise. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17. Whatever land receives you in death, there I shall die: and there I shall receive a place of burial. May the Lord do this to me, and add more besides, if anything but death separates me from you. 18. Naomi therefore, seeing that Ruth had resolved with steadfast mind to go with her, was unwilling to oppose her, or to persuade her further to return to her own people; 19. and they set out together and came to Bethlehem. When they had entered the city, swift rumor spread among all; and the women said: Is this that Naomi? 20. To whom she said: Do not call me Naomi (that is, beautiful); but call me Mara (that is, bitter), for the Almighty has filled me with great bitterness. 21. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why then do you call me Naomi, whom the Lord has humbled and the Almighty has afflicted? 22. So Naomi came with Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, from the land of her sojourning, and returned to Bethlehem when the barley harvest was first beginning.
Verse 1: In the Days of One of the Judges
1. IN THE DAYS OF ONE OF THE JUDGES. — You will ask: who was this Judge under whom this famine and the marriage of Ruth with Boaz took place? First, Josephus, Zonaras, and the Master of the Scholastic History judge it to have been Eli the Priest. But this cannot be said; for Eli judged for 40 years, then Samuel and Saul for the same number of years: David succeeded them immediately, in his thirtieth year. Now David was begotten by Jesse, Jesse by Obed, Obed by Boaz — all of which generations could not have occurred in so few years, namely eighty, during which Eli, Saul, and Samuel presided.
Second, the Rabbis and Lyranus judge this Judge to have been Ibzan, about whom see Judges XII; and therefore that Ibzan is Boaz. For the letters of both names are nearly the same. But the reckoning of time is against this; for Ibzan became Judge in the year 272 from the capture of Jericho by Joshua, chapter VI, when Salmon married Rahab, who had received Joshua's spies, and from her begot Boaz, who was the husband of Ruth; therefore Boaz, if he is the same as Ibzan, would have been about 272 years old, which in that age was unusual and impossible; for no one lived that long then.
Third, Seder Olam judges it to have been Ehud, the second Judge.
Fourth, Abulensis in chapter IV of Ruth, Question XC, judges it to have been Barak, under whose last years this famine occurred. Torniellus agrees, except that he thinks it happened around the twentieth year of Barak.
Fifth, very fittingly our Salianus judges this famine to have occurred under Abimelech, son of Gideon; but the marriage of Boaz with Ruth occurred under his successor Tola, about which more in chapter IV, 21.
THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE LAND — not the entire world, but Israel, as the Chaldean has it; for to avoid it Elimelech withdrew to Moab, because there was no famine there. It is probable that this famine was sent by God on account of the sins of the people; for God is accustomed to punish public crimes with public famine or plague. And such were the murders and idolatry committed by Abimelech and the Shechemites.
The Rabbis fabricate that another standing still of the sun, such as occurred under Joshua, preceded this famine and was its cause, and that Elimelech, being a holy man, obtained this standing still from God by his prayers, and that therefore he is the one of whom it is said in 1 Chronicles IV, 22: "Who made the sun stand still." Where I shall treat this matter at length.
Verse 2: He Was Called Elimelech
2. HE WAS CALLED ELIMELECH. — Wrongly do Josephus, Zonaras, and Theodoret call him "Abimelech." Elimelech in Hebrew means "my God is king," or "the king of my God," or "the king of my strength." He was a leading and wealthy man, being from the family of Salmon, the prince of the tribe of Judah, and a kinsman of his son Boaz.
EPHRATHITES — that is, natives of Bethlehem, which by another name was called Ephrath. So too David is called the son of an Ephrathite man, that is, a Bethlehemite, 1 Kings 12:12. But elsewhere an Ephrathite is one who was from the tribe of Ephraim, as in Judges chapter XII, verse 5, and 1 Samuel, chapter 1, verses 2 and 3.
AND HIS WIFE NAOMI. — Naomi in Hebrew means beautiful, sweet, pleasant, which she was in both words and deeds. Rabbi Simon says she was called Naomi on account of that passage in Psalm 89:17: "Let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us"; for there the Hebrew word for "splendor" is noam.
The Rabbis relate that she was the daughter of a brother of Salmon, and therefore the granddaughter of Nahshon, who was the prince of the tribe of Judah. For Nahshon begot Salmon and his brother, who was the father of Naomi. Moreover, Serarius gathers these heroic virtues of Naomi from this book. First, there shines forth here her constancy in the true worship of God, even when she had been thrust into a land of idolaters. Second, her zeal, in that she brought her daughter-in-law Ruth to the same worship. Third, her prudence, in that she so skillfully tested and confirmed Ruth's mind. Fourth, her endurance in adversity and hardship, especially in famine, poverty, and what was virtually exile. Fifth, her love of homeland, in that though now old and decrepit she wished to return to it. Sixth, her wisdom in preserving Ruth, guiding her, and advancing her to that most blessed marriage, from which was born Christ Jesus, the salvation of the world, the joy of the earth, the gladness of heaven.
AND TWO SONS, ONE MAHLON AND THE OTHER CHILION. — Mahlon in Hebrew means infirmity or sickness; Chilion means failing or wasting away. Fittingly, because both died prematurely in Moab. The Rabbis relate that these two are the same who in 1 Chronicles chapter IV, in Hebrew are called Joash and Saraph, which our translator renders as "the secure" and "the burning," because, despairing of Israel's liberation from famine, they dwelt too carelessly and slothfully in Moab, that is, in a land of idolaters, and there married Moabite women; and therefore they say they were consigned by God to destruction and fire. But these are their customary inventions, or rather fabrications.
Verse 4: They Took Moabite Wives
4. THEY TOOK MOABITE WIVES. — The Rabbis, as I have said, say that they sinned gravely in this matter. Nor is there anything that compels one to excuse them from sin, says Abulensis. Nevertheless, they can be partly excused by necessity, because in Moab they could not find Israelite women to marry; and for them as young men, in the fervor of youth, celibacy would have been difficult and dangerous. Again, because Naomi their mother, a pious woman, seems to have directed them to this marriage by God's inspiration, who through Ruth had destined David to be born, and from him Christ. Some add that Orpah and Ruth had been converted from idols to the true God, and therefore could lawfully be married by Mahlon and Chilion, Hebrews, just as Salmon married Rahab the Canaanite who had been converted to Judaism, Joshua chapter II; for it was lawful for the Hebrews to marry Canaanite women if they converted to Judaism.
But this response does not apply here; for Orpah returned to her idols, and Ruth was only then converted when she followed Naomi, when she migrated with her from Moab to Bethlehem, as is clear from what follows.
OF WHOM ONE WAS CALLED ORPAH. — The Talmudists, and Philo, or rather Pseudo-Philo in the Biblical Antiquities, and Prudentius in the Hamartigenia, assert that she was the mother of the giant Goliath, whom David struck down, when he says that she preferred to "nourish the stock of the half-savage Goliath" rather than follow Naomi. Their reason is that the mother of Goliath is called Rapha or Harapha, 1 Samuel chapter XXI, verses 19 and 22, and 1 Chronicles chapter XX, verses 6 and 7. And Harapha seems to be the same as Orpah. But they err; for first, Harapha was a Philistine woman, while Orpah was a Moabitess; second, Harapha was from Gath, a city of Palestine, while Orpah was from the city of Petra; third, Harapha lived in the time of Saul and David, while Orpah lived much earlier, namely in the time of Ruth and Boaz, who was the great-grandfather of David; fourth, Orpah in Hebrew is written with the letter Ain, while Harapha is written with He. Moreover, Orpah in Hebrew means stiff-necked, or bare of face. Whence Rabbi Samuel in Sotah chapter VIII says that the mother of Goliath was a prostitute, and therefore called Orphah, because all men treated her contemptuously, pressing her down, disgracing her as a harlot: and Harophah, because all battered her like the grains and wheat husks which in 2 Samuel chapter XXIX, and Proverbs chapters XXVIII and XXI, are called harpihoth.
But this Orpah is different from Harapha the mother of Goliath, as I have already shown; indeed, it is not the mother but the father of Goliath who is called Rapha or Harapha in 1 Chronicles chapter XX, verses 6 and 7; for from him the descendant Giants were called Rephaim, as is said there in verse 4, about which see more in 1 Samuel chapter XXI, verses 19 and 22.
BUT THE OTHER RUTH. — The Talmudists relate that Ruth was the daughter of Eglon king of Moab, whom Ehud killed, Judges chapter III, so as to procure for their David a royal lineage from Moab; but they talk nonsense. For how would the king of Moab have given his daughter to destitute foreigners who were almost perishing from famine?
Moreover, Ruth was from Moab, which is part of Arabia Petraea, whose capital was the city called Petra, because it was situated on a rock (which Belon, Book II, chapter LIII, thinks is Mecca, where the tomb of Muhammad stands; but he errs). This is clear from that passage in Isaiah chapter XVI: "Send forth the lamb, O Lord, the Ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Zion." And this was understood of the Messiah who was to be from the sons of David: and David himself was to be from the stock of Ruth, who was to come from the city of Moab, which is called the rock of the desert, says Abulensis here, Question XVI. See what was said on Isaiah chapter XVI, verse 1.
Moreover, Ruth in Hebrew means "watered" or "saturated," from the root ravah, that is, to water; or rather "vision" or "prophecy," from the root raah, that is, "he saw" — as if Ruth is the same as Rauth. Or "inspiration," says the author of the Opus Imperfectum on Matthew chapter I, from the root ruach, that is, "he breathed, he inspired" — as if Ruth is the same as Rachut, because without God's inspiration she would neither have said nor done the things she said and did. Whence in her, says the same author, is praised love of the race of Israel, simplicity, obedience, faith. The Kabbalists say that Ruth by anagram is Tur, that is, turtledove; because like a turtledove she mourned with groaning for her deceased husband. The Talmudists say she was called Ruth because from her was born David, whom God foresaw would be engaged in shiroth, that is, in canticles, psalms, and praises.
Finally, Ruth does not seem to have been a sister of Orpah nor a blood relative in a near degree, but a kinswoman by affinity, as I shall say at verse 15.
Verse 8: Go to the House of Your Mother
8. GO TO THE HOUSE OF YOUR MOTHER. — The Hebrew and the Septuagint have: Go, return, each one to the house of her mother. From this it is clear that they were not sisters, nor had the same mother, but different ones. Naomi urges her daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth to return to their Moabites, so that they might live more comfortably among their own, and so that she herself might be relieved of the care of them; and so that she would not bring them, still being infidels, among the faithful people in Israel; for this would have been a scandal. Therefore she tacitly (what she had often done openly at other times) exhorts them to convert to the faith and religion of the Israelites, as if to say: If you wish to go with me into Israel, you must live in the Israelite manner, in the faith and worship of the one true God. If you do not wish to do this, return to your Moabite infidels.
MAY THE LORD SHOW YOU MERCY, AS YOU HAVE DEALT WITH THE DEAD AND WITH ME — for while your dead husbands (who were my sons) lived, you treated them with the respect and love that was fitting; and when they were dead, you buried them decently, mourned them, preserved their memory, honored them, and for their sake remained with me as widows up to now, feeding, cherishing, and helping me. Whence the Chaldean translates: The Lord will do good to you as you have done with your husbands who sleep; that you refused to take husbands after their death: and with me, that you fed and sustained me.
Much more do the faithful show mercy to their deceased friends, when they pray and offer sacrifice for their souls, as St. Ambrose did for the Emperor Theodosius, as he himself narrates in the oration On His Death: "I loved him," he says, "and I follow him even to the region of the living, until by weeping and prayers I lead the man where his merits call him, to the holy mountain of the Lord, where there is everlasting life, where there is no contagion of corruption, no groaning, no pain, no fellowship with the dead — the true region of the living, where this mortal puts on immortality, and this corruptible puts on incorruption. Great is the rest that fulfills the desire of one who loves, great is the promise."
Verse 11: Do I Still Have Sons in My Womb?
11. DO I STILL HAVE SONS IN MY WOMB, THAT YOU MIGHT HOPE FOR HUSBANDS FROM ME? — From this it is gathered that besides the law of Deuteronomy chapter XXV, which commands the Jews to raise up seed (that is, offspring) for a brother who died without children, the same practice was in use among the Gentiles. Hence Tamar the Canaanite, before the law and Moses, raised up seed for the sons of Judah and for Judah himself, Genesis chapter XXXVIII. For when a woman had married into some family, when her husband died she clung to the same family, and expected another husband from it, nor did she pass to another; and this for the sake of propriety and of the affinity already contracted with that family.
Moreover, Cajetan and Serarius gather from this that this raising up of seed for a deceased brother was customary even in the case of uterine brothers only. For if Naomi as a widow had married another man again, and from him had given the sons born as husbands to Orpah and Ruth, those husbands would certainly have been only uterine brothers of Mahlon and Chilion, who had been their former husbands; which should be understood thus: if those uterine brothers had indeed had different fathers, but from the same tribe and family, then the wife, when her husband died without offspring, would raise up seed from his brother or kinsman of the same family; but she does not seem to have been obliged to do this if the later uterine brother had been begotten from a father of another tribe or family.
Verse 13: You Would Be Old Women Before You Could Marry
13. YOU WOULD BE OLD WOMEN BEFORE YOU COULD MARRY. — In Hebrew it is teagena, which others, deriving it from og, meaning "to be burned" or "scorched," translate: Would you be consumed without a husband? — as if the Apostle alludes to this when he says: "It is better to marry than to burn," 1 Corinthians chapter VII. More accurately the Septuagint, the Chaldean, Vatablus, Pagninus, Marinus, and the more recent commentators generally translate: Would you be detained or held back, so as to remain widows until I bear new sons for you? As if to say: Would you bind yourselves (for this is what the Septuagint's katirizzosa means) to remaining in widowhood, until I beget new sons to become your husbands? The Hebrew here is obscure, but you may render it plainly and clearly thus: If I were to say: There is hope for me; even if I were with a man this very night and bore sons: would you therefore wait until they grew up? Would you therefore delay, so as not to be with a husband? According to this sense the equally obscure Septuagint should be explained.
Verse 15: Behold, She Has Returned
15. BEHOLD, SHE HAS RETURNED — because Orpah loved Naomi less than Ruth did; hence Ruth clung to Naomi, but Orpah departed from her to her own people.
YOUR KINSWOMAN. — Orpah your sister-in-law, who had as husband the brother of your husband; for you two married two brothers, and therefore through the marriages contracted with them, you are related, that is, connected by affinity. For this is what the Hebrew word yebamah means.
TO HER PEOPLE AND TO HER GODS. — Not as if Naomi were urging her daughter-in-law Ruth to return, like Orpah, to the gods of the Gentiles whom she had hitherto worshipped in the land of Moab; for to urge that would have been sinful; but wishing to console her, she urges her to return to her own people and marry there again; she permits her however to continue worshipping her gods (which was connected with it, and which she knew Ruth would do if she returned to her own people, who were idolaters); and she does this to test the sincere and steadfast mind of her daughter-in-law Ruth, which was necessary for changing her religion along with her homeland, and for constantly maintaining it, lest she afterwards complain that she had been driven by the arts or deceptions of her mother-in-law Naomi to cross over into a foreign and less agreeable religion. So Abulensis.
AND TO HER GODS. — From this it is clear that Orpah had not been converted to God, but had always adhered to her native religion and its idols; Ruth however, because she changed her homeland with Naomi, also changed her religion and crossed over into the colony and synagogue of the Israelites. Learn here how harmful it is to dwell among infidels, heretics, and the ungodly; but how good it is to dwell among the faithful and pious: for those who dwell among the former remain or become infidels, heretics, and impious; but those among the latter become faithful, orthodox, and pious, according to Psalm 17: "With the holy you will be holy, and with the perverse you will be perverted." Thus Orpah, returning to her infidel people, remained an infidel: but Ruth, passing over to the faithful, became faithful.
Verse 16: Do Not Press Me to Leave You
16. DO NOT PRESS ME TO LEAVE YOU. — The Chaldean has: do not anger me, do not compel me. From this it is clear that Ruth had been initiated into Jewish rites through baptism — not one that was a sacrament, but a washing of the body, just as males were initiated through circumcision. Hear the Talmudists describing the rite of this initiation: He who wishes to become a proselyte needs three things, if indeed he is male: namely, to be circumcised, to be baptized, and to offer as a burnt offering either a beast or a pair of turtledoves or pigeons; but if a woman, she need only do the two latter things: namely, be baptized and offer a burnt-offering victim.
YOUR PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE; YOUR GOD MY GOD. — Great was Ruth's love, reverence, and fidelity toward her mother-in-law Naomi, by which she firmly resolved to exchange her homeland for a foreign land, and her native faith for the foreign religion of the Jews; because she saw Naomi so wise and upright, and endowed with so many virtues and graces, that she firmly persuaded herself that Naomi had the true faith and religion, and that her God was the true God.
Hence Origen proposes this example for daughters-in-law to imitate, Book I on Job, saying: "Blessed Ruth showed such deference to her aged mother-in-law that she would not suffer herself to leave her even unto death. Therefore she is rightly magnified forever in Scripture; and before God she is blessed for infinite ages. She will nonetheless judge and condemn at the resurrection all malicious and impious daughters-in-law who have heaped insult or injury upon their fathers-in-law or mothers-in-law: not remembering that they begot and nurtured husbands for them, and acquired possessions and livelihood for them by their labor."
From which he draws this conclusion: "If therefore you love your husband, O woman, love also those who begot him and nurtured him as a son for themselves, and as a husband for you. Do not separate the son from father or mother. Do not compel the son to dishonor his father or mother, lest you fall under condemnation before the Lord God, on the day of terrible inquisition and judgment. Let it suffice you, O woman, that you possess a husband whom you did not nurture, and your substance which you did not acquire; that you come into a house which you did not build, and you will be mistress and have authority over the labors of others, for which you yourself labored not at all. Do not therefore repay with evil those who prepared for you and acquired by their labor all things — both husband and substance. O woman, let not the curse of the Lord God come upon you."
Again, St. Jerome (or whoever the author is, for the style is discordant, though it is eloquent), volume IX, treatise On True Circumcision, asserts that Ruth, by this courageous and pious response, merited to become the mother, that is, the grandmother of Christ; whence he exclaims: "O virtue to be preferred even to men! A woman of an uncircumcised nation imitates the faith of Abraham, which the circumcision of men has abandoned, and through another's footsteps she enters upon the merit of justification, from which the blind inheritance of her ancestors had strayed. The Moabitess despises her gods, while you, Israel, desire foreign ones; she, already forgetting her own, swears allegiance to the one God; and you go whoring after a multitude of idols: hence she is chosen by the Lord; hence she becomes an Israelite in mind, not in race; in faith, not in blood; in virtue, not in tribe: hence she is blessed to such a degree that she is called the mother of your prophets and kings."
Verse 17: May the Lord Do This to Me
MAY THE LORD DO THIS TO ME AND ADD MORE BESIDES — namely, send upon me disease, poverty, persecutions, and add things worse than these. For these things are understood in this Hebrew oath; they suppress them by a euphemism for the sake of good omen, lest what they invoke upon themselves should actually come to pass. Such was the oath of the Romans in treaties, which Festus recounts, Book XI: "Those about to swear by Jupiter the Stone, holding a flint, use these words: If I knowingly deceive, then may the Father of Day cast me out from the city and citadel and from my goods, as I cast this stone." And then they hurled the stone from their hand.
Allegorically, Ruth here bore the type of the Church passing from the Gentiles to Christ. Hear St. Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Matthew: "Consider that what happened in the case of Ruth fits our own situation. For she was both a foreigner and had fallen into extreme poverty; but Boaz, seeing her, neither despised her poverty nor abhorred her ignoble origin: just as Christ too, receiving the Church — both foreign and suffering from a want of great goods — took her as His consort." He then adds the manner: "But just as Ruth, unless she had first left her parents, unless she had despised her home and her nation and her homeland and kindred, would never have been joined in such a marriage; so too the Church does not become lovable to the Bridegroom until she has left her ancestral customs and rites. Which the Prophet also says, speaking to her in Psalm 45: Forget your people and your father's house, and the King will desire your beauty. This Ruth also did, and therefore, just as the Church, she became the mother of kings. For David is from her stock."
Hear also St. Ambrose, Book III on Luke, past the middle: "How did Ruth enter the Church, unless because she was made holy and immaculate in her conduct, above the law? For if the law is for the impious and sinners was established — then surely Ruth, who went beyond the definition of the law and entered the Church and became an Israelite, and merited to be counted among the ancestors of the Lord's flock, chosen for the kinship of her mind, not of her body, is a great example for us; because in her the figure of all of us who have been gathered from the Gentiles preceded our entering into the Church of the Lord. Let us therefore emulate her, so that just as she by her conduct merited the privilege of being received into His fellowship, as the history teaches, we too may be enrolled in the Church of the Lord through the choice of our conduct, with our merits supporting us."
Verse 20: Do Not Call Me Naomi
20. DO NOT CALL ME NAOMI (that is, beautiful, also fair, pleasant, sweet, cheerful); BUT CALL ME MARA (that is, bitter), FOR THE ALMIGHTY HAS FILLED ME WITH GREAT BITTERNESS. — For He deprived me of my husband and both sons, and made me a widow and childless. The Blessed Virgin could have said the same, seeing her Son crucified and dead.
Tropologically, when we are praised for some gifts, let us examine our defects, and thus turn praises into laments, as Naomi's example was followed by St. Gregory, Book II, Epistle 64, when he had been praised by Narses: "Your sweetest charity," he says, "has spoken much to me in its letters in praise of good works; to all of which I briefly reply: Do not call me Naomi, that is, beautiful, but call me Mara, that is, bitter, for I am full of bitterness." And Book I, Epistle 6, to the same, lamenting that he had been taken from the quiet of the monastery to the care of the Pontificate: "You call an ape a lion. We see you doing this in the same way that we often call mangy puppies leopards or tigers. For I, good sir, have, as it were, lost my sons, because through earthly cares I have lost my upright works. Do not therefore call me Naomi, that is, beautiful; but call me Mara, because I am full of bitterness." He gave the same reply to St. Leander, Book VII, Epistle 125.
The same was done by St. Digna, a virgin and martyr in Spain in the year of the Lord 853, under Muhammad the Saracen, of whom St. Eulogius, her contemporary and himself a martyr in the same persecution, writes thus in the Memorial of the Saints, Book III, chapter VII: "This maiden, though she judged herself the least among her fellow virgins out of supreme humility and obedience, and was a helper of incomparable readiness, nevertheless never suffered herself to be called worthy, and said with tears: Do not call me worthy, but rather unworthy, because whatever merit I have, I should be distinguished even by a fitting name."
For "Almighty" in Hebrew is Shaddai, which signifies both a cornucopia, that is, God abounding in all good things, the "Nourisher," and equally one who chastises and lays waste: both meanings apply to this passage, as if to say: God, who as Shaddai, that is, the Nourisher, formerly heaped upon me an honored marriage and children and wealth; now as Shaddai, that is, the Devastator, has stripped and laid waste the same from me; yet the same God, as I hope, having mercy on me, will again as the former Shaddai graciously console, enrich, and bless me. For He "kills and brings to life, leads down to the grave and brings back." See what I said about Shaddai on Genesis XVII, 1.
Verse 22: She Returned to Bethlehem
22. SHE RETURNED TO BETHLEHEM WHEN THE BARLEY HARVEST WAS FIRST BEGINNING — namely at Passover. For on the second day of Passover the Hebrews offered to God the first-fruits of the grain, and then on the third day they began to reap them. Whence the Chaldean translates: They (Naomi and Ruth) went up to Bethlehem at the very ascents of Passover, that is, when the Paschal day was at hand, and on that day the children of Israel began to reap the gomer or sheaf, which was customarily elevated, or offered before the Lord, and was of barley.
In a similar way Joshua, leading the Hebrews back from Egyptian servitude, entered the promised land at Passover, Joshua chapter III.