File:Ruth pleads with Naomi - Ruth 1 8-18.jpg

Summary
Ruth pleads with Naomi

Ruth 1:8-1:22

1:8. She said to them, “Go home to your mothers; may the Lord deal mercifully with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

'''1:9. May He grant you to find rest in the houses of the husbands whom you shall take.” She kissed them. They raised their voices, and began to weep'''

1:10. and say, “We will go on with you to your people.”

'''1:11. But she answered them, “Return, my daughters; why come with me? Have I any more sons in my womb, that you may hope for husbands from me?'''

'''1:12. Return again, my daughters, and go your ways: for I am now spent with age, and not fit for wedlock. Although I might conceive this night, and bear children,'''

'''1:13. If you would wait until they were grown up, and come to man's estate, you would be old women before you marry. Do not do so, my daughters, I beseech you: for I am grieved the more for your distress, and the hand of the Lord is gone out against me.”'''

1:14. They raised their voices, and began to weep again: Orpha kissed her mother-in-law, and returned; Ruth stuck close to her mother-in-law.

1:15. Naomi said to her, “Behold your kinswoman has returned to her people and her gods; go with her.”

To her gods, etc. . .Naomi did not mean to persuade Ruth to return to the false gods she had formerly worshipped: but by this manner of speech, insinuated to her, that if she would go with her, she must renounce her false gods and return to the Lord the God of Israel.

'''1:16. She answered, “Be not against me, to desire that I should leave you and depart: for wherever you shall go, I will go: and where you shall dwell, I also will dwell. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.'''

'''1:17. The land that shall receive you dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if nothing other than death separate me and you.”'''

The Lord do so and so, etc. . .A form of swearing usual in the history of the Old Testament, by which the person wished such and such evils to fall upon them, if they did not do what they said.

1:18. Then Naomi seeing that Ruth was steadfastly determined to go with her, would not be against it, nor persuade her any more to return to her friends:

'''1:19. So they went together, and came to Bethlehem. When they came into the city, the report was quickly spread among all: and the women said, “This is that Naomi.”'''

1:20. But she said to them, “Call me not Naomi (that is, beautiful,) but call me Mara (that is, bitter), for the Almighty has quite filled me with bitterness.

'''1:21. 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 afflicted?”'''

1:22. So Naomi came with Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, from the land of her sojournment: and returned to Bethlehem, during the beginning of the barley harvest.