Faithfulness of Ruth

[Ruth 1:16] And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
The word for to entreat also means misfortune or plague. Ruth is telling Naomi not to attempt to turn her away by enumerating her misfortunes to her, that she is determined to become a convert, no matter what the circumstances. Ruth’s life we read at the holiday of Shavuot. She was a Moabite princess who had been married to a Jewish man.
Ruth signified her decision to go or walk with Naomi, side by side sharing life together.
Lodge on the way, enjoying her friendship and to help Naomi in her search for a new security.
Your people, my people leaving her own people and native land and bind herself to Naomi’s people.
Your G-d, my G-d ready to make an absolute commitment to the G-d Naomi had taught her to love. Ruth is one of numerous other people in the Scriptures who declared her loyalty to Yahweh across cultural and religious lines.
There must have been something very beautiful in Naomi’s life thus to win the devotion and love of Ruth, first to herself and then to her G-d’ and it has bee well to keep her name, which means Pleasant, instead of substituting her suggestion of Mara.
Can this be Naomi? In the past she wore a cloak of fine wool, and now she is clothed in rags, and before her countenance was ruddy from abundance of food and drink, and now it is sickly from hunger. Naomi and Ruth were not in the best of positions. Naomi’s husband had lost his fortune in Moab, and she was nearly penniless except for some family land.
All the city was moved about them, the present condition of Naomi, a forlorn and desolate widow, presented so painful a contrast to the flourishing state of prosperity and domestic bliss in which she had been at her departure. Naomi asks that she not be called by a name reflecting “pleasantness,” but one that embodies her condition and attitude, Mara, which means bitterness. She stressed her bitterness of soul by using the Hebrew word for bitter three times. It is a very human form of anger, a complaint that life is not fair and is found often throughout the OT.
Naomi complained that Yahweh had dealt harshly with her. This expression is a translation of a Hebrew verb that means basically to answer. When the answer is harsh, the meaning may be to afflict. So when she cried to the L-rd for an answer at the time of the death of her husband, Yahweh answered her with the death of her two sons. Behind her complaints, would be the faith that Yahweh does not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted (Ps. 22:24). She also blamed G-d for bringing calamity on her. Completely wrapped up in her own suffering, she did not even mention her Moabite daughter-in-law. G-d’s answer to her cries was in the Moabite woman who had clung to her and sworn to walk by her side on her return to Bethlehem. Ruth would cause “Mara the bitter one” to become Naomi the lovely one again. Ruth would fill the void of emptiness in Naomi’s heart with fullness, embody G-d’s grace instead of harshness, and bring blessing in place of calamity and change her mourning into dancing (Ps. 30:11).
On the day that Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem was the very day that all the neighboring townspeople gathered together to celebrate the reaping of the Omer, a measure of barley that would be offered up as a sacrifice on the second day of Passover. The wife of Boaz died on that day, and all Israel assembled to pay their respects, and just then, Ruth entered with Naomi. The later rain (Deut. 11:14) had fallen in November, and the barley and wheat crops had been planted. The beginning of the barley harvest, which followed the Festival of Unleavened Bread in March or April, was now at hand.