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[Ruth 1:6] Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.
When the famine in Judah finally ended, and she and her daughters-in-law “went forth out of the place”. The Rabbis speak of her departure in the same way they spoke of Jacob’s when he left Canaan at his mother’s bidding. The good news for Naomi was that Yahweh the L-rd of the harvest had visited his people in Bethlehem once again and it was time to return.
To rise up out of a condition of sorrow, and discouragement. Naomi’s response to the disasters was not passive acceptance, but a resolute initiative of faith. Naomi was beginning her own exodus journey from death in Moab to life in Bethlehem. Naomi tried to tell her daughter-in-laws to return to their mothers-in-laws home. Naomi’s argument it that she is too old to remarry. Even if she did and even if she bore sons, the women would have to wait for them to grow up. They would, in effect, cheat themselves of the opportunity to remarry. The Law stated a woman was not to be married to a man without her consent. This was the Law for an adult woman, a woman over 12 years of age. The Rabbis frowned on arranging marriages for girls under twelve, although they could not entirely forbid it since it was sanctioned by the Torah tradition. In some cases they required that the woman reaffirm the marriage when she reached adulthood. Jewish tradition celebrates two famous women who found themselves in situations where the standard procedure of marriage simply had not worked out for them; these two are Tamar and Ruth. As a result, they decided to take matters into their own hands and in bold ways rearranged their lives within a fundamentally patriarchal marriage system.
Return to mother’s house – then they could take a first step toward remarriage. Eastern countries women occupy apartments separate from those of men, and daughters are most frequently in those of their mother.
Deal kindly literally means to practice steadfast love and loyalty. Naomi praised her two Moabite daughters-in-law for their kindness towards her two sons even after their death, and towards her. The two Moabite women had learned about Yahweh’s steadfast love and the human response of covenant loyalty from their years as members of a family that knew of Yahweh’s steadfast love and were kind to one another. She hopes that even after they had returned to their people, Yahweh would show them steadfast love and help them to find security in the house of their husbands.
Naomi was determined to return to Bethlehem by herself. Three times she urged her daughter-in-laws to go back, or turn back. To return to Bethlehem with her would mean, for them, hardship, poverty, and no chance of marrying younger brothers of their husbands, according to the custom of levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5-6). She felt that if Yahweh’s hand had turned against her, it could turn against them too. That Naomi should dissuade her daughters-in-law so strongly from accompanying her to the land of Israel may appear strange. But it was the wisest and most prudent course for her to adopt:
First, because they might be influenced by hopes which could not be realized;
Second, because they might be led, under temporary excitement, to take a step they might afterwards regret; and,
Third, because the sincerity and strength of their conversion to the true religion, which she had taught them, would be thoroughly tested.
Orpah returns to her own family, her old ways. The Rabbis teach that she was stiff necked, “she turned her back on her mother-in-law”; Orpah’s name contains within it the letters of the word
Ha-oref, which means “the nape of the neck.” Ruth, on the other hand, understood the true underlying meaning of her mother-in-law’s words and wish. The clue to her perceptiveness, her ability to perceive Truth, is found in her name; ra’athah means “considered well,” or literally “saw” – the meaning of her mother-in-law’s words.
The decisions of Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth are all about returning. The double movement of returning dominates this episode of the story: for Orpah it was back to Moab. Naomi, with Ruth at her side, went back to Bethlehem.
The Narrator does not condemn Orpah for her decision. We do not know what she base her decision on: It might have meant a going back to the old ways of Moab, to the traditional culture and religion, or to return as an opportunity for her to bring to her people a new vision of Yahweh’s steadfast love and of human relations which she had seen as a member of this family that worshipped Yahweh.
Ruth’s decision is the direct opposite of Orpah’s. She clung to her. The word cling signifies the formation of a new unity binding both sides together. When Ruth stepped forward to cling to Naomi, she bound the lives of these two vulnerable widows together in a new solidarity. Her decision is remarkable and meant a complete break with her past.
Naomi also reminded her daughters-in-law that in returning to Moab they would, besides rejoining their own people, also go back to their idols. Marriage into Moabite families and residence among people who follow Moabite folk religions would make it difficult for them to remember the First Commandment, which they would have learned from Naomi.