Ruth chapter 1

12

An idea which is of course patently unlikely.

There's no spite here - Ruth calls these women her daughters. They are obviously still young enough to marry (Naomi is suggesting that at least) but the tradition that if your husband dies, you marry one of his brothers does not apply here - as both died and Naomi is too old to have more. And even if by some miraculous chance she did have more...

vs 13

...would they wait? She would not expect it of them. They would have better luck going back to their own people and finding husbands there. For your interest, the word "to wait" used here is used only here in the whole Bible. The thought is that it's a fairly specific word - as in to lock yourself away and wait for your husband.

The rest of this verse is not easily translated. The question is whether God has stretched out his hand and punished Naomi (for the disobedience of her family in leaving the promised land and going and taking foreign wives), or whether Naomi sees her continuing life as continuing torment by God.

vs 14

The idea is that there is a contrast in their actions - Orpah's kiss is one of leaving, whereas Ruth's hug is (literally) one of cleaving. The word is the same for cleaving and clinging. I wonder how many liberal scholars have suggested some sort of lesbian affair based on that tenuous word?

vs 15

Interestingly, the word for gods (elohim) is in a plural form regardless of whether you are talking about one god or multiple gods. So you actually can't tell if Naomi is talking about Orpah returning to her own household gods or some polytheist worship, or to worship of a single god. Apparently, the Moabites did have one god called Chemosh.

vs 16

Same word for God here, see. What an important verse. Here Ruth is showing that she is not coming with Naomi merely because she has nowhere else to go - she is adopting the God and people of her dead husband and now mother-in-law.

vs 17

This verse is another one of the difficult to translate ones - but mostly for the newbie. The TNIV does nothing to protect the original meaning, supplanting "May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely" for the oath form that is taken here. A wooden translation would hold something like "Thus may the LORD do, and thus may he add". I think the implication is, the clause being surrounded by death on either side, that Ruth will die - and yet worse - if she breaks this oath to Naomi, her people and her God.

Interestingly, here Ruth uses the name Yahweh for God. Make of that what you will.

Finally, the TNIV is the only one of the translations I use (I believe the NRSV does this too) to translate this verse as "even if death separates you and me" rather than "except when death separates you and me". It's not easily translated, but I would tend to go with the translation of the NIV or others on this one regarding meaning. Separated by nothing except death is surely preferable, meaningful and pragmatic too. Something for everybody.

vs 18

It's literally "Naomi stopped talking to her", but I am told this did not have the childish meaning to it.

vs 19

Now this is interesting. Women are not mentioned at all in this verse, but the only translation failing to mention women is the KJV. Now, again, this is a translation issue - the pronomial thing (ie the bit that means "they") is feminine. So it is reasonable to translate it that the women said it. However, the word for town used (eir ? I made the transliteration up - ayin hireq yod resh) is feminine, so it could just as easily mean the inhabitants of the city generally.

But the rule in Hebrew is generally, if you're describing a group of people and at least one of them is male, you describe it with male pronomials. It isn't really a sticking point with me - if you get the idea that even though they've been gone for ten years or more, the people still recognise Naomi, that'll do.

vs 20

Again, the tenses here a problematic. It could be "has dealt bitterly with me", or it could be "is treating me bitterly". The question of whether it is continuous or not is at stake, and it is actually kinda more important than your regular "Eh, who cares?" translation issue, because it could have bearing on the kind of bitterness and whinging that Naomi (Mara) is doing.

Some say (and no doubt you've heard this in church before) that Mara gets all bitter because she thinks God hates her and now she has put herself in a position against God. However, we also have to understand that wailing and lamentation, even questioning that actions of God, is normal piestic practice in Middle Eastern society. Witness the psalms - and we never call David a God-hater.

Whether it's one or the other will always be debated I think - after all, the narrator stays fairly silent on this, although God does end up blessing Mara (yes, I just ruined the ending).

Another interesting little tidbit here is that the word for Almighty, shaddai, is pretty much a total mystery with regards to its roots. No doubt many a scholar has postulated, but there's not much to base it on. Apparently.

vs 21

Don't miss the irony here. This book is chock full of it. Naomi's family left the promised land because of a famine. Hell, they left a town called "House of Bread" because of a famine and went to a foreign land. They all died, and now she returns because the food has returned to the promised land. But for Naomi, even though she was starving, she left Bethlehem "full" and now returns "empty".

The word afflicted here is problematic. The actual word can mean both "afflicted/humbled", or it can hold a very specific legal meaning which is "to testify against". Interestingly, from what I have been told, following simple scribal rules for translation would mean that the more complex one should hold over the simple, so the testify against should hold - but the (T)NIV doesn't translate it that way. But don't worry - the KJV and NASB translations do.

One interesting thing I will point out is that the word "evil" doesn't pop up here at all in the translations, but it is there in the text. Basically, the word evil (ra'a) means "evil" whenever a person does something evil, but whenever God does something evil (like in this verse) it always means misfortune or calamity. I say "mean" - I mean "is translated".

vs 22

A fairly good end to the opening act of the story, really. We know the main characters (bar one - love interest to enter stage right). We know their situation. All we need is a song and the first bit of the opera is done.