READING RUTH · 1 OF 9
Ruth: on the road
A famine, a journey and family losses set Ruth’s story in motion. Follow the people and the changing circumstances before deciding what the opening teaches us.
In this lesson
A story within the Writings
Ruth is a book of Tanakh, our Hebrew Bible, and the name of one of its central figures. It belongs to Ketuvim, the Writings, the division that also includes Psalms and Proverbs. The Writings contain different kinds of books: a poem and a narrative invite different kinds of attention. Our books gives the larger map.
A narrative tells a story through events, descriptions and speech. Our first questions are concrete: Who is here? Where are they? What changes? Which explanation does the text actually give? Careful reading lets us hear these people’s lives before turning them into a lesson.
The opening places the story “in the days when the judges judged.” In our biblical history, the judges were leaders whom Hashem raised to deliver Israel, before Israel’s kings. They were more than courtroom officials. Israel here names our people; Hashem, “the Name,” is our customary way of referring to God. Judges 2:16 describes the judges’ deliverance, and Judges 21:25 locates that era before kingship.
1. Does “in the days when the judges judged” tell us the story’s setting, its author’s name or the year it was written?
It gives the setting: the era of the judges. It does not name the author or give a date of composition. Locating events in our people’s history is different from identifying when someone wrote the book.
One household leaves home
Bethlehem is a town in Judah, a region in the land of Israel. Moab names another people and their land. The journey moves this family from Bethlehem in Judah into Moab. A famine is a severe shortage of food; it is the crisis with which the story opens.
וַיְהִי בִּימֵי שְׁפֹט הַשֹּׁפְטִים
וַיְהִי רָעָב בָּאָרֶץ1. In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah went to stay in the countryside of Moab, with his wife and his two sons.
2. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and his two sons’ names were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They came to the countryside of Moab and remained there.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Verse 1 gives a household before verse 2 gives its members’ names. Naomi is Elimelech’s wife; Mahlon and Chilion are their sons. The description Ephrathites connects the family with Ephrath, another name for Bethlehem, as Genesis 35:19 identifies it.
The Hebrew la-gur, לָגוּר, means to stay or sojourn: to live for a time away from home. Verse 2 then says the family remained there. The setting has changed, but the narrative has not yet told us everything this stay will bring.
2. Who makes this first journey, and what are its starting point and destination?
Elimelech, Naomi and their two sons travel from Bethlehem in Judah to the countryside of Moab. Ruth and Orpah have not yet entered the account. Keep this journey distinct from the later journey out of Moab.
Notice who is left
וַיָּמָת אֱלִימֶלֶךְ אִישׁ נָעֳמִי
וַתִּשָּׁאֵר הִיא וּשְׁנֵי בָנֶיהָ3. Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.
4. They married Moabite women: one was named Orpah and the other Ruth. They lived there for about ten years.
וַיָּמֻתוּ גַם שְׁנֵיהֶם מַחְלוֹן וְכִלְיוֹן
וַתִּשָּׁאֵר הָאִשָּׁה מִשְּׁנֵי יְלָדֶיהָ וּמֵאִישָׁהּ5. Both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and without her husband.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Here we meet Orpah and Ruth, women of Moab who marry Naomi’s sons. They become her daughters-in-law, the wives of her sons; Naomi is their mother-in-law, their husbands’ mother. This passage names both sons and both wives without yet pairing each wife with a particular son.
A widow is a woman whose husband has died. By the end of verse 5, all three women are widows. Naomi has also lost both sons. Attend to the relationships: the book does not present these deaths as interchangeable items in a list.
The repeated word va-tisha’er, וַתִּשָּׁאֵר, means “and she was left.” In verse 3, Naomi is left with her sons. In verse 5, she is left without her sons and husband. The repetition keeps our attention on Naomi while showing how much her circumstances have changed.
3. What stays the same in verses 3 and 5, and what changes?
Both report a death or deaths and then say that Naomi “was left.” After her husband’s death, her sons remain with her. After their deaths, she has lost husband and sons. The repeated wording makes the change sharper, rather than repeating the same information.
About ten years pass in one short statement. The narrator, the voice telling the story, selects the events we need before the next scene. We know where the family stayed, whom the sons married and who died. These verses do not tell us the men’s illnesses or narrate the details of every year.
4. Which of these claims comes directly from the passage: “They stayed about ten years”; “The men died of a named disease”; “Ruth was Naomi’s daughter by birth”?
Only “They stayed about ten years” is stated. The passage does not name a disease, and it introduces Ruth as one of the Moabite wives of Naomi’s sons. A question about an unstated detail is worth asking, but an invented answer must not become part of our summary.
A worked method: people, movement, evidence
A learner summarizes: “Naomi and her daughters Ruth and Orpah left Bethlehem together and moved to Moab.” The sentence sounds plausible when familiar names blur together. Check it in three passes.
- People. Verse 1’s traveling household contains a man, his wife and two sons. Verse 2 identifies them. Ruth and Orpah enter in verse 4 as Moabite women married to the sons.
- Movement. The opening journey goes from Bethlehem to Moab. Keep that direction attached to the people who actually make it.
- Evidence. Replace “daughters” with “daughters-in-law,” and move Ruth and Orpah’s entrance to the marriage account.
A stronger summary is: “Elimelech and Naomi go from Bethlehem to Moab with their sons. After Elimelech dies, the sons marry Orpah and Ruth. The sons also die, leaving Naomi, Ruth and Orpah bereaved.” Bereaved means grieving the death of someone close.
5. Why is correcting the family relationship more than a small name-check?
It changes the situation we are about to read. Naomi is connected to these women through marriages to her sons, and all three now face life after their husbands’ deaths. The next scene concerns whether these daughters-in-law will accompany her toward her homeland. Calling them her daughters by birth erases a central feature of that choice.
Whose return?
The Hebrew la-shuv, לָשׁוּב, means “to return.” It becomes an important word in this chapter. Here Naomi is going toward the region from which her family left. Her daughters-in-law accompany her, but the opening introduced them as Moabite women, not as members of the household that left Bethlehem.
A shared road does not necessarily mean a shared starting point or the same sense of home. Keep that distinction in view when the three women begin to speak. The question will become not merely where the road leads, but who will continue along it.
7. Does the group’s journey “to return” prove that Ruth and Orpah previously lived in Bethlehem?
No. Naomi’s return organizes the journey. Ruth and Orpah are her Moabite daughters-in-law accompanying her. These verses do not tell us that either woman lived in Bethlehem before. The movement is shared; their relationship to the destination need not be identical.
Look back at the food words. The story begins with famine. The turn toward Judah follows news of bread, lechem in Hebrew. The change in food supply connects the beginning with this new movement. Hashem’s provision belongs in our reading alongside the women’s losses and actions.
8. Make a three-sentence summary that includes the opening crisis, the family’s losses and the reason for setting out toward Judah.
One possible summary: “During a famine in the era of the judges, Elimelech and Naomi’s household leaves Bethlehem for Moab. Elimelech dies, the sons marry Orpah and Ruth, and the sons also die. Having heard that Hashem has provided food for his people, Naomi sets out toward Judah with both daughters-in-law.”
A good summary preserves the order, the relationships and the reason stated in verse 6. It does not end with “everything is settled”: at verse 7, the women are still on the road.
Return tomorrow
Close the source cards. Name the book’s place in Tanakh, trace the two directions of travel and explain the relationship among Naomi, Ruth and Orpah. Recall what “she was left” emphasizes and what news begins the return.
9. Check your recall
Ruth belongs to the Writings. The opening household travels from Bethlehem in Judah to Moab; later Naomi and both daughters-in-law begin traveling from Moab toward Judah. Ruth and Orpah married Naomi’s sons. All three women are now widows; Naomi has also lost her sons.
“She was left” traces Naomi’s changing losses in verses 3 and 5. News of Hashem giving his people bread leads her to set out. Our narrative method is to track people, movement and the evidence the passage actually supplies.
Return to the sources
- Ruth 1: the complete chapter; this lesson studies verses 1–7.
- Tanakh by books: Ruth within the Writings.
- Judges 2:16 and Judges 21:25: the judges’ role and the setting before kingship.
- Genesis 35:19: Ephrath and Bethlehem.