A Narrative Passage: Ruth 1

This lesson does not introduce anything new. It puts the four tools of this module to work on a single chapter, in the order you will use them in the capstone: the narrator's chain and pauses (Lesson 1), the key words (Lesson 2), the speeches (Lesson 3) and the gaps (Lesson 4). Ruth 1 is ideal for the exercise because it is short, it is complete in itself, and it contains almost every technique the module has described.

It also has neighbours in the course, and you should use them rather than expect everything here. The Old Testament Survey lesson on Ruth covers the book as a whole: Moab and Deuteronomy 23, the gleaning laws, the kinsman-redeemer, the threshing floor, the two places Ruth stands in the canon, and the word chesed, loyal love, at the three hinges of the plot. Module 3 of this track uses the anchor verse, Ruth 1:16, to teach pronouns and suffixes, so this lesson does not parse every suffix again. Module 7 returns to chesed among the covenant words. Here the work is narrower: to read Ruth 1 in the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) as a piece of narrative art, with a phone and a notebook.

Open the chapter in an interlinear now, and keep it open. Every Hebrew word in this lesson can be checked by tapping it. If a form or a count here does not match what your tool shows, the tool may use a different tagging, and the difference is worth writing down rather than ignoring.

The chapter opens with the chain moving fast. וַיְהִי (vayhi), and it was, in the days when the judges judged; וַיְהִי רָעָב (vayhi ra'av), and there was a famine; וַיֵּלֶךְ (vayyelekh), and a man went from Bethlehem in Judah. In five verses the narrator uses wayyiqtol after wayyiqtol to move a family to Moab, kill the husband, marry the sons to Moabite women, settle them for ten years, and kill the sons. There is not one word of grief, explanation or judgment. Notice the irony the narrator does not underline: a famine in בֵּית לֶחֶם (Beit Lechem), Bethlehem, whose name means house of bread.

Watch the subject of the sentences narrow. In 1:3 Elimelech dies, וַתִּשָּׁאֵר הִיא (vattisha'er hi), and she was left, a niphal of sha'ar, to remain. In 1:5 the sons die, and the same verb returns: וַתִּשָּׁאֵר הָאִשָּׁה (vattisha'er ha'ishah), and the woman was left. Not Naomi; the woman, without her two boys and without her husband. The narrator strips her even of her name for a sentence, and then in 1:6 the chain starts again with her as subject: she arose, she returned. The only report of the LORD acting in the whole chapter arrives as news she heard in Moab: כִּי־פָקַד יְהוָה אֶת־עַמּוֹ לָתֵת לָהֶם לָחֶם (ki-faqad YHWH et-ammo latet lahem lachem), that the LORD had visited his people to give them bread. Bread has returned to the house of bread. The narrator does not point at the wordplay; the Hebrew does.

Now find the clause that breaks the chain. Ruth 1:14 has three wayyiqtols in a row: they lifted their voices, they wept, Orpah kissed her mother-in-law. Then: וְרוּת דָּבְקָה בָּהּ (veRut davqah bah), but Ruth clung to her. Noun first, perfect verb, off the chain. In Lesson 1 you saw this shape used for background. Here it marks a contrast: Orpah's act and Ruth's act are set side by side, and the change of verb form makes the reader stop. The verb is דָּבַק (davaq), to cling or hold fast, the verb Genesis 2:24 uses for a man who is united to his wife. Many commentators have heard the echo, and Boaz will complete it in Ruth 2:11 when he says that she left her father and her mother, using עָזַב (azav), the other verb of Genesis 2:24.

Point of view narrows too. In 1:18 the narrator writes וַתֵּרֶא (vattere), and she saw, that Ruth was מִתְאַמֶּצֶת (mit'ammetset), determined, a hithpael participle of amats, to be strong: making herself strong to go with her. You see Ruth through Naomi's eyes at the moment Naomi gives up. Then וַתֶּחְדַּל לְדַבֵּר אֵלֶיהָ (vattechdal ledabber eleiha), and she stopped speaking to her. The BSB renders it 'she stopped trying to persuade her', which is fair, but the Hebrew is barer: she ceased to speak to her. Hold on to that sentence. It becomes a gap in section 5.

The leading word of Ruth 1 is שׁוּב (shuv), to return or turn back, and by the count of the free Open Scriptures morphology it occurs twelve times in twenty-two verses. 1:6 וַתָּשָׁב (vattashov), she returned, which the BSB renders 'prepared to leave' together with the verb before it. 1:7 לָשׁוּב (lashuv), to return to the land of Judah. 1:8 שֹׁבְנָה (shovnah), go back, a feminine plural imperative. 1:10 נָשׁוּב (nashuv), we will return, in the daughters-in-law's reply. 1:11 and 1:12 shovnah again, twice more. 1:15 שָׁבָה (shavah), she has gone back, of Orpah, and שׁוּבִי (shuvi), go back, to Ruth. 1:16 lashuv, in Ruth's refusal. 1:21 הֱשִׁיבַנִי (heshivani), he has brought me back. 1:22 vattashov again, and הַשָּׁבָה (hashavah), the one who returned. The BSB uses more than half a dozen different English expressions for it, and the reader of English never hears the drum.

Now follow what the word does. Naomi is returning to the land she left. But Orpah and Ruth have never been to Judah, so when they say in 1:10 כִּי־אִתָּךְ נָשׁוּב לְעַמֵּךְ (ki-ittakh nashuv le'ammekh), we will return with you to your people, they are using a word that does not fit them, and the narrator lets it stand. Naomi tells them three times to go back, and in 1:15 she points to Orpah, who has gone back to her people and her gods, and says to Ruth שׁוּבִי אַחֲרֵי יְבִמְתֵּךְ (shuvi acharei yevimtekh), go back after your sister-in-law. Ruth's answer in 1:16 takes the same verb and the same preposition and turns them round: do not press me לָשׁוּב מֵאַחֲרָיִךְ (lashuv me'acharayikh), to turn back from after you. Naomi says go back after her. Ruth says I will not go back from after you.

Then the end of the chapter, where the word lands on Ruth herself. Ruth 1:22 says Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, הַשָּׁבָה מִשְּׂדֵי מוֹאָב (hashavah missedei Mo'av), who returned from the fields of Moab. The narrator calls Ruth a returner, of a land she has never seen. The phrase recurs of her in 2:6 and is used of Naomi in 4:3. A small note for careful readers: the free morphology tags the form in 1:22 and 4:3 as a perfect with the article, and the same spelling in 2:6 as a participle, a difference grammarians connect with where the Masoretic accent falls. Either way the English is who returned, and the irony is the same.

One more turn of the word, and it reaches across the book. In 1:21 Naomi says וְרֵיקָם הֱשִׁיבַנִי יְהוָה (vereqam heshivani YHWH), and empty the LORD has brought me back. The form is a hiphil, the causative stem you met in Module 4: the LORD caused me to return. It is the only causative use of shuv in the chapter, and it is said of God. In Ruth 4:15 the women of Bethlehem bless the LORD over Naomi's grandson and say he will be לְמֵשִׁיב נֶפֶשׁ (lemeshiv nefesh), a hiphil participle of the same verb: one who brings back life, the BSB's 'He will renew your life'. The LORD brought her back empty. The child brings her life back. The narrator never draws the line between the two verses; the root does. This is the kind of leading word Lesson 2 asked you to test, and it passes: it is frequent in the passage, it falls at the turning points, and it does something in the story.

Naomi speaks first, and at length. Three speeches to her daughters-in-law (1:8-9, 1:11-13 and 1:15), each sending them back, each a little sharper: may the LORD deal kindly with you; are there still sons in my womb?; look, your sister-in-law has gone back. Her first words in the book are an imperative and a prayer: go back, each to her mother's house, and may the LORD show you chesed, the BSB's 'loving devotion', as you have shown to the dead and to me. If you look closely at the interlinear you will see two oddities in 1:8. The written text and the reading tradition differ on one verb, a ketiv and qere that Module 8 explains; and several suffixes in Naomi's speeches to two women are masculine plural in form, as in עִמָּכֶם (immakhem), with you. Grammarians explain this in more than one way, and English cannot show it. Note it on your page and move on.

Orpah never speaks alone. Her only words in the book are shared with Ruth in 1:10. That makes Ruth 1:16 Ruth's first speech in her own voice, and Lesson 3 taught you to listen hard to first words. It begins אַל־תִּפְגְּעִי־בִי (al-tifge'i-vi), do not press me, a negative אַל (al) with a jussive of paga', which is the usual Hebrew way to forbid a specific, immediate action: stop urging me. Then two infinitives: לְעָזְבֵךְ (le'ozvekh), to leave you, from azav, the verb Boaz will use of her in 2:11, and לָשׁוּב מֵאַחֲרָיִךְ (lashuv me'acharayikh), to turn back from after you, the key word of the chapter.

Then four short clauses, two with verbs and two without. כִּי אֶל־אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכִי אֵלֵךְ (ki el-asher telkhi elekh), for where you go I will go; וּבַאֲשֶׁר תָּלִינִי אָלִין (uva'asher talini alin), and where you lodge I will lodge; עַמֵּךְ עַמִּי (ammekh ammi), your people, my people; וֵאלֹהַיִךְ אֱלֹהָי (velohayikh elohai), and your God, my God. The verbless clauses are the strongest of the four, because Hebrew does not need the word will be: your people are my people. Module 3 parses the suffixes. Here notice the movement, from roads and lodgings to a people and a God, and then the oath in 1:17: כֹּה יַעֲשֶׂה יְהוָה לִי וְכֹה יֹסִיף (koh ya'aseh YHWH li vekhoh yosif), thus may the LORD do to me and more, if anything but death separates me from you. A Moabite who has just been told to go back to her gods swears by the covenant name of Israel's God.

Then Naomi again, in Bethlehem, and her speech is the other great speech of the chapter. The women of the town say הֲזֹאת נָעֳמִי (hazot Na'omi), is this Naomi? She answers in 1:20: do not call me Naomi, a name from the root for pleasant; call me מָרָא (Mara), bitter, כִּי־הֵמַר שַׁדַּי לִי מְאֹד (ki-hemar Shaddai li me'od), for the Almighty has made it very bitter for me, a hiphil of marar. Then 1:21, with the pronoun thrown to the front: אֲנִי מְלֵאָה הָלַכְתִּי (ani mele'ah halakhti), I, full, went away, and empty the LORD has brought me back. The last clause, וַיהוָה עָנָה בִי (vaYHWH anah vi), the BSB renders 'the LORD has testified against me', reading the verb as answer or testify, with the preposition against. The Greek Septuagint took the same consonants in the sense of afflict, and some English versions follow that sense. Either way, Naomi has put the LORD in the witness box and herself in the dock, out loud, in front of the whole town. The narrator does not correct her.

Now apply the rules of Lesson 4. The first silence is the reason for the journey to Moab. The narrator gives the famine and nothing more: no approval, no blame. The Aramaic Targum of Ruth and the rabbinic midrash both fill the silence with judgment, treating Elimelech's leaving and his sons' marriages to Moabite women as the reason the men died. That is a filling, and it is labelled as tradition, not text. The text reports three deaths and declines to explain them. A preacher who tells his congregation that the family died because they left the land has said more than Ruth 1 says.

The second silence is Orpah. She kisses her mother-in-law and goes back to her people and her gods, and the narrator says nothing against her. Naomi had asked her to go, three times. The Old Testament Survey lesson makes the point well: the book does not criticise Orpah, and that is what makes Ruth's choice something more than duty. Treat Orpah's motives as a permanent gap, and resist the sermon that makes her the villain.

The third silence is the sharpest, and it comes in Naomi's own words. In 1:18 she stops speaking to Ruth. In 1:19-21 she speaks to the women of Bethlehem, and says that she came back empty, while Ruth, who has just sworn to die where she dies, is standing beside her. Ruth is not mentioned in the speech at all. Does Naomi not count her? Is grief speaking, or bitterness, or the simple truth that a Moabite daughter-in-law was no protection to an Israelite widow? The narrator gives you the juxtaposition in 1:22, Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess with her, and leaves you to feel it. This is a gap in Sternberg's full sense, and it is temporary: the rest of the book answers it, slowly, until in 4:15 the women say that this daughter-in-law is better to Naomi than seven sons.

The fourth silence is God's. In the whole chapter the narrator reports only one act of the LORD, and reports it as news: that he had visited his people with bread (1:6). Everything else said about God in Ruth 1 is said by Naomi, in prayer and in complaint. The narrator neither confirms nor denies that the LORD's hand had gone out against her (1:13). Here the gap is the theology of the book, and the Old Testament Survey lesson draws it out: God acts in Ruth almost entirely through the loyalty of people. Do not close that gap in chapter 1 by announcing what God was doing behind the scenes. Let the hearer stand where Naomi stood, and let the book bring the answer when it brings it.

Lay your four pages side by side and you have the shape of Ruth 1. The narrator moves fast through loss and stops for one contrast clause, but Ruth clung. The key word return runs through every scene and lands, at the end, on a woman returning to a land that was never hers, and four chapters later on a child who brings back life. The first words of Ruth are an oath that turns Naomi's own words around. And the gaps, Naomi's silence and her empty with Ruth beside her, are left open on purpose, for the rest of the book to answer.

That is enough to preach from, and it is honest. A sermon on Ruth 1 built from these pages will not need to invent Ruth's feelings or Orpah's sins or God's secret reasons. It can say what the narrator said, show where he was silent, and let the congregation hear the drumbeat of return in their own language. A useful exercise is to choose one English word, return or go back, and use it every time in your reading of the chapter aloud, so that the people hear in English what a Hebrew listener heard. Then tell them you have done it, and why.

The capstone at the end of the track asks for a full study of one Old Testament passage, and if your passage is a narrative, or sits beside one, this page is its narrative section. Even if your passage is a psalm or a prophecy, the habits will serve you: notice where the text moves and where it pauses, follow the repeated words in the Hebrew, listen to who speaks and how, and keep what the text says separate from what it leaves you to wonder.

Your step this week: make a page headed Narrative Map for the narrative you chose in Lesson 1. At the top, in two or three sentences, say where the narrator pauses and why (from your Narrator page). Below that, name the one key word you have tested, with its Strong's number, its count in the passage and its neighbours, and the turning points where it falls (from your Key Words page). Then copy the first words of the main characters and the one speech that matters most, with the Hebrew of its key phrase in transliteration (from your Speech page). Then the one gap you think the narrator most wants felt, with the possibilities and the evidence (from your Gaps page). Last, write a single sentence that a hearer could carry home, and check it against the page: does every claim in it rest on something you have written above? If not, change the sentence. This page goes into your capstone as it stands.