Ruth 1:1

SOJOURN OF ELIMELECH’S FAMILY IN MOAB, Ruth 1:1-5.

1. When the judges ruled The age of the Judges extended from the death of Joshua’s generation unto the time of Samuel’s public resignation of his office at Gilgal, (1 Samuel 12:0,) when Saul was established king a period, according to the common chronology, of more than three hundred years. See Introduction to Judges.

A famine in the land Perhaps that scarcity of food and suffering caused in the land of Israel by the seven years’ oppression of the Midianites, whose devastations reached even to Gaza, and left no sustenance for man or beast. Judges 6:4. According to Ruth 1:4, Naomi dwelt in the land of Moab about ten years, and Ruth 1:6 gives the impression that the famine continued in the land of Israel during most of this period, which comports well with the seven years of Midianitish rule. According to this supposition the events of this book of Ruth were contemporaneous with the judgeship of Gideon.

Beth-lehem-judah So called to distinguish it from another city of the same name in the tribe of Zebulun. Joshua 19:15. It is situated about six miles south of Jerusalem. Its great celebrity is its being the birthplace of Ruth’s divine descendant, Jesus the Messiah. Its ancient name was Ephrath or Ephratah. See, further, notes on Genesis 35:19, and Matthew 2:1.

Went to sojourn To reside for a time as a stranger; not to remain permanently.

The country of Moab Literally, The fields of Moab; the district east of the Dead sea, forty or fifty miles in length by twenty in width, peopled by the descendants of Moab, whose origin is narrated in Genesis 19:30-37. See also notes on Numbers 21:13, and Deuteronomy 2:9. This region has long lain waste, and the dangers of modern travel there have been so many that until quite recently few have ventured to explore it. Captains Irby and Mangles passed through it in 1818, and in their Travels describe the land as capable of rich cultivation, and, though now so deserted, yet presenting evidences of former plenty and fertility. In some places the form of fields is still visible, and the plains are covered with the sites of towns on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one. Wherever any spot is cultivated the corn is luxuriant, and the multitude and close vicinity of the sites of ancient towns prove that the population of the country was formerly proportioned to its fertility. In 1870 Professor Palmer passed through the fields of Moab, and his description of the country confirms that of Irby and Mangles. “The uplands are very fertile and productive; and, although the soil is badly tended by the few scattered Arab tribes who inhabit it, large tracts of pasture land and extensive corn fields meet the eye at every turn. Ruined villages and towns, broken walls that once enclosed gardens and vineyards, remains of ancient roads every thing in Moab tells of the immense wealth and population which that country must have once enjoyed.” In the days of Ehud the Israelites were subject to the Moabites for the space of eighteen years, but under that judge the Moabites were “subdued,” after which the land had rest fourscore years. Judges 3:12-30. From this history of Ruth we find that amicable relations existed in her day between the two nations, so that Moab became a place of refuge for Israelitish emigrants. So, too, in later times, it continued to be an asylum for outcasts and wanderers, See 1 Samuel 22:3-4; Isaiah 16:3-4; Jeremiah 40:11-12.

His two sons Who were, at the time of his emigration, unmarried.