The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Cleave” it comes from the Hebrew Word “dabaq” which means “to cling, to cleave to.”
A famine, three funerals, and one remarkable act of loyalty set this whole story in motion. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Ruth 1.
During a famine in the days of the judges, Elimelech takes his wife Naomi and their two sons from Bethlehemjudah to live in Moab. Elimelech dies there, and his sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. About ten years later, both sons die as well, leaving Naomi alone with her two daughters-in-law. Hearing that the Lord has visited His people with bread again, Naomi decides to return to Judah, and urges Orpah and Ruth to go back to their own mothers’ houses, praying that the Lord would deal kindly with them just as they had dealt with their husbands and with her.
Orpah, after weeping, kisses Naomi goodbye and returns home, but Ruth clings to her mother-in-law. The Hebrew word for this clinging is “dabaq,” the same word used elsewhere for cleaving in marriage. Naomi urges Ruth to follow Orpah’s example, pointing out she has nothing left to offer her, but Ruth responds with one of the most quoted declarations of loyalty in the entire Bible. “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.”
Seeing Ruth’s determination, Naomi stops urging her to leave, and the two women travel together to Bethlehem, arriving just as the barley harvest is beginning. Their arrival stirs up the whole town, and the women ask, “Is this Naomi?” Naomi responds with deep grief, asking to be called “Mara,” meaning bitter, since the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with her, having left full and returned empty.
Ruth’s declaration of loyalty to Naomi wasn’t made out of comfortable circumstances, but in the middle of genuine loss, poverty, and uncertainty about the future. Her commitment to Naomi’s people and Naomi’s God, spoken with nothing tangible to gain, remains one of the clearest pictures of loyal, sacrificial love found anywhere in Scripture.
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