Commentary - Ruth 1:1-5

Bird's-eye view

The book of Ruth opens in the middle of a train wreck, but it is a slow-motion train wreck, one that takes ten years to unfold. At the outset, we are meant to see a picture of cascading disobedience and its bitter fruit. A man of Bethlehem, the house of bread, leaves the house of bread because there is no bread. This is a spiritual contradiction of the highest order. He takes his family to Moab, a nation under God's disfavor, and this decision leads not to relief but to death and emptiness. The story begins with a man, his wife, and two sons, a picture of covenantal fullness. It ends, just five verses later, with a widow, bereft of her husband and both her sons. This is what happens when God's people seek solutions to their problems outside the boundaries of God's revealed will. Yet, in all this, we see the dark backdrop against which the bright diamond of God's sovereign grace will soon shine. God's providence is not thwarted by our foolishness; rather, He uses our foolishness to write a story of redemption that is far greater than we could have ever conceived.

Outline

Context In Ruth

These opening verses establish the dire circumstances from which the entire story of redemption in Ruth will emerge. The author wants us to feel the full weight of Naomi's emptiness and loss. The setting "in the days when the judges judged" is crucial. This was a time of spiritual anarchy, when "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). Elimelech's decision to leave Bethlehem is a case study in this very problem. He evaluates his situation, a famine, and decides on a course of action that seems pragmatic to him, but is in fact a profound act of covenantal unfaithfulness. He leaves the land of promise for the land of the curse. The deaths that follow are not random tragedies; they are the direct consequence of this initial disobedience. This sets the stage for God to display His unmerited favor, His chesed, through a Moabite woman named Ruth, who will choose to leave the land of her birth and cling to the people and the God of Israel.

Verse by Verse Commentary

Ruth 1:1

Now it happened in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the fields of Moab with his wife and his two sons.

The book opens by immediately grounding us in a time of deep spiritual and civic decay. "In the days when the judges judged" is the Bible's way of saying that things were a mess. It was a time of apostasy, confusion, and cyclical violence, all because there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes. This is the spiritual climate. On top of this, there was a physical famine. Famine in the promised land was always a sign of covenant curse (Deut. 28:23-24). The rain was withheld because the people had withheld their hearts from God. So we have a two-fold crisis: a crisis of leadership and a crisis of covenant faithfulness, resulting in a crisis of empty stomachs. And where does this famine strike? Bethlehem, which means "house of bread." The irony is thick. The house of bread has no bread. This is a picture of Israel's spiritual state. And what does this "certain man" do? He makes a decision based on his immediate circumstances, not on God's covenant promises. He decides to leave. He doesn't go to Egypt, the old house of bondage, but he goes to Moab, a nation born of incest (Gen. 19:37) and explicitly excluded from the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:3). He thinks he is escaping a famine, but he is actually running from the land of God's presence into a land under God's curse.

Ruth 1:2

The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they came to the fields of Moab and remained there.

The names here are likely significant. Elimelech means "My God is King." What a tragic irony. The man whose name proclaims God's sovereignty is living as though God is not king, making decisions based on fear and pragmatism rather than faith. Naomi means "pleasant" or "sweet," a name that will become a source of bitter irony for her later on. The sons' names are Mahlon ("sickly") and Chilion ("pining" or "failing"). Perhaps they were frail from birth, or perhaps their names are a foreshadowing of their fate in Moab. They are identified as Ephrathites, which connects them to the ancient and noble lineage of that region, the very region from which King David would later come (1 Sam. 17:12). This is not just any family; they are from the heartland of Judah. The verse ends with a simple but ominous statement: "they came to the fields of Moab and remained there." What was intended as a temporary sojourn, a brief escape, becomes a settled reality. This is how compromise works. It starts as a short-term solution and ends up as a long-term residence in a place you were never supposed to be.

Ruth 1:3

Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.

The consequences of Elimelech's decision begin to unfold. The man who led his family away from the land of promise dies in the land of compromise. The patriarch, the head of the household, the one named "My God is King," is cut off. His plan to preserve his life by leaving Bethlehem results in the loss of his life in Moab. God will not be mocked. You cannot flee His chastening hand by running outside the boundaries of His covenant. Naomi is now a widow in a foreign land. Her pleasantness is beginning to sour. All she has left are her two sons, the sickly and the pining. The support structure of her life has been knocked out from under her, and she is left vulnerable and exposed.

Ruth 1:4

They took for themselves Moabite women as wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they lived there about ten years.

The compromise deepens. The sons, Mahlon and Chilion, follow their father's pattern of assimilation. They take Moabite women as wives. While the law did not explicitly forbid marrying Moabite women in the way it did Canaanite women, it was a clear violation of the principle of separation and a step away from their covenant identity (Deut. 7:3). They are putting down roots in cursed ground. This is not just about marriage; it is about identity. Are they Israelites sojourning in Moab, or are they becoming Moabites? The ten years they live there indicates that this was not a brief, unfortunate chapter. It was a decade of settling in, a decade of disobedience. A decade is a long time to be away from the people of God and the place of worship. It is long enough to forget who you are. And yet, in the midst of this foolishness, God introduces the name of Ruth. A Moabite woman, a pagan, is brought into this broken Israelite family. God's providence is at work even in the midst of our sin, preparing to bring a masterpiece out of a mess.

Ruth 1:5

Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and her husband.

The hammer falls again, this time with devastating finality. Both sons, the last hope of the family line, also die. The names "sickly" and "pining" prove to be prophetic. The family of Elimelech is wiped out. The line is extinguished in the land of Moab. The text states the result with stark simplicity: "the woman was left without her two children and her husband." Naomi, who left Bethlehem with a husband and two sons, is now utterly bereft. She is empty. This is the wages of sin. This is the end result of leaving the house of bread. Elimelech's plan to find life and sustenance outside the land of promise has led to nothing but death and emptiness. Naomi has lost everything. From a human perspective, her situation is utterly hopeless. But it is precisely at this point of absolute emptiness that God begins His work of redemption. He empties us of our self-reliance so that He can fill us with His grace.

Application

The story of Elimelech's family is a cautionary tale for all believers. It is a stark reminder that we are not to make decisions based on godless pragmatism. When the "bread" runs out in our lives, whether it be financial security, health, or peace, the temptation is to look for a solution in Moab, to find a fix outside the bounds of God's revealed will. But Moab always leads to death. It may look like a land of plenty, but it is a spiritual graveyard. The solution to famine is never to leave the promised land; the solution is repentance within the promised land.

Furthermore, this passage shows us the devastating nature of sin. It is not a static event; it is a progression. A single bad decision by a father leads to a decade of compromise for his sons, culminating in the destruction of his entire family line. We must be vigilant to cut off sin at the root, lest it grow into a tree that bears the fruit of death.

But the central lesson here is about the hard providence of God. God is sovereign over the famine, He is sovereign over Elimelech's foolish decision, and He is sovereign over the deaths in Moab. This is not pointless suffering. God is telling a story, and this tragic opening is the necessary setup for the glorious story of redemption that is to follow. He is emptying Naomi so that He can fill her again. He is bringing her to the end of herself so that she might see His salvation. For us, when we find ourselves in a place of emptiness and loss, we must not despair. We must remember that our God is a God who brings life out of death, who fills the empty, and who specializes in turning the bitterness of our foolish choices into the sweetness of His sovereign grace, all for the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ.