Ruth 1:9

Analysis & Commentary

Naomi's urging continues as she points to Orpah's decision: "Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law." This verse captures a decisive moment where the two Moabite women make opposite choices regarding covenant faith. The Hebrew uses the perfect tense shavah (שָׁבָה, "she has returned") to indicate Orpah's completed action—she has definitively turned back to Moab.

Significantly, Naomi identifies Orpah's return as both ethnic and religious: "unto her people, and unto her gods." The plural "gods" (eloheha, אֱלֹהֶיהָ) indicates the polytheistic worship Orpah was resuming. The chief Moabite deity was Chemosh, to whom child sacrifices were offered (2 Kings 3:27). By returning to "her gods," Orpah was abandoning whatever knowledge of Yahweh she had gained through marriage into an Israelite family. This demonstrates that mere proximity to God's people doesn't guarantee genuine conversion—Orpah had lived among believers for perhaps a decade but ultimately chose familiar paganism over costly covenant commitment.

Naomi's command "return thou after thy sister in law" shows her continued attempt to release Ruth from obligation. The phrase "after thy sister in law" (acherei yevimtekh, אַחֲרֵי יְבִמְתֵּךְ) emphasizes following Orpah's example. Naomi presents the easier path—return to family, security, and familiar religion. This makes Ruth's subsequent refusal even more remarkable. She chooses the harder path not from lack of alternatives but from genuine faith conviction. The contrast between Orpah and Ruth illustrates Jesus' teaching about the narrow and wide gates (Matthew 7:13-14)—many choose the easy path back to the world, but few choose the costly way of discipleship.

Historical Context

Orpah's decision to return to Moab would have been the culturally expected choice. Ancient Near Eastern customs assumed that widows, especially young childless ones, would return to their birth families and seek remarriage. Moab offered Orpah economic security, social acceptance, and the comfort of familiar language, customs, and religion. Her decision was entirely reasonable by human calculation—Naomi was returning to a devastated land with no prospects to offer her daughters-in-law.

The worship of Chemosh, Moab's national deity, involved practices abhorrent to Yahweh worship. The Moabite Stone (Mesha Stele), discovered in 1868, describes King Mesha's devotion to Chemosh and mentions Israel's God in an extra-biblical source. Numbers 25 records how Moabite women enticed Israelite men into Baal-Peor worship, resulting in divine judgment that killed 24,000. Deuteronomy 23:3-6 prohibited Moabites from entering God's assembly due to their hostility toward Israel and their hiring Balaam to curse God's people. This historical enmity makes Ruth's choice to embrace Israel and Yahweh even more extraordinary—she was turning from her people's gods to worship the God of a nation Moab had opposed.

Questions for Reflection

• What "familiar gods"—whether literal idols or functional ones like comfort, security, or cultural acceptance—are you tempted to return to when covenant faithfulness becomes costly?
• How does Orpah's choice after years of exposure to Israel's God warn against assuming that proximity to believers or religious activity equals genuine conversion?
• In what ways might you be following the crowd "back to the familiar" rather than pressing forward on the difficult path of whole-hearted discipleship?