“Where You Go I Will Go and Where You Stay I Will Stay”: How Exegetical Poetry Enriches Our Understanding of Ruth 1:16–17 and 1:20–21

Abstract

It is easy to underestimate Ruth. The story is short and sweet, in elementary Hebrew, about a loyal and obedient daughter-in-law, or so we have been led to believe. The book and its eponymous character are surprisingly complex. Although Ruth is an exemplar of Hebrew narrative, it contains two poetic insertions in the first chapter. Literal translations lose the poetry, and poetic translations are less faithful to the original language. Ruth has been chosen for road-testing a range of hermeneutical approaches, and here is one more. This paper approaches these poetic insertions and, indeed, the book of Ruth, as poetry and explores a new method for examining and interpreting Hebrew poetic texts, namely, exegetical poetry. I pay particular attention to poetic devices—parsing for parallelism, alliteration, and other poetic elements—and explore their significance. As I translate and exegete, I compose poetry reflecting the form, content, and theological themes of the Hebrew poetry through the use of similar English devices, imagery, and mood. The result is an amalgam of showing through exegetical poetry and telling through prose commentary, enriching our understanding of the characterization of Ruth and Naomi, and the relationship between these poetic insertions and the broader narrative.

1. Introduction

The book of Ruth and the person of Ruth are “much more complex than at first appears” (Evans 2017, p. 218). Tod Linafelt (1999, p. 120) points out that it would be a mistake to take its “economy of style as an indicator of the simplicity or primitiveness of biblical narrative or of the book of Ruth. Indeed, it is primarily this terseness that lends biblical narrative its complexity as literature”. To Linafelt’s comment, I would add that it is similarly biblical Hebrew’s terse and evocative lines that make it some of the world’s best poetry. Whether it is through the author’s use of the narrative or poetic genres, “The charm and apparent simplicity of the story are in fact quite deceptive” (Webb 2000, p. 38). As Edward F. Campbell Jr pointed out in 1975, and as Goethe and Gunkel had pointed out before him, the book of Ruth is a highly creative literary masterpiece. Despite this high praise, both the book and the character of Ruth, as well as the character of Naomi, have been misunderstood. Mary J. Evans (2017, p. 217) lists some of the prevailing misleading descriptions of the book, such as “a beautiful idyll”, “a lovely romantic story”, and “ideal material for a women’s conference”. To be “idyllic”, a story should be excessively happy, peaceful, and picturesque, and the book of Ruth is not. Havilah Dharamraj (2019, p. 1) cautions against shelving “Ruth in the ‘romance’ section” and highlights that a good half of the book is about widowhood. And, as evidenced by the Society of Biblical Literature, Ruth is ideal material for a biblical literature conference.

In this paper, I approach Ruth 1:16–17 and 20–21 as poetry. Verses 16–17 are a speech-poem spoken by Ruth, sometimes referred to as “Ruth’s commitment” (e.g., Havea 2021, chp. 4) or “Ruth’s confession” (e.g., Tong 2015, p. 35), and often thought of as the pinnacle of the first chapter (e.g., Rudolph 1962, p. 42). And verses 20–21 are a corresponding speech-poem spoken by Naomi. There are sufficient linguistic and structural similarities between the two poems to know that they form a matched pair, and they occur in quick succession, meaning they are meant to be read in conversation (Linafelt 2010, pp. 123–26). These paired verses have been subject to extensive exegetical scrutiny, but what about a detailed poetic study? Artist and poet William Blake considered the Bible to be the greatest work of poetry, and since Ruth has often been the choice for road-testing a range of hermeneutical approaches (Lau and Goswell 2016, p. 1)—such as discourse analysis (Milton 2016), literary analysis in the context of Igboland (Odo 2021), and contrastive characterization (Decker 2019), to name a few—here, I offer one more: exegetical poetry.

2. Method

I am hardly the first person to write poetry about Ruth—she appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost—but the genre and method are different. And I am far from the first person to combine poetry and biblical commentary—St John of the Cross and Jeanne Guyon spring to mind—but the hermeneutic and method are different. Not unlike the editors of Scrolls of Love, Hawkins and Stahlberg (2006), mine is a literary hermeneutic, and my methods aim to enrich established modes of interpretation with an unconventional one. And it is in Scrolls of Love that I am reminded—through Kathryn Hellerstein’s (2006, pp. 89–121) chapter—of, perhaps, my closest comparison: Yiddish poetry on the book of Ruth. As outlined in my abstract, I compose exegetical poetry to complement my prose commentary. There are four main—often simultaneous—steps to my method as I progress through the “hermeneutical spiral” (Osborne 2010). First, I scan the poem, paying particular attention to poetic devices as I translate, parsing each poetic line for its parallelism, repetition, sound resonances and wordplay, and other poetic elements. Second, I consult secondary scholarship. Third, I compose poetry (in English), which reflects the form, content, and theological themes of the Hebrew poetry through the use of the same (or similar) content, poetic devices, structure, imagery, and mood. Fourth, I present my analysis and findings through showing, that is, in my own original exegetical poetry, and through telling, that is, in prose commentary. My aim for exegetical poetry is to enrich our understanding of the poetry in Ruth and its theological significance, including Ruth’s and Naomi’s characterization, and the relationship between these poetic insertions and the broader narrative.

3. Background for the Book of Ruth

Before we get to the poetic details, however, it is important to give some context for the book of Ruth as a whole. This work has been amiably carried out elsewhere, so I need not spend too much time answering questions of, for example, authorship, date, structure, or tendenz. Rather, I will provide a brief survey of the salient issues from some of the scholars who have gone before me. Dharamraj (2019, p. 2) summarizes the situation well, writing: “the answers to … these questions remain tentative at best”. Though scholars have proposed different hypotheses—for example, “Jewish tradition attributed the book to the prophet Samuel” (Sakenfeld 1999, p. 5), and some scholars have theorized female authorship (e.g., van Dijk-Hemmes 1993, p. 136)—Ruth’s writer remains anonymous. And, while an exact date eludes us—particularly after Campbell’s (1975) challenge to late dating—the general scholarly consensus is Ruth is post-exilic writing. Robert Alter (2019, p. 621) has shown that there are “at least a dozen terms that reflect distinctive Late Biblical usage”, and previously, Daniel I. Block (1999, pp. 590–91) had summarized some of the more convincing arguments for a post-exilic date.

The book’s canonicity has almost never been in doubt, but its position, or ordering, in the canon and its historicity is another matter. Ruth has been located following the book of Judges, and standing in contrast to it; following the Psalter, and continuing the themes of (God’s) redemption and loving kindness (Lau and Goswell 2016, p. 70); at the (historically ordered) head of the Megillot, following the book of Proverbs, and continuing as the next eshet hayil (see, e.g., Mathews 2022, p. 97; Goh 2015, p. 73f); or second in the (liturgically ordered) Megillot, following Song of Songs, and similarly continuing the tradition of the eshet hayil since, as I have argued elsewhere, I do not hesitate to call the unnamed woman of Song of Songs a woman of valor (Hutton forthcoming). Thankfully, according to Jeremy Schipper (2016, p. 11), “nothing in Ruth’s narrative necessitates an interpretation of the book according to its placement within a biblical canon”. However, arguments over location in the canon are entwined with arguments of historicity. Some scholars (e.g., Campbell 1975, pp. 3–4) have argued the book is more literary and less historically accurate, and some scholars (e.g., Block 1999, pp. 602–3) have pointed out there is plenty of evidence within the Bible for Ruth’s historical veracity. Dharamraj (2019, p. 8) offers that Ruth’s story is likely based on historical events with a degree of creative license. I am inclined to more or less agree, in the light of Jeanette Mathews’ (2022, p. 66) summary assessment of tendenz and genre.

Along with challenging the date of composition, Campbell also argued against the grain concerning Ruth’s purpose (or authorial intent, i.e., tendenz). Many scholars would agree with his assessment that: “The material of our genre is popular—it is folksy. It concerns the commonplace and God’s relation to the commonplace” (Campbell 1974, p. 92). However, it was his suggestion that Ruth was “not a polemic against the actions of Ezra and Nehemiah” (Sakenfeld 1999, p. 2) that opened the door to different (politically motivated) hypotheses. For example, Kirsten Nielsen (1997, p. 27) argues it is not that the book of Ruth has been “supplemented with a genealogy… The genealogy is in fact its basic premise and starting point” to legitimize David’s “fragile dynasty”. Dan Block (1999) similarly interprets the whole book through the lens of preserving the royal line. And while this does fit with another major argument—that the book of Ruth is about the sovereignty of God (e.g., Evans 2017, p. 225)—it ignores that the majority of the narrative is about God’s actions in the lives of ordinary people. According to Josephus (Antiquities 5.9.2), Larkin (1996, p. 49), and others “the story is about the reversal of Naomi’s destitution” (Webb 2000, p. 40). Despite these differences, most scholars can accept that Ruth is (also) a book about the type of loving, steadfast kindness and tender mercy that includes loyalty and faithfulness: hesed (חֶסֶד) (e.g., Alter 2019, p. 626; Campbell 1975, p. 13; Webb 2000, p. 37). Mathews (2022, p. 66) implicitly argues against single-purpose readings, writing “Ruth is preeminently a novella, written for both entertainment and to address… the serious issue of xenophobia”. To limit the book of Ruth to one meaning, purpose, or theme is to miss the multifaceted functioning of poetry and the art of the narrative. Poetry and stories—especially one of this caliber—are about more than one thing.

Moreover, as Evans has argued, “good storytelling does involve patterns and links… [and] there is no reason to doubt that some kind of symmetrical structure does exist” (Evans 2017, p. 228). The poetry in the first chapter exhibits a more focused, “zoomed in” chiasm, parallelism, and symmetry, and if we “zoom out” and pan our camera across the whole narrative, not only do we see chiasm, parallelism, and symmetry writ large at the structural level, we also begin to see the connections between the form and language of the poem and the form and language of the book. Campbell (1974, p. 85) relays “Gunkel’s excellent description of the book’s careful structure into four discrete scenes with transitional interludes”, and most considerations of structure have Gunkel’s work as their basis. These four scenes or four episodes roughly equate with the four chapters, and the middle two scenes and chapters are perhaps the most obvious parallel (Mathews 2022, pp. 72–87; Webb 2000, p. 38). There have been summaries of the various structural interpretations offered (e.g., Luter and Rigsby 1996, p. 16; Schipper 2016, pp. 5–6); however, I think Dharamraj’s (2019, p. 1) observation gets to the heart of the matter: “Simply by the structure of the book, Boaz and Ruth are encircled by their families and the generations that precede and succeed them”. This intimates that for both the author and the LORD, human affairs and concerns are not trivial but deeply significant.

Evans (2017, p. 224) indicates that “twenty of the twenty-two references [to YHWH] occur in dialogue” (Evans 2017, p. 224). I think there are a few cleverly connected things happening here; the author is giving voice to the inner workings of our two female protagonists, showing the reader that YHWH is behind these events, and intentionally choosing poetry as the medium for communicating these ideas. Hellerstein (2006, p. 89) points out that Erich Auerbach’s famous characterization of direct discourse in the Hebrew Bible, as indicating “thoughts which remain unexpressed” (Auerbach 1953, p. 11), may not wholly fit for the speech in Ruth. Naomi, for example, is “utterly explicit” in Ruth 1:8 (Hellerstein 2006, p. 89), and both poems, it seems to me, make Ruth’s and Naomi’s feelings (if not their motives) perfectly clear. Linafelt (1999, p. 127) suggests “that the author of the book of Ruth shifts into the poetic mode here precisely in order to give the reader access to the inner lives of Ruth and of Naomi, and to signal to the reader that he or she is doing so”. According to Campbell (1974, p. 87), “Jacob Myers (1955) … [kept] two things in balance—namely, his appreciation for the extremely fine prose form of the book, and his observation of the poetic character of much of its contents, not only in the conversations and speeches of the book but also in the idiom of the prose itself”. Perhaps the intricate weaving in of these equally fine poems has as much to do with showcasing the poetic nature of the book as a whole, as it does with characterization. Perhaps the book of Ruth is a verse novella, but that is an argument for another paper. For now, it is enough to state that Ruth’s story offers a world into which the reader enters and participates.

4. Ruth 1:16–17 and Exegetical Poetry

Since the narrator has invited entry into the text, we turn to an analysis of the first poem. Ruth’s empathetic and emotive speech to Naomi occurs after Naomi has forthrightly urged Ruth and Orpah to go, to return to their home, family, life, rest, safety, and security in Moab. Ruth, out of loyalty and steadfast kindness to Naomi, “takes the risk of an uncertain future in a strange land… She will be an outsider in every respect: as a Moabite, a woman and a widow” (van Wolde 1997, p. 21). There are a number of key overarching observations to be made about the poem as a whole, before moving to a couplet-by-couplet or line-by-line analysis.

Do not press me to leave you,

to turn back from after you.

For where you go, I will go,

and where you stay, I will stay;

your people shall be my people,

and your God shall be my God;

where you die, I will die,

and there I will be buried.

After the common formula “and he/she said”—in this case “Ruth” said—the poem proper begins. The work of analyzing the parallelism in both Ruth’s and Naomi’s poems has, of course, been carried out before (e.g., by Linafelt 1999), but there is far more than parallelism happening in Ruth’s speech-poem of two short verses. First, though it is clear from the economy of words, chiasm, parallelism, (internal) repetition, wordplay, and alliteration that Ruth’s speech is poetry, most translations do not render verses 16–17, or 20–21, as poetry. Only a handful of translations do, such as the NRSV and the Jerusalem Bible, along with individual scholars (e.g., Rudolph 1962, p. 40; Campbell 1975, pp. 61–62; Nielsen 1997, p. 49, etc.). My own translation and lineation above owe much to the NRSV and the work of Tod Linafelt (1999). Second, it is immediately obvious that these lines adhere to a pattern of parallelism, and the second and third couplets, along with the first line of the fourth and final couplet, have a pattern of internal repetition. Third, Ruth’s poem has intentional points of connection with the whole narrative—as does Naomi’s. One example is its reflection of the broader parallelism, structure, and themes of the book; for example, the second couplet aligns to the second chapter, the third couplet to the third chapter, and the final couplet to the final chapter. Another example is the poet’s word choices; verbs in this poem such as to “go” or “walk” (הָלַךְ) and to “return” or “turn back” (שׁוּב) are central to the unfolding story and repeatedly feature throughout. Alter (2019, p. 626) has argued that the plot hinges on four key words: הָלַךְ, שׁוּב, to “cleave” (דָּבַק), and “kindness” (חֶסֶד). Campbell (1975, pp. 13, 79) insists it is no accident that leading and guiding words such as these and others are repeated throughout Ruth’s and Naomi’s poems and the rest of the book. These words relate key theological themes to both the actions of God and the human action of our main characters. Finally, each line of this poem shows us something of Ruth’s character and about the theological themes of the narrative. Timothy L. Decker (2019) has shown, through analysis of Ruth’s and Naomi’s poems and their immediate context, that the author uses “contrastive characterization”—that is, developing the “distinctive features” of one character through a “contrastive counterpart”—in order to stress the theological elements of the whole narrative.

It is well worth showing the poetic elements of the first couplet through exegetical poetry before exploring them in more detail (i.e., telling) in prose analysis. Throughout the remainder of this paper, the exegetical poem for a couplet or line will appear first, followed by prose commentary. This is because we should allow space for poetry to speak for itself. However, in some instances, I will provide commentary on my exegetical poetry before moving to commentary on the original text to orient readers less familiar with (biblical) poetry and to make obvious the devices I am using, what I am emphasizing, etc. Having said this, much like the prose commentaries to which we have become accustomed, I will not spell out everything that is happening in both the original poetry and my own exegetical poetry. The combination of showing through exegetical poetry and telling through prose commentary should prompt readers to further reflection (on the primary source and secondary poetry and commentary) and gives us the tools to enrich our understanding of Ruth’s and Naomi’s respective poems and the book of Ruth. In the appendix, I include

Table A1. Original Hebrew lines, with English translation, and exegetical poetry.

Hebrew	English Translation	Exegetical Poetry
אַל-תִּפְגְּעִי-בִי, לְעָזְבֵךְ לָשׁוּב מֵאַחֲרָיִךְ:	Do not press me to leave you, to turn back from after you.	Returning to the House of Bread, and sowing salt in our leaving, walking away from the Sons of Lot and turning back to tender mercies.
כִּי אֶל-אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכִי אֵלֵךְ	For where you go, I will go,	When you set out from salt I will not look back. When you retreat to the basket I will break bread with you. When you return to law and life I will be loyal too. When you have your homecoming I will step out with you.
וּבַאֲשֶׁר תָּלִינִי אָלִין	and where you stay, I will stay;	When you are weary, I will stay. When you stop, I will stay. Where you lodge, I will stay. Where you sleep, I will stay. What you endure, I will stay. What you accept, I will accord.
עַמֵּךְ עַמִּי	your people shall be my people,	I have turned my back on the Sons of Lot on the land of salt on hope for helpmate and the comfort of home. I have cleaved to you your company is mine your kith are mine your townsfolk are mine your forebears are mine your kinsman is mine your fate is mine.
וֵאלֹהַיִךְ אֱלֹהָי	and your God shall be my God;	This child of Chemosh heard of Moloch of costly sacrifice, Marduk the solar calf, and Ra whose people are cattle. But she turned to the God who remembers family and people, and whose laws abide in love.
בַּאֲשֶׁר תָּמוּתִי אָמוּת, וְשָׁם אֶקָּבֵר	where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.	Your land is built on women’s valor: Rachel prayed and named, Leah was not loved, Tamar took what was hers. So I will cleave to you even in the grave.
אַל-תִּקְרֶאנָה לִי נָעֳמִי: קְרֶאןָ לִי מָרָא, כִּי-הֵמַר שַׁדַּי לִי מְאֹד.	Do not call me “Naomi”, Call me “Mara”, for the Almighty has made me “bitter” indeed.	No delight in loss, no pleasance in absence, my name is not my own. I am galled by the grave And I have become like vinegar. I am not my name, there will be names again, but you have taken my name.
אֲנִי מְלֵאָה הָלַכְתִּי, וְרֵיקָם הֱשִׁיבַנִי יְהוָה;	I was full going away, and empty the Lord has brought me back;	I was full of hope when we left Bethlehem, full of family in a famine. But you made my return emptier than a starved stomach, bereft of family. You have filled my emptiness with bitterness.
לָמָּה תִקְרֶאנָה לִי, נָעֳמִי, וַיהוָה עָנָה בִי, וְשַׁדַּי הֵרַע לִי.	Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has afflicted me, and the Almighty brought evil upon me?	My name is not Naomi; I am not sweet. Why give me a name, When Shaddai has taken Everything from under my feet?

which displays the original Hebrew lines in the first column, my English translation in the second column, and my exegetical poetry in the third column. Below is an exegetical poem on the first couplet of Ruth’s poem, followed by prose commentary upon it.

Returning to the House of Bread,

and sowing salt in our leaving,

walking away from the Sons of Lot

and turning back to tender mercies.

This first exegetical poem focuses on the key verbs of returning/turning away and going/walking and mirrors the original poet’s use of parallelism, alliteration, sound resonances and wordplay, and building tension. I have also named Ruth’s kindness (tender mercy), implicit in the original poem, and made it explicit. Ruth’s poem opens with a jussive verb-phrase “do not press me” (אַל-תִּפְגְּעִי-בִי), which governs the first and second lines of the poem. It is clear that these lines form a parallel couplet through the matching infinitives “to leave” (לְעָזְבֵךְ) and “to turn back” (לָשׁוּב), functioning as a syntactically and semantically related word-pair (Linafelt 1999, p. 124). “Do not press me” is in “the volitive mood of the second person” (Odo 2021, p. 3), expressing Ruth’s will: she will not be persuaded to leave Naomi. A striking feature of the first chapter is “the sheer frequency with which the verb שׁוּב is used… it occurs no fewer than twelve times” (Webb 2000, p. 41). This pivotal verb was carefully selected by the author to weave the poem into the narrative. It is a “catchword that gives cohesion to the chapter” (Larkin 1996, p. 42) and “undergirds a return motif that pervades the narrative” (Odo 2021, p. 3). Through its recurrence, שׁוּב underscores the tension building in the narrative (Dommershausen 1967). Who returns? Will the tension be resolved? It is revealed shortly that Ruth will return from foreign lands with Naomi to her ancestral lands (Clines 2001, p. 276), despite Naomi’s repeatedly stated wishes. It is of “particular significance” (Webb 2000, p. 42) that שׁוּב is regularly used by the prophets when urging repentance (Jeremiah uses שׁוּב in this sense forty-eight times, e.g., Jeremiah 8:4, and other examples include 1 Kings 8:33, Isaiah 31:6, Hosea 6:1, Amos 4:6, and Malachi 3:7). It carries “a connotation of restoration and the return of fullness” (Odo 2021, p. 3). We may begin to understand that when Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem in Judah, it is also a return to the lands and plans of YHWH. Campbell (1974, p. 93) argues that the author uses their artistry—in this case, by employing key words—“to correlate God’s will and human action so inextricably as to make each of the main protagonists the servant of God to the other”. Through the seemingly straightforward choice of relatively simple verbs, we gain insight into the narrative and to why the author chose to include Ruth’s speech as poetry: for coherence, characterization, and hinting at YHWH’s orchestration of events.

Another important poetic feature frequently employed by the writer of Ruth is repetition. Key words from Ruth’s poem are repeated throughout Ruth’s four chapters to drive and give cohesion to the narrative. This is best exhibited by the internal repetition occurring over five lines after the first couplet. In the immediate context of the poem, this is on one level a “doubling for dramatic emphasis” (Meir Sternberg 1987, p. 388). However, as noted above, the verbs and nouns that are repeated in Ruth’s poem are also repeated throughout the book. As we have seen with שׁוּב, the repetition and recurrence of “go” (הָלַךְ), “stay” (לוּן), “people” (עַם), “God” (אֱלֹהִים), and “die” (מוּת) is for more than emphasis: “repetition of this type thus shows a diversity of form and function” (Sternberg 1987, p. 388). We may begin to explore these functions through an exegetical poem on the line “where you go I will go”.

When you set out from salt

I will not look back.

When you retreat to the basket

I will break bread with you.

When you return to law and life

I will be loyal too.

When you have your homecoming

I will step out with you.

There is a wealth of meaning in this one terse line: “where you go, I will go”. There is, of course, the aforementioned internal repetition of the verb “go” (הָלַךְ), highlighting its importance. In my poem, I have chosen to reflect this in the repetition of “when you” and “I will”. A device common to Hebrew poetry is the so-called “PNG shift” (i.e., a change in grammatical person, number gender, tense, or mood). In this verse, it is a “grammatical shift from second person to first person” (Linafelt 1999, p. 125) along with a shift from present to future tense. This is also a one-line instance of the literary device of apostrophe, which calls attention to the broader apostrophe of the poem. Apostrophe is usually a speech or address to a person who is not present. Though Naomi is likely present for Ruth’s speech, it is arguably addressed to us as the audience more than it is to Ruth. הָלַךְ evokes a movement from place to place, and coupled with the use of שׁוּב, a turning away from Moab and a turning back to Bethlehem, inviting a comparison without having to name either location. Bethlehem—literally, the house of bread—was in famine. The famine may be a literal hunger and/or a figurative famine—akin to a lack of hearing from God—for famine leads to pain and social decay (cf. Isaiah 8:21–22). This links Ruth to the biblical matriarchs, a point to which we will return. Bethlehem was also the location of the last two occurrences of violence and idolatry in the book of Judges, once again linking Ruth to Judges.

However, Bethlehem also becomes the place of covenant loyalty through Ruth and a new covenant in Jesus (Hamlin 1996, p. 7). הָלַךְ, when figuratively used, means one’s conduct and manner of life, or the observance of laws or customs (e.g., Ps 1:1; Eph 2:2, 10; 5:2, 8, 15; 2 John 4). For Mark S. Smith, the whole poem is expressed in terms of covenant. It is the inversion of Campbell’s concept of the lofty language of kingly covenant lowered to village life. “Covenant is an extension of family relations across family lines” (Smith 2007, p. 252). The poet has intentionally been ambiguous, using הָלַךְ both literally and figuratively, which is an oft-used device of Hebrew poetry. Here, the ambiguity of הָלַךְ also points to a characteristic feature of Hebrew narrative, which is that it “prefers to hold together human and divine agency, affirming a certain amount of providential guidance in history while also admitting and encouraging human action and moral responsibility” (Linafelt 1999, p. 129). The figurative meaning of הָלַךְ becomes more explicit in the lines following “where you go I will go”. We may begin to see that הָלַךְ has, on one level, the simple meaning of movement from place to place, but it is also a journey from past culture, customs, and country to a future observance of the covenant laws of Naomi’s land and people. This important theological theme is further emphasized by the author’s use of apostrophe, which in Greek fittingly means “turning away”. And here, we see the use of another clever Hebrew poetic device: form mirroring content. Ruth’s speech-poem turns away from the prose of the narrator, and her lines turn from “you” to “I” as Ruth herself turns away from Moab (and what it stands for) to Bethlehem (and what it stands for). Once again, this seemingly simple choice of a seemingly straightforward verb paints a picture (or layers a poem) of Ruth’s kindness and character and some of the theological themes in the book, such as a return to covenant, which comes with restoration and redemption, and YHWH’s hand behind events.

When you are weary, I will stay.

When you stop, I will stay.

Where you lodge, I will stay.

Where you sleep, I will stay.

What you endure, I will stay.

What you accept, I will accord.

The second line of this couplet, “Where you stay, I will stay”, continues the established pattern of parallelism, internal repetition, PNG shift, apostrophe, and ambiguity. In my own exegetical poem, I have also chosen to highlight, through altered anaphora, the hints of anaphora in Ruth’s poem and the multilayered meaning of “stay”. The verb to “stay” (לוּן) has the literal meaning of spending or passing the night, and it is often followed by a preposition or adverb of place (which is a contributing factor in some translations using a verb that evokes place, such as to “lodge”). However, this line could just as easily be translated more figuratively: “What you abide, I will abide”. This line both reminds the reader of what Ruth is giving up and it foreshadows aspects of the narrative to come. Naomi’s other daughter-in-law, Orpah, opted for the security of home and a (potential) Moabite husband, but Ruth is ready to leave relative security—and most everything she has ever known—for the unknown prospects of “returning” and staying with Naomi (Hamlin 1996, p. 19). Ruth’s kindness and loyalty means she will abide whatever Naomi will abide. Though those of us familiar with the narrative know there is a reversal (another Hebrew poetic device) and that the story does not end in destitution as widows and bitterness from desolate life circumstances; Ruth could not have known this when she made her decision to stay and abide with Naomi. This line heralds that not only is their future dependent on one another but also on the LORD. Both the books of Judges and Proverbs clearly link safety and security to obedience to God’s word (e.g., Prov 18:10; 29:25 and Gideon in Judges 6–7). Ruth and Naomi live in accordance with YHWH’s statutes and experience more than safety and security; there is restoration and redemption. However, it is not simple or straightforward and it is rather unexpected.

I have turned my back

on the Sons of Lot

on the land of salt

on hope for helpmate

and the comfort of home.

I have cleaved to you

your company is mine

your kith are mine

your townsfolk are mine

your forebears are mine

your kinsman is mine

your fate is mine.

The next couplet in Ruth’s poem, beginning with “your people shall be my people”, while maintaining the familiar pattern, has replaced the masterful choice of a multivalent verb with nouns. The first line cleverly makes use of sound resonances and wordplay to highlight the connection between Naomi and her people. Peter H.W. Lau (2015, p. 22) has described this poem as Ruth’s “vow of devotion to the inseparable complex of Naomi, her God and her people”. Through this homophonic pun, the author shows the intricate “relationship between Naomi (נָעֳמִי) and “my people” (עַמִּי)” (van Wolde 1997, p. 21), sets up a comparison between the people (family and potential) Ruth leaves and Naomi’s people (family and potential), and reinforces that Naomi’s and Ruth’s fortunes are entwined. In fact, Ruth’s relationship to any other character in the narrative is relative to Naomi. Ruth’s decision not to stay in Moab (or “leave” Naomi) meant that she had to leave her own people, her land, her security, and her god/s. Restoration and redemption should have occurred because Naomi’s people had a covenant responsibility to care for the widows and the foreigner. However, Naomi’s community “failed completely in its responsibility” (Evans 2017, p. 226), only praising God once Ruth had married Boaz and had a child. In cleaving to Naomi, Ruth binds herself to Naomi’s people—for better or worse, precarity or security—and to Naomi’s God.

This child of Chemosh

heard of Moloch of costly sacrifice,

Marduk the solar calf,

and Ra whose people are cattle.

But she turned to the God who remembers family and people,

and whose laws abide in love.

In this exegetical poem, I have drawn out that the second half of Ruth’s couplet, “your God shall be my God”, prompts comparison between the God of Israel and the god/s of Moab (and, by extension, other ancient west Asian gods), as well as a comparison between Ruth and Orpah. Orpah chose her family of origin, whereas Ruth chose Naomi. Ruth’s first connection to Naomi was broken by death, but “Ruth is now joining Naomi’s family not by marriage but by covenant agreement” (Smith 2007, p. 256). Orpah understandably returns to the god/s of her folk religion, but Ruth was ready to cleave, through clinging to Naomi, to YHWH. In this way, she is bound “to Yahweh’s covenant with Abraham… to Yahweh across cultural and religious lines” (Hamlin 1996, p. 20). This final line of v.16 is the culmination of the lines before it: Ruth and Naomi (re)turn to God, they act in accordance with God’s laws, and through Ruth’s kindness and loyalty, their familial relationship expands. Here, we see Ruth’s character and covenant fealty, highlighting the importance of familial covenant throughout the book, and we see the intersection of God’s will with Ruth’s (and Naomi’s).

Your land is built on women’s valor:

Rachel prayed and named,

Leah was not loved,

Tamar took what was hers.

So I will cleave to you

even in the grave.

Verse 17 begins with, “Where you die, I will die”. This initial line of the fourth and final couplet follows the expected pattern of internal repetition, along with grammatical and semantic parallelism, and paired particles, but the final line disrupts the rhythm and almost-anaphora of the previous lines with the poignantly and decisively succinct “and there I will be buried”. In Hebrew, this is just two short words (וְשָׁם אֶקָּבֵר). This variation in the final line is not an “uncommon way of marking closure in a biblical poem… lending both a structural and a thematic finality to the poem” (Linafelt 1999, p. 125). This beautifully terse and evocative line drives home the fact that Ruth would not be buried with her ancestors; rather, she will become a foremother of the people of Israel. The “Genesis-like genealogy” at the end of chapter four links Ruth to the biblical foremothers (Mathews 2022, p. 66; Schipper 2016, p. 13). Rachel, Leah, and Tamar are named at Ruth 4:11–12, with Tamar having been evoked earlier in the narrative: “a woman of good character… meets her future husband at a well (Ruth 2:9; cf. Gen 24)” (Mathews 2022, p. 66). These matriarchs, and other female biblical characters, are named and evoked throughout the book. The final line swaps “where” for “there”, meaning that after following Naomi wherever (literally and figuratively) she will go, the only appropriate ending for their cleaving is death in Bethlehem. Linafelt (1999, p. 125) writes that “and there I will be buried” is “an appropriate final phrase if ever there was one”. Ruth has a will of her own—following Naomi into uncertainty and even death—and her strong will ultimately carries out YHWH’s will.

In reflecting on Ruth’s speech poem as a whole, we come to what Alice Laffey and Mahri Leonard-Fleckman (2017, p. xl) have called “The Enigma of Ruth.” The text tells us what Ruth says and does, and we may infer feelings and motivations from the analysis of her speech-poem, but we do not know the inner workings of her mind. Maybe she was filled with wanderlust, maybe she never really belonged in Moab, “there are other ways of reading the character of Ruth and the book of Ruth than as a story that reinforces behaviours that are the stereotype of what every “good” woman should do” (Laffey and Leonard-Fleckman 2017, p. xli). And, as Ellen van Wolde (1997, p. 19) points out, early in the story, “Ruth is anything but obedient. She goes against Naomi’s wish explicitly stated three times”. It is reasonable to surmise—through her own decisions, actions, and the evocation of other biblical women—that Ruth is an intelligent, kind woman with strength of character and conviction. However, this does not mean that we have exchanged one stereotype—the “good woman” (the ideal wife and mother, defined in terms of her gender)—for another—the “strong female character” (one-dimensional “strength”, defined in the absence of gendered behavior). Ruth is no narrative (or poetic) cliché. As many scholars attest, Ruth is well written (e.g., Mathews 2022, p. 67; Decker 2019, p. 908), has agency, and her actions and desires are central to the narrative, and it is written in a way that is not a tired trope (see Campbell 1974, pp. 90–91). Ruth “had no hesitation in overriding Naomi’s decision to send her home” (Evans 2017, p. 222), yet she could also listen to Naomi and accept her leadership. Ruth “seems to have had an ability to grasp both cultural and personal implications” (Evans 2017, p. 223). Ruth is a character who makes her own decisions. In fact, all the women in the text do. She shows courage travelling to a foreign land, trading known for unknown, and acting in a way that maintains her own integrity.

5. Ruth 1:20–21 and Exegetical Poetry

Before moving to an analysis of and exegetical poetry for Naomi’s speech-poem, there are a few short verses between Ruth’s poem and Naomi’s, and it is unclear how much time has elapsed. The author often uses time as a literary device, here making good use of a temporal gap. This serves not only to move the narrative along and to keep it poetically pithy and succinct, but it also continues to build tension. Ruth directly addresses Naomi (and the audience), but Naomi does not directly answer. It is for the reader to wonder what has happened on the journey between Moab and Bethlehem (see Evans 2017, pp. 218–19). Do Ruth and Naomi now understand each other? “To make sense of what happens, the reader cannot wait to find out whether the narrator will in the end supply the whole truth” (Sternberg 1987, p. 239.) Do we gain further insight into the characters of Ruth and Naomi? Will they—along with the tension and the plot—find their resolution?

Do not call me “Naomi”,

Call me “Mara”,

for the Almighty has made me “bitter” indeed.

I was full going away,

and empty the Lord has brought me back;

Why call me Naomi,

when the Lord has afflicted me,

and the Almighty brought evil upon me?

This second poem, at verses 20–21, is spoken to the townswomen sometime after Ruth and Naomi have arrived in Bethlehem. While they have parallelism in common, unlike Ruth’s poem, “Naomi’s makes use of the triplet form, that is, three lines instead of two. The poem, as a whole, is structured as a triplet, a couplet, and a triplet” (Linafelt 199, p. 126). The poems also have the use of paranomasia in common. And though each poem commences with the same word, “do not” (אַל), which is followed by a second-person feminine jussive verb—“press me” (תִּפְגְּעִי-בִי) in the first poem and “call me” (תִּקְרֶאנָה) in the second—the poems diverge in tone and content at this point. In the scholarship on Ruth, the grammatical number of these verbs, and, therefore, to whom these poems have been spoken, has elicited much discussion. Once again, these poems are addressed to the audience as much as they are to any characters (Mathews 2022, pp. 69–71; van Wolde 1997, p. 16). “In her words to the women of Bethlehem, Naomi made three complaints (vv. 20–21)” (Hamlin 1996, p. 21). What should have been a joyful homecoming was full of bitterness. Just as we cannot know the inner workings of Ruth’s mind, neither can we know Naomi’s. Is she a “complaining mother-in-law” stereotype who sees Ruth as an encumbrance (van Wolde 1997, p. 10)? Did YHWH take Naomi’s sons because she questioned YHWH over the death of her husband (Hamlin 1996, p. 22)? I do not think these are the reasons for Naomi’s bitterness. Naomi had every reason and right to feel embittered and embittered towards YHWH. She has experienced famine, is experiencing deep grief, she has uprooted her family twice, and, apart from Boaz, do the people of Bethlehem take seriously their responsibility to care for the widow and the foreigner? But, rather than postulating about what is not said, let us examine what is.

No delight in loss,

no pleasance in absence,

my name is not my own.

I am galled by the grave

And I have become like vinegar.

I am not my name,

there will be names again,

but you have taken my name.

What is in a name? Name meanings are a poetic device used in Naomi’s poem, a literary device throughout the book, and thematically, they point to God’s unfolding narrative. Barry G. Webb (2000, p. 40) highlights that the overarching inclusio, or bookending, is by naming Naomi’s family at the beginning (1:2; 1:4) and naming Ruth’s descendants, David’s antecedents, at the end (4:17–22). Mathews (2022, p. 67) helpfully surveys the names and their meanings: “Bethlehem—house of bread; Elimelek—my god is king; Mahlon—sick; Chilion—annihilation; Naomi—my sweetness; Mara—bitterness; Orpah—back of the neck; Ruth—companion; Boaz—strength… Obed—worshipper; David—beloved”. Interestingly, though “Ruth” may mean something like “companion”, the name meaning is unclear, and since it does not appear anywhere else (van Wolde 1997, p. 8), we cannot be sure. Perhaps this is intentional: the one whose name has no meaning, returns meaning to Naomi’s name? Perhaps it underscores that the book of Ruth is as much about YHWH as it is about Ruth. What we do know is Naomi’s speech-poem, through “the line-ending occurrences of “Mara” and “Naomi”” (Linafelt 1999, p. 126), emphasizes the recurrence of names and naming throughout the book. The poem foreshadows the importance of the names which are to come and gives the audience a knowing nod to YHWH’s sovereign plans, which are skilfully weaved throughout the narrative. Just as the book is framed by names, the only two editorial references to YHWH are also placed at the beginning and end of the book (1:6 and 4:13). “Thus, it is possible that the author is encouraging the reading of the whole narrative in the light of God’s sovereignty” (Evans 2017, p. 225).

The first line of Naomi’s speech marks the beginning of a triplet structured around climactic parallelism, repetition, lineation, wordplay, and the importance of names. The first line’s negative and jussive construct is balanced by the second line’s (positive) repetition of the verb “to call” (קְרֶאןָ) and the preposition-plus-object “to me” (לִי). This repetition intensifies what is being said and emphasizes Naomi’s wordplay and its emotive force. Do not call her “Naomi”, which is derived from the Hebrew word meaning “delight” or “pleasant”. Call her “Mara”, which means “bitterness”. These proper names “are syntactically and grammatically matched… and semantically opposed” forming a “sardonic pun word-pair” (Linafelt 1999, p. 126.) The third line completes the climactic parallelism by making explicit what was implicit in the first two lines: Naomi believes God has brought calamity upon her. And this is, at least in part, the reason for her bitterness. The sound resonances of Mara (מָרָא) and “very” or “indeed” (מְאֹד) further stress this bitterness. Moreover, Naomi’s poem makes explicit what was implicit in Ruth’s poem: it is God who is behind the events of this narrative.

I was full of hope when we left Bethlehem,

full of family in a famine. But you made my return

emptier than a starved stomach, bereft of family.

You have filled my emptiness with bitterness.

Moving to the middle couplet, through parallelism, hyperbole, and the choice of key verbs, this further evidences the link between the two poems and their reasons for inclusion in the narrative. The antithetical (grammatical, syntactic, and semantic) parallelism of “full” and “empty”; “going away” and “returning”; and “I” and “the LORD” cleverly highlights a range of theologically important points for this poem, Naomi’s characterization, and for the book as a whole. Naomi’s hyperbole and parallel lines serve to create tension in the poem and in the narrative. Naomi was not, in fact, “full” when she went to Moab. She had a “full” family, but her family were not full (Evans 2017, p. 247). The book’s opening verse tells us that there was a famine in Bethlehem; Naomi’s family’s stomachs were empty. It could also be argued that in leaving the promised land, perhaps they were not full of the LORD. And Naomi did not return empty: Ruth—the means to her becoming “full” once more—came with her (Webb 2000, p. 43). In Naomi’s poem, particularly in this couplet and in the final triplet, the author has set Naomi “both structurally and thematically” (Linafelt 1999, p. 125) against the Almighty. What will YHWH and our human actors do to resolve this (hyperbolic, narrative) opposition? What will the LORD and our human protagonists do to rectify Naomi’s destitution? At this point in the narrative, the verbs used for “going away” (הָלַכְתִּי) and “brought back” (הֱשִׁיבַנִי) should already be very familiar. And we may question “how far God’s purposes are reflected in the various movements described” (Evans 2017, p. 233). We know that, in the end, this opposition and this tension are resolved through YHWH’s just reversal of Ruth’s and Naomi’s circumstances. Through the repetition of these carefully chosen verbs, the poet is drawing attention to the literal and figurative comings and goings of the narrative.

My name is not Naomi;

I am not sweet.

Why give me a name,

When Shaddai has taken

Everything from under my feet?

In my own exegetical poem, I have used the “lyrical I”, rhyme, and other sound resonances to draw out the paranomasia of Naomi’s poem and emphasized both the sense of finality to the poem and Naomi’s bitterness from grief and loss attributed to the LORD. Linafelt (1999, p. 126) compares the final line of Naomi’s poem with the final line of Ruth’s poem and shows they both have “a brevity… that brings the reader up short and provides an effective sense of closure”. And for both poems, the sense of closure is further stressed by the subject matter. For Ruth, it is the finality of death and burial, and for Naomi, it is “the implacable despair” of “Shaddai has brought calamity upon me” (Linafelt 1999, p. 126). The structural and thematic opposition set up between YHWH and Naomi is heightened in the poem’s closing triplet. In fact, the opening and closing triplets form an inclusio, matching each other in form and content, once again mirroring the overall structure of the book. The first lines of each triplet are identical except for the particles—“do not” (אַל) in the first triplet and “why” (לָמָּה) in the second. The second line of the first triplet is the effect, and the second line of the final triplet is the cause: call me bitterness, because the Lord has afflicted me (Linafelt 1999, p. 126). Naomi blames YHWH for bringing calamity on her (Hamlin 1996, p. 23). This, of course, further emphasizes Naomi’s characterization as being in opposition to the LORD (at this stage of the narrative). The third and final lines of each triplet mirror each other in the repetition of God/Almighty (שַׁדַּי), the sound resonances between the verbs “made bitter” (הֵמַר) and “brought calamity” (הֵרַע), and the repeated use of the pronoun “me”. Some scholars have taken the repetition of “me”—seven occurrences in two verses—to characterize Naomi as self-centred (e.g., van Wolde 1997, p. 13). However, this is not the function of the “lyrical I” in poetry. To paraphrase poet William Wordsworth (1800), incidents and situations from Naomi’s everyday life are described using the words common to her. As Evans (2017, p. 221) implores, we should not go “beyond what the text says” but “enable readers to go back to the text and get to know the characters for themselves”. As much as questions of motivation plague the interpretation and character analysis of Ruth, issues of characterization have also beset Naomi.

Despite the different hypotheses on the inner workings of Naomi’s mind, her “character delineation in particular is extraordinary” (Evans 2017, p. 221). Though there may be:

little explicit description of characters or their essential qualities… By not directly revealing the qualities of character of the actors in the narrative, the narrator puts the onus of interpretation on the readers… This is not the absence of characterization, but is a certain mode of characterization and, in fact, a fairly complex mode at that.

(Linafelt 1999, p. 120)

As Mathews (2022, pp. 72–87), van Wolde (1997, p. 16), and others have highlighted, “the extensive use of dialogue of course makes this [i.e., characterization] easier” (Evans 2017, p. 221). Though various scholars have attempted to ascribe motivations to Naomi—another example is Harris et al. (2005, p. 305) assuming Naomi has a “yearning for home”—what is clear is that Naomi sees a direct relationship between God’s action and events in the world. Her accusations are against YHWH because YHWH has afflicted her. “Bitterness like Naomi’s appears frequently in the Old Testament” (Hamlin 1996, p. 21), and, we know through the lament Psalms if nothing else, Naomi may express her bitterness at YHWH to YHWH. Evans reminds us that Naomi understands God to be responsible “for everything that happens, good or bad” and that she has the expectation that God “will do something about it” (Evans 2017, pp. 225–26). It takes faith and fortitude to believe and to put it into action. Naomi shows not only strength in overcoming loss (Laffey and Leonard-Fleckman 2017, p. xxxix) but strength of character. This is true when she is empty yet full of bitterness, in the narrative in between, and in the reversal when there is a fullness and sweetness in the literal and metaphorical harvest. One could say that famine and death had been sowed for Naomi, but she reaped fullness of life.

6. Conclusions

Ruth’s poem is “undoubtedly a Locus Classicus” of the Hebrew Bible (Odo 2021, p. 1), and it is apparent that Ruth’s poem should be read in conjunction with Naomi’s poem. Taken together, these poems “are instrumental in triggering the plot of the entire narrative” (Odo 2021, p. 1). Poetry was the genre specifically chosen to succinctly convey layers of meaning and information, through terse and evocative lines, masterfully woven into the overarching narrative. These poems give voice to the (contrastive) characters of Ruth and Naomi, giving the reader insight into their characterization (i.e., something of their experience and what makes them tick) and how their characters will develop and, in some ways, reverse roles. In paying particular attention to poetic devices—such as parallelism, (internal) repetition and recurrence, PNG shift, word choice and play, apostrophe, and anaphora—in the original poetry, we have experienced the economy of poetry, that is, a world of meaning fitting into one short line, or even just one evocative noun or verb. Word choices can cleverly convey layers of literal and figurative meaning, and, when repeated in the two poems and throughout the narrative, key words from these poems connect with literary devices used throughout the story: building tension, foreshadowing what is to come, giving cohesion to the story, and emphasising theological themes. Again, it is Evans (2017, p. 226) who reminds us, “virtually every reference to God, whether in passing or more deliberate, shows an understanding of God’s sovereignty”.

And so, in brief conclusion, how has my own exegetical poetry enriched our understanding of these two poems and the broader narrative? Through exegetical poetry that shows the poetic elements of the original poetry, including drawing out context, characterization, and theological themes—along with telling prose commentary—it is my hope that exegetical poetry has helped us to understand both Ruth’s and Naomi’s poems to a greater extent and how they function in the overall narrative. My exegetical poetry has shown the significance of key verbs, such as returning/turning away, going/walking, staying/abiding, and cleaving. It has mirrored the original poet’s use of devices such as parallelism, alliteration, repetition, PNG shift, sound resonances and wordplay, characterization, comparison, tension building, apostrophe, and intentional ambiguity of meaning. It has shown the salience of nouns such as “people” and “God” and the importance of names throughout the narrative, and it has further evoked theological concepts—for example, links to biblical matriarchs, Naomi’s expression of bitterness to YHWH, and the interrelated nature of God’s hesed and human hesed—which feature throughout the narrative. All these elements and more come together to shape a narrative in which “the overall movement is from death to life, barrenness to fruitfulness, emptiness to fullness, curse to blessing” (Webb 2000, p. 38).