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Ruth 1:19–22, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Ruth 1:19–22
Naomi Returns Empty as Harvest Begins
Bethlehem is moved; Naomi names herself bitter
They come to Bethlehem, and the city is moved about them. The women ask, Is this Naomi? She answers: call me not Naomi (pleasant); call me Mara (bitter), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full and the LORD has brought me home empty. Why then call me Naomi, seeing the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?
The book lets her interpret her life in public lament. It does not scold her for naming God in her grief.
The narrator will not let emptiness be the last visible fact
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, out of the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
Ruth is still beside her. Harvest has begun. Those facts do not cancel the lament. They sit beside it until later chapters show whether emptiness is the whole truth.
How this should shape us
Give grief truthful speech. Notice who is actually present and what practical opening has appeared, without forcing a bereaved person to call the day pleasant.
Teach it back
Explain Ruth 1:19–22 in your own words. Include the scene's movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Readers debate whether 'empty' unfairly erases Ruth or simply names the loss of husband and sons. The tension is narratively productive; it should generate compassion for Naomi and attention to Ruth, not contempt for either.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Ruth 1:19–22, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and base wording behind translation discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ruth.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 1:19–22
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, social, legal, genealogical, and translation notes within the unit.
NET Bible Ruth PDF, printed pp. 490–494, translation and translator notes on 1:19–22
Supports: Authorship and dating alternatives, vulnerability, foreignness, field danger, threshing-floor risk, and legal-social interpretation within directly inspected sections.
Jones, Reading Ruth in the Restoration Period, pp. 13–23 (date proposals) and pp. 52–55 (Naomi, Ruth, return, and vulnerability)
Supports: A skeptical alternative concerning mixed motives and the limits of personal kindness within unequal social structures.
Kugler and Magori, 'Hesed in Ruth,' article pp. 1–10, especially literary-social readings of Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, survival, hesed, and structural constraint
Supports: Only the exposed thesis that Ruth's changing social and kinship relations do not erase the narrative designation Moabite.
Thambyrajah, 'Israelite or Moabite?', publisher abstract for JSOT 46.1 (2021), pp. 44–63
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Ruth 1:19–22, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Ruth
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew forms, morphology, repeated roots, clause relationships, names, and base wording behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ruth.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 1:19–22
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Ruth with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Material lexical, grammatical, textual, social, legal, genealogical, and translation notes within the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible Ruth PDF, printed pp. 490–494, translation and translator notes on 1:19–22
Open source ↗open access doctoral thesis
Reading Ruth in the Restoration Period: A Call for Inclusion
Edward Allen Jones III
University of St Andrews, 2012
Supports: Authorship and dating alternatives, vulnerability, foreignness, field danger, threshing-floor risk, and legal-social interpretation within directly inspected sections.
Exact location: Jones, Reading Ruth in the Restoration Period, pp. 13–23 (date proposals) and pp. 52–55 (Naomi, Ruth, return, and vulnerability)
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access article
Hesed in Ruth: A Frail Moral Tool in an Inflexible Social Structure
Gili Kugler and Ohad Magori
Religions 14.5, article 604, 2023
Supports: A skeptical alternative concerning mixed motives and the limits of personal kindness within unequal social structures.
Exact location: Kugler and Magori, 'Hesed in Ruth,' article pp. 1–10, especially literary-social readings of Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, survival, hesed, and structural constraint
Open source ↗peer reviewed article abstract
Israelite or Moabite? Ethnicity in the Book of Ruth
Jonathan A. Thambyrajah
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 46.1, 2021
Supports: Only the exposed thesis that Ruth's changing social and kinship relations do not erase the narrative designation Moabite.
Exact location: Thambyrajah, 'Israelite or Moabite?', publisher abstract for JSOT 46.1 (2021), pp. 44–63
Open source ↗