In a subtle touch of the narrator, Naomi utters her complaint as though Ruth, whose words of loving commitment still ring in the readers’ ears, has never pronounced these words at all! Yahweh has indeed not brought Naomi back empty, and the final word to this effect lies with the narrator when, in his closing summation, he gives all the prominence to describing Ruth’s arrival as a “return.”84 Thus, “we know that Naomi is not alone and will not be.”85
