Verse 1 quickly adds that “there was a famine [ra‘ab] in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah . . . went to live a while [lit., to live as a foreigner, gur] in the country of Moab.” Since “there was a famine in the land” occurs elsewhere only in Genesis 12:10 and 26:1,4 this phrase clearly alludes to the famines of the patriarchs: Abram, who left the land to live as an foreigner (gur) in Egypt, and Isaac, who left the land to live (gur) in Gerar among the Philistines. In both instances, in spite of the tragic famines and patriarchs’ false witnesses concerning their wives, Yahweh’s
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