Not only has Naomi returned home; so has Ruth. Naomi has returned home empty, unfulfilled, and bitter. Her journey has been a journey into the depths, and she can see nothing else. But there is more. In Naomi’s anguished response to the delighted cries of the women of Bethlehem—all absorbed in her own world of pain and bitter affliction—she fails even to acknowledge Ruth’s presence with her, a presence whose accomplishment transcends the call of religion and home and hope! Her whole complaint is voiced in the singular: “bitter indeed has the Almighty made my life . . . empty has Yahweh brought
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