Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

There is a difference of opinion regarding how this phrase should be translated. The following are the three possibilities: if anything but death separates you and me (NIV 1984) if even death separates you and me (NIV 2011; RSV; Campbell, Ruth, 74–75; Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 119–20) nothing but death will separate me from you (Bush, Ruth, Esther, 82–83) Whatever the case, the essence of the oath is that only death will separate Ruth from Naomi. This statement has significant emotional ties to the loss through death that both women have recently experienced and thus demonstrates that Ruth’s commitment to Naomi transcends even the bonds of racial origin and national religion: Naomi’s people (‘am) and Naomi’s God will henceforth be hers to the end. With such a speech of affirmation, Naomi realizes that Ruth is determined74 to go with her, so she stops urging her to leave and go back to Moab. All the power of Naomi’s logic and argument has been ineffective. Ruth’s faith defies human logic and wisdom.75 It is easy to underestimate how unlikely Ruth’s response was in this ancient 76context, a world where women typically sought fulfillment through marriage and childbirth.