At 1:16, Ruth finally speaks. Her words—“Where you’ll go, I’ll go”—have become so iconic that it is difficult to see what’s going on.
Predictably, attention to this text broadens both our understanding of the drama and its significance, as well as our sense of the greatness of the person, Ruth.
Ruth 1:16
But Ruth said,
"Do not force me to abandon you
by returning from being behind you,
Ruth 1:6-15 began with "Naomi said." In that passage, both Orpah and respond with perfunctory words and significant actions. But what makes this (vv. 16-18) a distinct section is the introduction of Ruth as a speaker who has something to say. What she says is the subject of this passage.
Ruth doesn't only resist Naomi's command; she resists her logic. 1:6-15 used the verb "return" (shuv) nine times, which may not be a symbolic number, but it is a big number. For Ruth, "to return" isn't just to return; "to return" is "to abandon." More on this below, but note that Ruth sees more significance in her marriage to (the sickly) Mahlon than Naomi does.
For to where you will go, I will go,
And in-where you will stay-the-night, I will stay-the-night.
Chris Tomlin has that song that goes, "Where you go, I'll go. Where you stay, I'll stay."
The first surprise in these words is that the verb often translated "stay" (layin) is more specific than that. It's not "sojourn" (gur, 1:1) or "settle" (hayah, 1:2). For Ruth, the emphasis isn't that she'll "settle down" or "end up" wherever Naomi does, but that she will stick by her every day, and night, of the journey. This is significant, because Naomi had just gone off on the "rest" one experiences in the house of one's husband (1:9), and given an absurd hypothetical about staying (hayah) with a new husband "tonight" (1:12). Into this, Ruth says, I will spend every night with you.
Your people are (already) my people,
and your god is (already) my god.
These lines don't actually have verbs, which means they don't have tenses. A wooden translation would be: people-yours people-mine, and god-yours god-mine. As English readers mired in modern relationship culture, we tend to import the imperfective, future-intended aspect of the previous verbs (i.e., where you will go, where you will stay) here, for "your people will be my people."
Maybe, but that's not in the text.
I think that the key, as it often is, is in Ruth's first phrase. To "return" from being behind Naomi would be to abandon her--which Naomi doesn't understand--because, by virtue of Ruth's marriage to Mahlon, Ruth and Naomi already share some (ontological? legal? ethical? affectionate?) unity.
Whatever the grounds of that unity are, here's what I can say:
Her "clinging" had already expressed this unity (v. 15).
This unity has to do with sharing 'gods' and 'people.'
This unity does not come from a social contract. Ruth's perspective doesn't just reject Naomi's; by pointing to a real unity, it claims to correct it.
As a text, Ruth is teaching its readers something mysterious about marriage by characterizing Ruth as being intense about it.
Ruth 1:17
In where you will die, I will die,
and there I will be buried.
Thus may the Lord do to me, and thus may he add...
Surely Death-alone will separate between me and between you.
The latter two lines express part of an oath/curse formula, but not the whole thing. Here is how a fuller oath/curse would have read: [Insert curse here.] Thus may the Lord do to me, and thus may he add [if anything other than] death will separate between me and between you. There is meaning in the two substitutions.
One, Ruth doesn't supply a "curse" to which her "Thus" refers. Interesting.
Two, Ruth removes the open-ended conditional, "If anything other than," and replaces it with a positive claim. Literally, "Surely death will separate..."
Here is what I think. Ruth's oath does not need to identify a curse-consequence for a hypothetical situation that will never occur. She reinforces this by prophesying the future: "Death (I insert the word -alone) will separate..."
I'll only add that the word "separate" (parad) is not terribly common. Up to this point, the rivers (Gen. 2:10) and the nations (10:5, 32; cf. Deut. 32:8) "separate" as God sets up the world. Abrahm and Lot "separate" before going their ways (13:9, 11, 14). Rebekah's twins, Jacob and Esau, will "separate (25:23), and Jacob will "separate" the lambs (30:40). That's it. Except when Heber the Kenite "separates" himself from the Kenites (Judg. 4:11).
This puts Ruth and Naomi into the same conversations as Abram and Lot, Jacob and Esau. They are like two nations, and they will not spin out distinct histories in distinct places.
Ruth 1:18
Then she (Naomi) saw that she strengthened-herself to go with her.
And so she ceased to speak with her.
This passage (1:16-18) stands alone, but this verse (v. 18) makes it a conclusion to the larger passage (1:6-18) than began with Naomi "speaking" (v. 6) and ends with her "ceasing to speak" (v. 18). What changes is what Naomi "saw."
"Strengthened-herself" (from ametz) is in the reflexive mood, wherein the subject is also their own object: Who did the strengthening? Ruth. Who did she strengthen? Ruth. One interesting thing is that the passage with the prophecy about the "separation" (parad) of Jacob and Esau (25:23) also mentions "strengthening" (ametz). Look at the prophecy:
Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.
And now recall Ruth. Naomi is advocating for the separation of two peoples. But Naomi sees that Ruth is stronger. And the older, Naomi, will serve the younger, Ruth, by being served by her.
This text is going craaaazy. Naomi, whose family had settled and married on the plains of Moab, like unfaithful Israel, is calling for a clean separation between the three women. (Orpah the gazelle, flees.) Ruth won't let Naomi pull an Abram and treat her like a Lot. Neither will she let Naomi's bitterness have its way and separate them like Jacob and Esau. Ruth, whose name appears twelve times, and who behaves like faithful Israel, would have been the Jacob figure, and Naomi would have been the Esau figure. Naomi was fine with this. But Ruth won't let Naomi, an Israelite, give up her birthright for bread. Ruth, the New Israel, re-invigorate Naomi, effectively saving her by the vigor of her own faithfulness, and her insistence on the reality of their union.
I'll add one more. "Strengthen" (ametz) is an uncommon word. After only seven uses in the Pentateuch, it's the word given to Joshua: "Be strong" (1:6, 7, 9, 18; 10:25). When Naomi sees Ruth, she sees a new Joshua. The era of Joshua (yay!) had given way to the era of the judges (boo!), which is the setting of this story (Ruth 1:1). It's good times when Joshua stands before you, ready to enter the land with you, ready to kick ass and take names.
What has happened in Naomi's heart? We cannot say. All we know is that Naomi has dropped her call to "Return."
What can be said? Ruth is a story about Ruth, but it’s also a story about Israel. It’s about the mysterious union forge by marriage, the invigorating power of those who insist on it, and the theological reluctance of the life-embittered to see it.
It’s Advent, so I’ll say an Advent: Naomi is the dark and destitute world, unable to theologize, keep friends, or hold hope. Ruth is Jesus, the friend who stay closer than a brother, who comes to us, who clings to us, and who will let us hold babies in our old age, in the kingdom he has prepared for us. (And he’s also Boaz lol.)