Question on Ruth 1

[endaman]

15 Naomi then said, ‘Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go home, too; follow your sister-in-law.’

Why would Naomi Ruth’s mother in law say ‘to her God’ when addressing Ruth’s sister in law? Surely the writer of Ruth believed in monotheism.

 

[Glacies]

The Haydock Commentary by Rev. George Leo Haydock (1774-1849) thinks for example that this could be Noemi putting Ruth to a test.

Ver. 15. To her gods, &c. Noemi did not mean to persuade Ruth to return to the false gods she had formerly worshipped; but by this manner of speech, insinuated to her, that if she would go with her, she must renounce her false gods, and turn to the Lord, the God of Israel. (Challoner) — She wished to try her constancy. (Salien) — Most infer from this passage, that Orpha was never converted, or that she relapsed. — Her gods, may indeed be rendered in the singular, “god.” But what god was peculiar to her and the Moabites, but Chamos? (Calmet) — Noemi might well fear that Orpha would give way to the superstition of her countrymen, to which she had been addicted, even though she might have made profession of serving the true God, while she lived with her. (Haydock).

 

[JerryZ]

15 Naomi then said, ‘Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go home, too; follow your sister-in-law.’

Why would Naomi Ruth’s mother in law say ‘to her God’ when addressing Ruth’s sister in law? Surely the writer of Ruth believed in monotheism.

In this passage we see a Hebrew woman discourse with her 2 daughters in law.
All 3 are widowed and having no sons will soon be destitute.

She is encouraging her 2 daughters in law to return to their respective father’s houses since she expects to return to the land of her family and die there (She has no one).

By returning to their households which were not Israelites they would most surely revert to the religion practiced there (NOT worship of the true GOD)

This is what she mean when she said that.

We see that Ruth did not wish to abbandon her mother in law and remained faithful to her AND to GOD.

Peace

 

[COPLAND_3]

Here is the footnote from the Aquinas Study Bible

**1:15 **It would seem that Noemi sinned because she advised Ruth to remain in idolatry. Perhaps she said that to test her, to see if she was determined, because as 2 Peter 2:21 says, ‘It would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment‘; or it was permission and not advice or a command. (Hugh of St. Cher Com Ruth)

 

[patrick457]

Just to add.

You have to remember that ‘monotheism’ for the ancient Israelites was quite close to what could be called henotheism (worshipping and believing in a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities, who may or may not be also worshipped).

The common idea in those days was that each nation or city had its own chief patron deity: Yhwh for example is the national God of the Israelites, Chemosh is the god of the Moabites, Moloch/Milcom is the god of the Ammonites, Qos is the god of the Edomites, Melqart is the god of the city of Tyre, Eshmun is the god of Sidon, etc. There was no separation of religion and state in those days, mind; the state religion is closely tied with the government. So basically worship of the national god is key to national identity.

While official orthodox Israelite religion - as represented by the priests of the Jerusalem temple and the prophets - taught that Yhwh alone is to be worshipped (the actual existence of other gods is for most of the time left ambiguous; they may or may not be real, yes, but the Israelite is taught that he could not worship these foreign deities), on the popular level some syncretism existed - in part helped due to the huge similarities. For instance, it was also common back then to imagine the chief god having a female consort: while each nation’s chief god had a distinctive name, the mother goddess is invariably called Asherah or Ashtoreth or Astarte. Israel was no exception: at least some Israelites may have thought that Yhwh also had a consort named ‘Asherah’. Add to that the fact that the various nations used pretty much the same cult objects (altars, incense burners, vessels, etc.) in worship.

It wasn’t really too big a step to assume that oh, Yhwh, Qos, Moloch, etc. were really just different names for or manifestations of the same god: so when Israelites are spoken of as worshipping foreign gods like Moloch or ‘Ba’al’ they probably didn’t even think that they were worshipping an altogether different god from Yhwh; they would have thought that they are just adoring the same divinity under a different name/aspect. Which of course, for the prophets, wasn’t good enough: Yhwh and Yhwh alone is to be worshiped as Yhwh, and not under a foreign name/‘manifestation’.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Just to add.

You have to remember that ‘monotheism’ for the ancient Israelites was quite close to what could be called henotheism (worshipping and believing in a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities, who may or may not be also worshipped).

The common idea in those days was that each nation or city had its own chief patron deity: Yhwh for example is the national God of the Israelites, Chemosh is the god of the Moabites, Moloch/Milcom is the god of the Ammonites, Qos is the god of the Edomites, Melqart is the god of the city of Tyre, Eshmun is the god of Sidon, etc. There was no separation of religion and state in those days, mind; the state religion is closely tied with the government. So basically worship of the national god is key to national identity.

While official orthodox Israelite religion - as represented by the priests of the Jerusalem temple and the prophets - taught that Yhwh alone is to be worshipped (the actual existence of other gods is for most of the time left ambiguous; they may or may not be real, yes, but the Israelite is taught that he could not worship these foreign deities), on the popular level some syncretism existed - in part helped due to the huge similarities. For instance, it was also common back then to imagine the chief god having a female consort: while each nation’s chief god had a distinctive name, the mother goddess is invariably called Asherah or Ashtoreth or Astarte. Israel was no exception: at least some Israelites may have thought that Yhwh also had a consort named ‘Asherah’. Add to that the fact that the various nations used pretty much the same cult objects (altars, incense burners, vessels, etc.) in worship.

It wasn’t really too big a step to assume that oh, Yhwh, Qos, Moloch, etc. were really just different names for or manifestations of the same god: so when Israelites are spoken of as worshipping foreign gods like Moloch or ‘Ba’al’ they probably didn’t even think that they were worshipping an altogether different god from Yhwh; they would have thought that they are just adoring the same divinity under a different name/aspect. Which of course, for the prophets, wasn’t good enough: Yhwh and Yhwh alone is to be worshiped as Yhwh, and not under a foreign name/‘manifestation’.

Excuse me but this sounds very dishonest.
How could you think there wouldn’t be a difference in the gods or pretend they didn’t even think they were worshipping an altogether diffrent god from Yhwh when worship meant for them the sacrifice of young children.
You could be correct in one meaningful way.
What has really changed no matter the god, in terms of who is offered up?

 

[patrick457]

Excuse me but this sounds very dishonest.
How could you think there wouldn’t be a difference in the gods or pretend they didn’t even think they were worshipping an altogether diffrent god from Yhwh when worship meant for them the sacrifice of young children.
You could be correct in one meaningful way.
What has really changed no matter the god, in terms of who is offered up?

Well, supporters would have invoked the law of the firstborn as justification for human sacrifice. The thing is, in the Ancient Near East child sacrifice was offered mainly in times of distress and hardship as a means to curry divine favor: sacrificing a human was seen as the ultimate offering that the god himself could not possibly refuse it. In Exodus 22:29-30 Yhwh says:

The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

Normally (in peacetime) of course this would be understood not as a reference to actual human sacrifice but to the redemption of the firstborn. In troubled times, however, when the deity’s favor is waning, some people would have seen the absolute tone of the command as condoning - or at least not forbidding - sacrificing children. So even then, worshippers of Yhwh-Moloch wouldn’t think they’re doing anything out of the ordinary; they’re just doing what people around them do when they have a crisis - trying to appease the divinity by offering up human lives.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Well, supporters would have invoked the law of the firstborn as justification for human sacrifice. The thing is, in the Ancient Near East child sacrifice was offered mainly in times of distress and hardship as a means to curry divine favor: sacrificing a human was seen as the ultimate offering that the god himself could not possibly refuse it. In Exodus 22:29-30 Yhwh says:

The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

Normally (in peacetime) of course this would be understood not as a reference to actual human sacrifice but to the redemption of the firstborn. In troubled times, however, when the deity’s favor is waning, some people would have seen the absolute tone of the command as condoning - or at least not forbidding - sacrificing children. So even then, worshippers of Yhwh-Moloch wouldn’t think they’re doing anything out of the ordinary; they’re just doing what people around them do when they have a crisis - trying to appease the divinity by offering up human lives.

What a way to put icing on a cupcake of killing.