But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.What interests me in this statement is who is making it. Ruth is a foreign woman, who has been widowed after about ten years of marriage. Her sister-in-law, also widowed, has already turned back to follow Naomi's instructions. Her mother-in-law is leaving to return to her own people. She is free to return to her own family, and find another husband.
Despite all this, she decides to leave her homeland, leave her family, probably never see anyone else she has ever known, and go with Naomi to her old home. She's intentionally going into a place where she will probably be seen as an outsider, even though she married an Israelite man. She does this without any hesitation, and forsakes all of her own culture in the process. We don't know how things were in her house, but it's doubtful that they worshiped God exclusively, since most faithful Israelites would not have moved to a foreign land in the first place. Yet something has caused her to decide that she owes Naomi a debt of loyalty, and she will do anything to fulfill it.
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