Commentaria in Ruth
OF WHOM ONE WAS CALLED ORPHA.—The Talmudists assert that she was the mother of Goliath the giant, whom David struck down; so do Philo, or rather Pseudo-Philo in the Biblical Antiquities, and Prudentius in the Hamartigenia, when he says that she preferred to “nourish the offspring of the half-beast Goliath” rather than follow Noemi. Their reason is that the mother of Goliath is called Rapha or Harapha, 1 Kings xxi, verses 19 and 22, and 1 Paral. xx, verses 6 and 7. Now Harapha seems to be the same as Orpha. But they err; for first, Harapha was a Philistine, Orpha a Moabitess; second, Harapha was from Geth, a city of Palestine; Orpha from the city of Petra; third, Harapha lived in the time of Saul and David; Orpha much earlier, namely in the time of Ruth and Booz, who was the great-grandfather of David; fourth, Orpha in Hebrew is written with Ain, Harapha with He. Moreover Orpha in Hebrew is the same as stiff-necked, or bare-faced. Hence R. Samuel in Sutha, chapter vii, says that the mother of Goliath was a harlot, and was called Orpha because all beheaded her, pressed her down, and shamed her like a strumpet: and Harapha, because all ground her down like grains of wheat, which in 2 Kings xxix, and Prov. xxvii and xxi are called harpihoth.
But this Orpha is another from Harapha the mother of Goliath, as I have already shown; indeed it is not the mother but the father of Goliath who is called Rapha or Harapha, 1 Paral. xx, verses 6 and 7; for from him the descendants were called the giants Raphaim, as is said there at verse 4, of which more in 1 Kings xxi, verses 19 and 22.
AND THE OTHER RUTH.—The Talmudists hold that Ruth was the daughter of Eglon king of Moab, whom Aod slew, Judges iii, so as thus to secure for their David a royal descent from Moab; but they trifle. For how would the king of Moab have given his daughter to foreigners, poor and almost perishing of hunger?
Moreover Ruth was from Moab, which is a part of Arabia Petraea, whose capital was the city called Petra, because it was set on a rock (which Bellonius, book II, chapter lii, thinks to be Mecca, where the tomb of Mahomet stands; but he errs). This is clear from that passage of Isaias xvi: “Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion.” “And this was understood of the Messias, who was to be of the sons of David; and David himself was to be of the stock of Ruth, who was to come from the city of Moab which is called the rock of the desert,” says Abulensis here, Question XVI. See what I have said on Isaias xvi, verse 1.
Moreover Ruth in Hebrew is the same as watered or drunk, from the root ravah, that is, to water; or rather vision or prophecy, from the root raah, that is, he saw; as if Ruth were the same as Rauth. Or inspiration, says the author of the Imperfect Work on Matthew, chapter x, from the root ravach, that is, he breathed, inspired; as if Ruth were the same as Rachut, because without God’s inspiration she would not have said, nor done, what she said and did. Whence in her, says the same author, are praised love of the race of Israel, simplicity, obedience, faith. The Cabalists say that Ruth by anagram is Tur, that is, turtle-dove; because she, like a turtle-dove, mourned her dead husband with moaning. The Talmudists say she was called Ruth because from her was born David, whom God foresaw would be besciroth, that is, in songs, psalms and praises.
Finally, Ruth does not seem to have been the sister of Orpha, nor a blood relation in a near degree, but a kinswoman by affinity, as I shall say at verse 15.
8. GO YE HOME TO YOUR MOTHER’S HOUSE.—The Hebrews and Septuagint: “Go, return, each one into her mother’s house.” Hence it is clear that they were not sisters, nor had the same mother, but different ones. Noemi urges her daughters-in-law Orpha and Ruth to return to their Moabite kin, that they may live more comfortably among their own, and that she herself may be relieved of the care of them; and that she may not bring them, still unbelievers, among the believing people in Israel; for this would have been a scandal. Wherefore she tacitly exhorts them (what she had often done openly elsewhere) to turn to the faith and religion of the Israelites, as if to say: If you wish to go on with me into Israel, you must live as Israelites, in the faith and worship of the one true God. If you are unwilling to do this, return to your unbelieving Moabites.
THE LORD DEAL MERCIFULLY WITH YOU, AS YOU HAVE DEALT WITH THE DEAD AND WITH ME—for your dead husbands (who were my sons), while they lived, you honoured with all due respect and love; and when they were dead you decently buried them, mourned them, kept their memory, celebrated it, and for their sake you have remained widows until now with me, feeding, cherishing, and helping me. Hence the Chaldee renders: The Lord will do good to you, as that which you did to your sleeping husbands; that you came to take husbands after their death: and with me, that you fed and sustained me.
Much more do the faithful show mercy to the departed friends when they pray and offer sacrifice for their souls, as St. Ambrose did for the Emperor Theodosius, as he himself relates in the oration On his death: “I loved him,” he says, “and I follow him to the land of the living, until by tears and prayers I bring the man whither his merits call him, to the holy mountain of the Lord, where is everlasting life, where there is no touch of corruption, no groaning, no grief, no company of the dead, the true land of the living, where this mortal puts on immortality, and this corruptible puts on incorruption. Great is the rest that fulfils the wish of the loving, great the promise.”
11. HAVE I ANY MORE SONS IN MY WOMB, THAT YOU MAY HOPE FOR HUSBANDS OF ME?—From this it is gathered that, beyond the law of Deuteronomy xxv, which commands the Jews to raise up seed (that is, offspring) to a brother dead without children, the same was in use among the Gentiles. Hence Thamar the Chanaanite, before the law and Moses, raised up seed to the sons of Juda, and to Juda himself, Gen. xxxviii. For when a woman had married into any family, on her husband’s death she clung to the same family, and expected another husband from it, and did not pass to another; and this on account of the honour and the affinity already contracted with her.
Moreover Cajetan and Serarius gather from this that this raising up of seed to a dead brother was customary also among half-brothers, on the mother’s side only. For if Noemi, a widow, had married another, and had given sons born of that marriage as husbands to Orpha and Ruth, those husbands would have been only half-brothers (by the same mother) of Mahalon and Chelion, who had been their former husbands; understand this to apply if those half-brothers had indeed had different fathers, but of the same tribe and family, for then the wife, when her husband had died without offspring, raised up seed from his brother or a kinsman of the same family; and she does not seem to have been bound to do this if the later half-brother had been begotten of a father of another tribe or family.
13. YOU WOULD BE OLD WOMEN BEFORE YOU MARRY.—The Hebrew word, which others derive from a word meaning to burn, to be scorched, translate: Will you be burned without a husband? as if the Apostle alluded to this when he says: “It is better to marry than to be burned,” 1 Corinthians vii. The Septuagint, the Chaldee, Vatablus, Pagninus, Marinus, and recent writers everywhere render, more correctly: Will you be held back or delayed, to remain widows until I bring forth new sons for you? as if to say: Will you bind yourselves (for this is what the Septuagint’s word means) to remain in widowhood until I bear new sons who may become your husbands? The Hebrew here is obscure, but you may render it plainly and clearly thus: Though I should say: There is hope for me; though I were this night with a husband, and bore sons also: would you on that account wait until they were grown? would you on that account put off, so as not to be with a husband? In this sense the Septuagint, likewise obscure, is to be explained.
15. BEHOLD, THY KINSWOMAN IS GONE BACK—because Orpha loved Noemi less than Ruth did; hence Ruth clung to Noemi, but Orpha departed from her to her own.
THY KINSWOMAN.—Orpha, thy brother’s wife, that is, who had as husband the brother of thy husband; for you two married two brothers, and therefore through the marriages made with them you are kinswomen, that is, related by affinity. For this is what the Hebrew iebama means.
TO HER PEOPLE AND TO HER GODS.—Not as though Noemi were urging her daughter-in-law Ruth to return, like Orpha, to the gods of the Gentiles whom she had hitherto worshipped in the land of Moab; for to persuade her to that would have been a sin; but wishing to console her, she urges her to return to her own people and there marry again; she permits her, however, to go on worshipping her gods (which was bound up with it, and which she knew Ruth would do if she returned to her own people, who were idolaters); and she does this to test the sincere and constant mind of her daughter-in-law Ruth, which was necessary for changing religion with her country, and keeping the new one steadfastly, lest afterwards she should complain that she had been driven by the arts or deceits of her mother-in-law Noemi to pass into a foreign religion less pleasing to her. So Abulensis.