Orpah, returning to Moab, disappears in obscurity; Ruth, choosing Israel’s God, gains immortality.
It would be easy to overlook the importance of the scene: three women in animated conversation by the Moabite roadside. Here’s what’s happening. The older one is remonstrating with the two younger ones about a decision they have to make. “Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go, return each to her mother’s house. The Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband.’ Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept” (Ruth 1:8-9). But the young women’s hopes lie in two lonely Moabite graves; what did they have there? Through their tears, they respond, “Surely we will return with you to your people” (v 10). But Naomi knows what it will be like for them back in Israel. Didn’t her Scriptures say, “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation…” (Deut 23:3)? And their practice of levirate marriage wouldn’t help: “I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should have a husband tonight and should also bear sons, would you wait for them till they were grown?” (vv 12-13). Orpah sees the sense in this, “kissed her mother-in-law” (v 14), and turns back to Moab. Ruth, on the other hand, “clung to her.” Then from her lips flows one of the sweetest soliloquies in all literature: “Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God” (v 16). So the two women head west, across the Jordan River, up the Red Ascent through the Judean Wilderness, skirting Jerusalem, over the Hill of Rachel, and so into Bethlehem.