What does Ruth 1:16 mean?
God allowed the Israelites to be enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years in part to grow their culture and population, at some distance from a culture steeped in foreign gods, intending to solidify them as a unique nation. He gave them the Mosaic law to teach them how to stay away from foreign gods. Israel was to be an example to pagan nations of what the one true God expects of His followers (Leviticus 26). He did this because He had promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations and the nations would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:1–3; 17:4; 22:18).Abraham did not father the nation of Moab. Moab was one of two sons conceived by a drunken Lot—Abraham's nephew—and Lot's two daughters (Genesis 19:30–38). While God had promised that those who blessed Abraham would be blessed (Genesis 12:3), Moab wanted to bring cursing on Israel (Numbers 22--24). When getting a prophet to curse the Israelites proved unsuccessful, Moab took another route: inviting Israel into sin so they would bring cursing on themselves. When the Israelites traveled up the eastern side of the Dead Sea, the Moabite king sent women to seduce the Israelite men and introduce them to their own god, Chemosh (Numbers 25:1–5). This temptation worked so well that King Josiah was still taking down Chemosh altars seven hundred years later (2 Kings 23:13).
Why, then, would a Moabite woman whose Israelite husband had died insist on leaving home to follow her mother-in-law back to Israel (Ruth 1:1–15)? They have no man to protect them, provide for them, or hold their land. Their choices to earn a living are begging, servitude, and prostitution. Despite all this, Ruth will not leave Naomi.
Plenty of non-Jews have praised Israel's God, including the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:9), Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:28–29), and Darius (Daniel 6:25–27). Only a handful are recorded as having chosen to abandon their gods and convert to Yahweh-worship: Rahab (Joshua 2:11), Naaman (2 Kings 5:15–19), and Ruth.
Naomi is bitter. She believes God has hunted her down and taken her husband and sons (Ruth 1:13). She feels God has abandoned her (Ruth 1: 21). And yet after living with Naomi's family, Ruth is satisfied with Yahweh, the God of Israel. She will not return to her parents and seek a Moabite husband. She will follow Naomi to Bethlehem. Naomi's husband sold their land; Ruth will lodge on the streets if that's where Naomi is. She will reject her own people and claim the Israelites, no matter how hostile or dangerous they may be toward her. And she will worship Yahweh as her God.
In that culture, many believed that a person spent the afterlife with those who shared their tomb. So, even if Naomi dies in Israel, Ruth will stay and be buried in the same grave. To make her decision official, she uses the ancient words of oath: "May the LORD do so to me and more also" if she does not fulfill this vow (Ruth 1:17).
God is true enough to use a bitter woman (Ruth 1:20) from a spiritually adulterous people (Judges 2:16–19) to call the heart of a pagan woman whose people He has cursed (Deuteronomy 23:3–6).
