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NASB | Ruth 1:1 Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Ruth 1:1 In the days when the judges governed [Israel], there was a famine in the land [of Canaan]. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live temporarily in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons. |
Subject: Which "land of Moab" in Ruth? |
Bible Note: Jim, 1. Precedent, both in Law and reason is granted weight, even great weight, when considering the validity of a previously held idea; or in this case interpretation. 2. I did not say anything about boring; that would be your observation. The book of Numbers; now that’s boring, but obviously quite relevant. While it is an oversimplification to say, it is “irrelevant if she is not a Moabite by birth.” Given the entire scope of the argument, I stand by the statement; it would indeed be largely, even if not utterly, irrelevant. 3. I did not offer how it had been taught as support the facts under consideration. In fact it would only be by inference that teaching was even mentioned. 4. The observation was, “there is a glaring absence of divine purpose;” I am open to hearing one. 5. I apologize, if these arguments originate with you, I’m sure you’re more offended by the ABC statement than I am at the revision of the book’s message. 6. You ignored the conjunction that created a joint assertion. The observation is, the people called her a Moabite, which is a designation used to indicate an enemy, and she called herself a foreigner. I did not disavow that you acknowledged the title of Moabite; in fact that is a major point of the discussion. Instead the point was, the transaction that took place in verse five and following, of the second chapter, is evidence that she was not of Israeli descent. 7. Actually, I would not agree, unless I was reading the KJV, where the translation is almost exclusively ‘stranger.’ While your explanation, again, stands to reason, it does hold consistent with scripture. For instance, you ignored verse fourteen, “Rachel and Leah said to him, 'Do we still have any portion or inheritance in our father's house? Are we not reckoned by him as foreigners (strangers)...” (Gen 31:14,15) Here, even were we to accept the translation ‘strangers’ as you suggest, Rachel is indicating by her statement, concerning inheritance, that her father no longer considers them blood. So, in the same manner, if Ruth is not Boaz’s blood she is not of Israel. If that’s a little thin for you, let’s look at a few instances from the KJV where the word is translated stranger: “…thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.” (De 17:15) “And his master said unto him, ‘We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of the children of Israel...’” (Jud 19:12) “Moreover concerning the stranger, which is not of thy people Israel...” (2Ch 6:32) From these verses we may adduce with such probability, as almost to amount to certainty, that when the Old Testament refers to a ‘stranger’, as is done in the instance in question, it is correctly translated ‘foreigner’; not of Israel, and that Gen 31:15 actually supports that assertion and does not contradict it. So, Elohim – God not judges; Nokriah – foreigner not ‘previously unknown to me’. I’d say on these two alone there is enough to maintain she was not of Israel and was thus converted. Where she lived could of course be fodder another discussion… As Always, MP |