A well-known name in Scripture. In the original it signifies, one that is filled or elevated. She was by birth of Moab. And when Elimelech, with his wife Naomi, and his two sons, Mahlon and Chillon, left the land of Bethlehem-judah, and went down into Moab, there Chilion married Ruth. And at the death of Elimelech, and Mahlon, and Chilion, Naomi and Ruth left Moab for Bethlehem-judah; where, after a time, Ruth was married to Boaz, from which union sprang Obed; and from hence, in a direct line, sprang Christ after the flesh. So that Ruth becomes an interesting character, be cause her history doth not lead to endless genealogies, but leads directly to the Lord Jesus Christ; and not only is Ruth meriting this attention from being found among the ancestors of Christ, but also we behold in it a sweet type, in her recovery from Moab to Bethlehem, of the call of the Gentile church, and the union of both Jew and Gentile in Christ.
The Book of Ruth, which the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to give the church in her name, is a blessed portion, though short, of divine truths; and beside the historical part it bears in the events of the church it forms a beautiful allegory of divine and spiritual things. The Jews have never disputed that it is of the canon of Scripture; but in their Bibles they place it different from ours. We subjoin it to the book of Judges, and very properly so, be cause what took place in the house of Elimelech, as is recorded, happened in the days of the Judges; but the Jews have thought proper to call it one of the five Migilloth, or volumes—that is, as they place and number them, "Solomon's Songs, Ruth, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, and Esther." It is more than likely that the Prophet Samuel was the writer of the book of Ruth. There is a similarity in style and manner, and in a few passages in the phrases. (See Ruth 1:17 with 1 Samuel 3:17; 1Sa 14:44. See also 2 Samuel 3:9; 2Sa 3:35)
I cannot close this account of Ruth without begging the reader, whenever he peruseth this precious portion of the word of God, to be on the lookout for the Lord Jesus. The book begins with an ac count of a famine in the land of Bethlehem-judah, which means the land of bread, and which inclines the family of this certain man Elimelech, whose name signifies my God a king, to go down, into Moab. We know that a certain man, even our first father Adam, did so, when by transgression he lost Eden; and all the children of Adam, like Mahlon and Chilion, whose names signify sickness and consumption, prove the sick and consumptive stock from whence they sprung. Nothing but union with Christ can bring us back to the Bethlehem of our almighty Judah; and nothing but salvation by Christ can restore to us our justly forfeited privileges. Some sweet views of Jesus the book of Ruth presents to us on these points. May the Lord bless it to the reader!