by the empty names and titles of honour they formerly enjoyed (Matt. Henry). Not so Naomi. (4) When our condition is brought down, we may and must expect our spirits to be humbled with it. (5) Neither dignity of place, highness of birth, nor fruitfulness of children, may minister comfort to those whom the Lord has humbled (Topsell). The hand that smites is the only hand that can heal; and worldly misery is only abated entirely by everlasting felicity. (6) It is not an affliction itself, but an affliction rightly borne, that does us good (Matt. Henry). "So, friend, I see that thou hast not yet forgiven God Almighty!" the rebuke of Ebenezer Adams to a lady of rank, a widow, he was visiting. The reproof produced such an effect, that she immediately had all her trappings of grief destroyed, and went about her necessary business and avocations. So many calamities have been lost upon you if you have not yet learned how to suffer (Sen. ad Helv.). Behold us willing to suffer in this life the worst it may please Thee to bring upon us; here lay Thy rod upon us; consume us here, cut us to pieces here, only spare us in eternity (St. Augustine). (7) It is no part of religion to harden ourselves against the rod. "Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved (Jer. v. 3), is the charge the prophet brings against Jerusalem; but we nowhere find them condemned for feeling too keenly (Macartney).

"She put her mouth in the dust, and spake in a low language, suitable to her present condition; God had afflicted her, and she would carry her sails accordingly. Many are humbled, but not humble; low, but not lowly. These have lost the fruit of their affliction, saith Augustine, and are therefore most miserable. God, saith another, calls no man Benjamin, but those whom their own hearts call Ben-oni in their humility. He salutes them not Naomi, beautiful, who do not humbly feel themselves Mara, bitter." Trapp.

"If all our afflictions come from the Almighty, it is in vain, as well as impious, to contend with Him that smites. Shall the

potsherds of the earth strive with their Maker, who has all power to do with them as He pleases? He cannot effectually be opposed, and He can do nothing that is wrong. Weak mortals may injure their fellow-creatures for their own advantage, but what profit can it be to the Almighty that He should oppress the work of His own hands?"-Lawson.

We ought not so to lament the comfort we have lost, as to think that all our future days must be spent in bitterness." Ibid.

"Wonder not at David, if he crieth in the anguish of his heart; at Job, if he complaineth in the bitterness of his soul; at Jeremiah, if he lamenteth in the extremity of his grief; for even then they are swallowing of a potion which is bitter unto flesh and blood."Fuller.

"It will always remain a wonder to the majority of men what the agonies of some spirits mean. Questions which scorch the spirit like burning lava, pitiful wailings after light, gaspings of the oppressed soul for fresh air and liberty, they know nothing of. I have met men and women who had been familiar with sorrow in many forms. Fortune had not favoured them-fortune is strangely capricious: in whatever direction the golden veins run in this world, they had never somehow struck into one; the gifts of

health had been niggardly doled out to them, and the common enemy death had passed through their homes, and his footsteps had dried up the springs which, amid all the world's weariness, had been so refreshing. These trials they had borne patiently and humbly. But the pain which was almost impossible to bear, the blow which made the soul stagger and reel was this, the light went. They were left in mental darkness; there was nothing to guide the soul by; perplexity, uncertainty, bewilderment throughout the whole realm of religion." - Morlais Jones.

"Now I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough that was in the midst of the plain, and they being heedless did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was DESPOND."-Bunyan.

"Men spoil their own lives, and then complain that life is evil; they mar and rend the picture, and murmur because its beauty has disappeared; they run the ship upon the rocks, and weep to find her a wreck; they crush the flower with a rude hand, and are disappointed because it withers." -Thomas Jones.

"As torrents that are dried up in the heat of summer, when there is most need of them, so all comforts fail in the extremity, that are not derived from the fountain of life." -Dr. Bates.

"Sorrow is the substance of man's natural life, and it might almost be defined to be his natural capability of the supernatural; nothing has a lasting interest for man which is not in some way connected with sorrow; sorrow is the poetry of a creation which is fallen, of a race which is in exile in a vale of tears." F. W. Faber.

VERSE 21.

Theme.-PAINFUL REMEMBRANCES.

"This is truth the poet sings,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." Tennyson.

"Brothers, hush! the Lord Christ's hands

Ev'n now are stretched in blessing o'er the sea and o'er the lands.
Sit not like a mourner, brother! by the grave of that dear past;
Throw the present! 'tis thy servant only when 'tis overcast.
Give battle to the leaguèd world; if thou'rt worthy, truly brave,
Thou shalt make the hardest circumstance a helper and a slave."

I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home empty again: why, then,? etc.

Sooner or later the time comes in the history of good men when things begin to show themselves as they are. Appearances deceive us no longer. The scales fall from our eyes. Life stands out in its true relationships, and we read, plain as the handwriting on Babylon's walls, the lessons God would have us learn from the past. We come more completely to ourselves, and that moment, even to the best of men, is one of contrition and regret, and often of painful self-accusation.

Naomi is evidently passing through such a time in this the hour of her return. A penitent feeling pervades her lamentation (Lange). She left her people in the day of famine, and now she comes back to them, the famine in her own heart. Life has narrowed itself to a question between herself and God. Her emptiness is of Him, but her going away is all her own. She went out of her own free will, though others led her; and in contrast with this comes the doings of the God of the Israel she left behind. I went because it was my will to go, not God's; now God's judgment has sent me back (Lange).

Note. (a) To go out of God's way is to go out of His protection (Macgowan); but (b) to go against His will is to come under the sweep of His chastisements.

We have here, I. The true conception of human life. (1) God dealing in it personally, individually, with men. A Scriptural doctrine found from Genesis to Revelation. Pre-eminently a Christian doctrine: "Even the very hairs of your head," etc. More than this, it is a reasonable doctrine. If there be no special providence, there is no providence at all; only blind fate, or resistless law. On any other theory which recognises a Deity, we are at the mercy of what is worse than chance-a God who thinks it beneath Him to regard His creatures; or worse still, a God who is chained and overmastered by His own laws.

(2) 1ts departures and wanderings our own. "I went out." If any might have blamed others, Naomi might. But not so, she blames herself alone. Note. Selfcondemnation a constant attendant upon Christian life. "I went out full." So did the prodigal. People usually get full before they go out from God's way and habitation (Macgowan). She went out not for want, but for fear of want (Bernard, Trapp). (See on ver. 1, pp. 10–13.) She went out full of family happiness, of joy in her sons, and of hope of a cheerful old age, surrounded by children and children's children; but empty now of all these, without possessions and without hope (Lange). What a vivid picture of those who leave the way of God's ordinances and sanctuary privileges! They go out for gain, but they meet with gall and wormwood instead of honey (Macgowan). Note. Our blindness oftentimes carries us into the perils we seek to eschew (Bishop Hall).

(3) Its better leadings and holier impulses, its repentance and return to God. "The Lord hath," etc. Just as the planets are brought into their appointed orbits by the central and attractive force of gravitation, so it is between man and God. (See on ver. 7, div. I., p. 35). Mark, (a) that she was brought home again. Afflictions are not a consuming but a refining fire to the godly (Secker). And mark (b) how she was brought back. By weeping cross, Trapp says quaintly. "Home again empty," says the text. Jehoshaphat's ships were broken; Lot lost all; Josiah came home short (Trapp). Note as true always of such returns, that the backslider retraces his steps (1) with many tears and self-reproaches, (2) with conscious emptiness, (3) with total self-renunciation. Naomi renounces even her right to her former name. Why call me Naomi? Why speak a single word to remind me of my former glory? In my losses and in my loneliness, in all that belongs to my life, "the Lord hath testified against me." Men call her Naomi (pleasant, gracious, lovely); but she reads her life in a different fashion, and says, Call me Mara (bitterness). Note. We fall short in the eyes of God, however we may seem in the eyes of our fellow-men. Repentance and a change of heart always brings us to see this. The old nature and the old life is no longer Naomi, rather it is Mara to us.

We have here, II. The true explanation of afflictions. (1) Always from God, if not always for punishment. This one of the great lessons taught in the book of Job. So here. Naomi, not worse, not even so bad, as many around her who had so far escaped calamity. But God has a right to deal severely with the best of His children for their ultimate good. Mark the distinction; He corrects His children, He punishes the wicked. The one act looks forward to a future perfectness, the other looks back only upon the past. The one is remedial and continual until the end is accomplished; the other waits and lingers in hope of repentance, but comes at last, swift as lightning, and sudden as the whirlwind. (Cf. Heb. xii. 5-11, with Ps. xxxvii, 9-13, 20, 38.)

(2) Always having a meaning and a message, though not always in anger, (See last outline, div. II.) Afflictions are represented here as God's testimony against those who have wandered from His ways. "The Lord hath testified," etc. He puts the straight way of His judgments side by side with our crooked ways. As that One who brings all things to pass, He brings our folly to fruition to confound us. He ripens our plans, and lo they are our undoing! It is not that He thwarts us; oftentimes He gives us the desire of our heart, and it is the strongest testimony to our sin. Note. God not only testifies by word, but by act; not only in revelation, but in providence. Our life a testimony in its circumstance, etc, God's will is being accomplished in it, as well as our own.

LESSONS. (1) The vanity of earthly possessions. So uncertain is that which we call fulness in the creature, an hour may strip us of all, Like a bladder, so is worldly prosperity; a puff doth make it swell, but a prick doth make it fall again (Topsell). (2) It is a sign of true grace when we ascribe the ills which come in life to the hand of God, while we take all the blame to ourselves. What is it but the child recognizing even in chastisement the hand of the Father ? Bernard on this :

I. That it is a fault, voluntarily for safety of goods, through distrust, to leave
God's people, and go to live among idolaters.

II. That there is no certainty in worldly wealth.

III. That oftentimes the ways and means which men take to prevent want, by

the same they bring it on them.

IV. That such of God's children as go astray, He will bring home again, but

yet with correction.

V. "Why then call ye me Naomi?" etc. That the humbled and afflicted take no pleasure to be remembered of their former prosperity by names and titles.

VI. That man's comfort is nothing able to allay the bitterness of God's discomforts on us.

VII. That afflictions are commonly the Lord's witnesses against us for something

amiss in us.

"The Lord giveth, and the Lord hath taken away." When He gives, He is under no necessity of securing to us the possession of what He gives. We may soon provoke Him, by our sins, to bereave us of all that He hath given us; but however careful we may be to please Him, we cannot merit the continuance of His favours, and without any special provocation on our part He may have good reasons for impoverishing us, and placing us in conditions quite the reverse of those to which we have been accustomed. And one great reason why God so frequently changes men's prosperous condition into misery is to teach us the folly of trusting to our present enjoyment. But this I say, brethren, the time is short. It remaineth,' etc."-Lawson.

"It is hard to come down in the world through upright dealing, but harder still to stoop to dishonest dealing in order to keep up in the world. If the loss of temporal gain be the gain of eternal good, then the reverse of fortune is the reverse of misfortune.

"It is difficult to mourn without murmur

ing. We are permitted to weep and moan under the hand of God, but it is not easy to weep, to sorrow without excess; at once to feel the rod and to kiss it, to adore and to bless a correcting and bereaving God. How noble the spirit, spirit, and how pious the language of Job, when he exclaimed, 'The Lord gave,' etc."-Toller.

"There are times when we reason thus: the darkness is around us, therefore it will always be dark; the winter has been long and cold, hence summer will never arrive; troubles are come upon us, consequently we are to expect nothing but trouble. Thus does the mind take a melancholy pleasure in tormenting itself. We turn our back to the light, look at our own dark shadow cast upon the ground, and then cry out in sorrow that all things are and will be against us." -Thomas Jones.

"Afflictions are a testimony against men that they are sinners, but they are not always a testimony that the sufferer is guilty of some particular sins for which God chastiseth him" (Jab ii. 3).-Lawson.

"God made men to be blessed. If the cry of broken hearts goes up to heaven, it is not His institution." - Baldwin Brown.

"Men think God is destroying them because He is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the string upon the musical rack." - Beecher.

"She utters not a breath of accusation against Elimelech, or of excuse of herself, Properly speaking, the fault did lie with her husband and sons. They were the originators of the undertaking that ended so disastrously; but of this she has no memory."-Lange.

"She takes the whole blame on herself. She confesses that, in leaving 'the land of promise,' she was walking after her own will, not the will of God. But though she confesses her own sin, she utters no reproach against the beloved dead. 'I went because it was my will to go; and now God has taught me, by all I have suffered and lost, that it was wrong to go. He has justly emptied me of all my possessions, all my hopes.'"-Cox.

"It is nearly the same utterances as fell from her lips in parting with Orpah. Grief makes her almost fierce. The name she bears sounds like irony and a reproach." -Braden.

"It is good at times to be in distress, for it reminds us that we are in exile." - Thomas à Kempis.

"Those trials which come from God are never without benefit to us, when we receive them worthily, since there is always a rich harvest of spiritual blessings for the afflicted religious heart. If human nature at first shrinks from sorrow, faith and Christian hope soon come to its support; the trial then appears easy to be borne. Receive it as from God, and its bitterness is past. Indeed, the peace which is always found in this submission is itself a great blessing, even without any exterior alleviation of sorrow. It is a peace so much the more pure as it is unconnected with the world," -Fenelon,

...

"But the problem of our life is solved in and by Jesus Christ. He has explained its nature, purpose, and ending. Without Him the world is a haunted house, disturbed by strange noises-half-formed apparitions glide through the gloom, and the inhabitants are sore afraid; but possessing His revelation, we know it to be the outer court of the heavenly temple, and we hear already the harmonious voices of the worshippers in the inner sanctuary praising God for their existence. Christ is our refuge from fear."-Thomas Jones.

"The martyrdom of an hour is sudden glory, but the martyrdom of a life-there needs something more than human to endure this." - Spurgeon,

"Oh ye who suffer, whatsoe'er it is
Hath brought this fellowship with Christ
to try the heart,
Know that the angel ministering is God's;
And suffering e'en as doing is the better
part.

And ye who, cumbered with much care or
pain,

Sleep not, but count the weary hours, and wish for morn;

Lo! from the pentecost of sorrow yours
to-day,

The pentecost of joy to-morrow shall be born.
And ye who sorrow for a light that's

quenched

For love that gladdened all the morning of
life's day;

By all the sacred tears that Jesus wept,
The dead ye mourn are sleeping, and not

lost for aye.

Our friend he sleepeth, said the Master once,
So named He man's last hour, when fails

the feeble breath.

A sickness to God's glory; through the ages thence

New meaning lurks to us in sorrow, suffering, death."-В.

VERSE 22.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES. - Which returned out of the country (territories or fields] of Moab. The description by which Ruth was commonly designated [cf. ii. 6]. (Speaker's Com.). As the same expression occurs at chap. iv. 3, in connexion with Naomi, it may be supposed that it became customary to speak of Naomi and Ruth as "the returned from Moab," or, as we should say popularly, "the returned Moabites" (Lange). Here the phrase applies to Ruth, as at ii. 6, but in iv. 3 to Naomi (Keil). Dr. Cassel translates, "And so Naomi was returned home, and Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her [who accompanied her] after [or on] her departure from the fields of Moab." And she desired to return with her [that is, with Naomi] with the whole heart; and they came from the land of Moab, etc. (Syr.). The Douay, following the Vulgate, trans., "So Naomi came with Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, from the land of her sojourning" [from the land of her pilgrimage (Wycliffe)]. Aben Ezra thinks this to be understood of her returning at another time (Gill). In the beginning of barley harvest. The harvest as a whole commenced with the barley harvest (Keil). The beginning of spring, for the barley harvest began immediately after the passover, and that feast was held on the 15th of the month Nisan, which corresponded with our March (A. Clarke). They came to Bethlehem on that day in which the children of Israel began to mow the sheaf of barley which was to be waved before the Lord (Targum). The firstfruits of the barley harvest were, as we know, presented at the passover,