Ruth 1 · a question people ask
Was it wrong for Elimelech's family to leave Bethlehem for Moab?
The chapter doesn't say. It says only that "there was a famine in the land" and that the man "went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons" (1:1). It doesn't say why the famine came, and it gives no reason for the deaths that follow (1:3, 1:5). It does say why Naomi came back: "she had heard in the country of Moab how the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread" (1:6). Christians read the move in two main ways. Both agree the famine was real and that the LORD gave bread again (1:6).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A family leaving the land the LORD gave
Those who hold this view note that the famine came "In the days when the judges judged" (1:1), days when Israel "prostituted themselves to other gods" (Judges 2:17), and that the Law had warned that if Israel turned to other gods, the LORD would shut up "the sky so that there is no rain" (Deuteronomy 11:17). They set the move beside the LORD's word to Isaac in a famine: "Don’t go down into Egypt. Live in the land I will tell you about" (Genesis 26:2). They note that the family stayed "about ten years" (1:4), and that Naomi came home saying, "I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty" (1:21).
Ruth 1:1 · Judges 2:17 · Deuteronomy 11:16-17 · Genesis 26:1-2 · Ruth 1:4 · Ruth 1:21
A family surviving a famine, with no verdict given
Those who hold this view note that the chapter blames no one for going. In a famine, "Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land" (Genesis 12:10), with the same Hebrew verb Ruth 1:1 uses for going "to live" in Moab, and God told Jacob, "Don’t be afraid to go down into Egypt" (Genesis 46:3). They read Naomi's words in 1:21 as her grief rather than the book's judgment, and note that out of Moab came Ruth, whose son Obed "is the father of Jesse, the father of David" (4:17).
Genesis 12:10 · Ruth 1:1 · Genesis 46:3 · Ruth 1:21 · Ruth 4:17
The verses
“In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons.”
“Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.”
“Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband. Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.”