What Does Ruth 1:10 Mean?
And they said to her, Surely we will turn back with you to your people.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.THE KEY
The same verb Naomi uses to send them back becomes their vow to go with her.
THE MEANING
Belonging can begin as a choice to move with someone toward a community that is not yet yours. Here, both women make that promise before its cost and outcome are clear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that displacement leaves a person with no one: Naomi’s daughters answer her departure by promising to go with her.
THE ROOT
נָשׁוּב
nashuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
To turn back, return.
“turn back” in this verse is nashuv. English can make “return” sound like a simple trip back. Hebrew שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return) is the same verb Naomi uses to urge them to go back, and they reuse it for a different direction: with her, toward her people. The word holds a choice of belonging inside what can sound merely geographic.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the root’s sense of reorientation, illuminating how the women describe a change of direction as well as a journey.
meshubah: Backsliding, turning away.
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch names movement away from the path of return, giving the root a choice of direction that resonates with the women’s response to Naomi.
THE PATTERN
Return is a relational movement toward belonging, not only a route back to a place.
Come, and let us turn back to the LORD, for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck, and he will bind us up.He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.And he rose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and his inward parts were moved, and he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.THE THREAD
And Ruth said, Do not press me to let go of you, or to turn back from following after you. For where you walk, I will walk, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people are my people, and your God my God.Ruth uses the same root שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return) for the possibility of turning back from Naomi, then names where her chosen direction leads: “thy people shall be my people.” That makes the promise in verse 10 more than travel; it is the first shared language of belonging.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us