What Does Ruth 1:12 Mean?
Turn back, my daughters, and go, for I have grown too old to have a husband. If I should say there is hope for me, and I should even have a husband tonight, and should also bear sons.
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
Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should have an husband also to night, and should also bear sons;THE KEY
The Hebrew word for hope also names a cord, so Naomi asks whether any line still connects her present to a future.
THE MEANING
When the future seems to depend on events your body or circumstances cannot supply, hope can feel impossible. Naomi names the limit plainly: a husband, then sons, then a future for her daughters. The verse lets grief speak at full strength without promising that every desired outcome will arrive.
THE ROOT
תִּקְוָה
tiqvah
GROWS FROM
קוה
q-w-h
To wait for, look toward, or expect.
The Hebrew word translated “hope,” tiqvah (תִּקְוָה), comes from qavah (קָוָה), to wait for or expect; tiqvah can also mean a cord or line. Naomi tests that line against the future she can imagine, husband, then sons, and says she sees no way from her present to that future.
ALSO GROWS
qavah: To wait for, look toward, or expect.
קָוָה
This verb appears in Isaiah 40:31 as “wait”; hope carries the sense of waiting toward what is not yet present.
tiqvah: Hope or expectation; also a cord or line.
תִּקְוָה
Joshua 2:18 uses this same word for the scarlet line in Rahab’s window, giving expectation the image of a line held across uncertainty.
THE PATTERN
Hope reaches toward a future not yet visible while present limits remain real.
But those who wait upon the LORD exchange their strength; they rise on wings like eagles; they run and do not tire; they walk and do not faint.And now, Lord, what am I stretched toward? My holding is toward you.For in hope we have been delivered; but hope that is seen is not hope, for why would anyone still hope for what he sees?THE THREAD
Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you lowered us. And you shall gather to yourself, into your house, your father, and your mother, and your brothers, and all your father's household.The Hebrew word translated “hope” in Ruth is the same word used for the scarlet line in Rahab’s window. That shared word lets hope appear as a line held across danger, while Naomi names the future she cannot see a way to reach.
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