This short history of the domestic affairs of one particular family fitly follows the book of Judges (the events related here happening in the days of the judges), and fitly goes before the books of Samuel, because in the close it introduces David; yet the Jews, in their Bibles, separate it from…

The first words give all the date we have of this story. It was in the days when the judges ruled , not in those disorderly times when there was no king in Israel; but under which of the judges these things happened we are not told, and the conjectures of the learned are very uncertain.

See here, I. The good affection Naomi bore to the land of Israel, Ruth 1:6. Though she could not stay in it while the famine lasted, she would not stay out of it when the famine ceased.

Naomi and Ruth, after many a weary step (the fatigue of the journey, we may suppose, being somewhat relieved by the good instructions Naomi gave to her proselyte and the good discourse they had together), came at last to Bethlehem.