17. The Lord do so to me. Here Ruth uses the sacred name, Jehovah. She puts herself on oath, and invokes the punishment of the God of the Israelites if she should let anything less than death part her from Naomi. The original Hebrew has the definite article “the” with “death.” Ruth refers to “the death” that comes to all.
Ruth uses the regular Hebrew formula for an oath, one that appears again and again in the In 1 Sam. 3:17 Eli invokes God’s punishment against Samuel if he should hide from Eli anything that God had shown him when He called Samuel by name. This experience marks the beginning of Samuel’s ministry as a prophet. If Samuel wrote the book of Ruth, as conservative Bible scholars have rather generally thought, then this similarity in language becomes particularly meaningful. It appears also in 1 Sam. 25:22, where David himself uses this formula as an oath that he will destroy Nabal and all those belonging to his household. David again uses this formula in his oath to make Amasa captain of the host (2 Sam. 19:13). A paraphrase of what Ruth said would run like this: “I swear by the true God that death alone shall separate me from you.” Ruth stood the supreme test She proved to be more of a Jewess at heart than she was a Moabitess. A change had taken place during her association with Naomi, and she knew she would feel more content and more at home in the strange land of Israel than she would in the familiar land of Moab, and among her lifelong friends. A knowledge of the true God binds human hearts more closely together than do the ties of race or kindred.