Passage

Ruth 1.1

Book: Ruth · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

1. And it came to pass in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. 3. And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. (Ruth 1:1-3, ASV)

WEB

1. 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, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab, and lived there. 3. Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons. (Ruth 1:1-3, WEB)

KJV

1. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. ^{ruled: Heb. judged}

And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehemjudah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. ^{continued: Heb. were} 3. And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. (Ruth 1:1-3, KJV)

YLT

1. And it cometh to pass, in the days of the judging of the judges, that there is a famine in the land, and there goeth a man from Beth-Lehem-Judah to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

And the name of the man [is] Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites from Beth-Lehem-Judah; and they come into the fields of Moab, and are there. 3. And Elimelech husband of Naomi dieth, and she is left, she and her two sons; (Ruth 1:1-3, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the narrator of Ruth, an anonymous storyteller
Audience: the readers of the book
Location: Beth-lehem-judah, then "the country of Moab" (Ruth 1:1)
Time period: "in the days when the judges judged" (Ruth 1:1); the closing genealogy reaches David (4:17-22)

Theological reading

The book opens with a date, a disaster and a departure: "in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab." The setting places the story in the same era as the book of Judges, which ends, "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). Ruth shows faithfulness in ordinary households during that disordered age.

The irony is pointed. The family leaves Judah because of famine and goes to Moab, a people the law excluded: "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of Jehovah" (Deuteronomy 23:3). The book will bring a Moabite woman into Israel and into the line of David (Ruth 4:17).

To "sojourn" is to live somewhere as a foreigner. The family intends a temporary stay, but "they came into the country of Moab, and continued there" (1:2), and the men die there (1:3, 5). The rest of the story turns on return, a word that runs through the first chapter.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

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Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.