Y C'rl!. 4, ~--A .foreign land. "And they dwelled there about ten years." Memor- nble years I Marriages and births had given place to separation and bereavement. Elimelech the father died; so also did the two sons Mahlon and Chilion. Thus we have the sad picture of three widows. I. \VE CAN FLY FROM FAMINE, BUT NOT FROM DEATH. We need not enter upon the argument of some expositors, as to whether Elimelech did right to leave Bethle- hem ; whether by famine is not meant insufficiency of plenty rather tha.n a.ctual want. "re must be content with the fact that he thought it prudent and wise to go, And now with fulness of bread came the saddest experience of all. How often it happens that when circumstances improve, those we hoped to enjoy them with are taken away. We climb the hill together, and then with new and fair prospect comes the desolation of death amid the beauties and blessings of earth and sky. These are d:i.rker clouds than covered them in Bethlehem. We never know how dear nre the li,ing till they are gone; then we see it was their presence that gave life and peace to so many scenes, that gave inspiration to labour and sweetness to success. II. TROUBLES OFTEN COME WAVE UPON WAVE. Ten years I and lo, three out of the four pilgrims are at rest. No more fatigue, no more distress for them. True; but those that are left I What of them? It is often easier to go than to remain. It is all summed up in the consciousness, I have but to live, and to live without them. X or is this a morbid feeling. It is a most sacred emotion. True, time will alleviate; but there will always be graves in the heart, and men and women who have lost their beloved ones can never be the same again. Character will be softened, purified, elernted. Heaven will be nearer and dearer to the heart. Ten years I How fleetly they fly, and yet what a long volume of experience may be bound up in them. III. EVERY HOME rs BUT AS A TENT LIFE. They dwelled there. Got used to the new people, the new skies, the new ways. After a time, to a family removed to another shore, there are always some tendrils gathering round the place, and in time they feel in leaving that a sense of loss. Strange as it all seemed at first, in time touches of experience make it homelike to them. Still the old first home, the dear village of childhood and youth, nestles in the heart. How many in life's evening like to go back and live near the abode of the morning. We dwell I So it seems; and we look at the picture of the world's life-pilgrimage as though, like some pano- rama, it was all outside ns. Bnt we pass onward too, and ere long grey hairs are here and there upon us, though we know it not. .At times we look back. Ten years I .And their experience is within us, as well as behind us.-W. M. S.
EXPOSITION.
CHAPTER I. 6-14. to add, with the Chaldee Targumist, that the news was conveyed by the mouth of an Ver. 6. -Then-the conjunction in Hebrew angel. And the representation is not that is the common generic copulative and- Yahveh, in giving bread to his people, had she arose. She had been si,tt,i1VJ, as it were, thereby visited them ; it is that he had where her husband had settled, and she now visited them "to give them bread." The word rose up to depart (see ver. 4). She, and ,~_~, rendered visi,tetl,, is quite peculiar, with her daughters-in-law. The word for "her no analogue in English, Germa.n, Greek, or wmghters-in-law"-itf..!~~-is literally "her Latin. Yahveh had directed his attention brides," that is, the brides of her sons. to his people, and had, so to speak, made That she might return - an admirable inqui.sition into their state, and had hence rendering into English idiom. The phrase taken steps to give them bread (see Exod. in the original is simply " and she retwned," iiL 16 ; iv. 31). They had already got it, that is, "and she began to retwn." From or, as the Septnagint translates, they had the country of IIoab: for ahe had heard in i:;ot loaves (apro11,). The Vulgate translates the colllltry of Moab how that the Lord had 1t meats (escas ). It is assumed in the tidings viaited his people in giving them brea.d. that the seasons a.nd their products, and all Or, more literally, "for she heard in the beneficent influences in nature, belong to country of Moab tha.t Jehovah "--or, rather, Yahveh. It is likewise assumed tha.t the "Yahveh," or, as Epiphanius gives it, 'Ia/3E Hebrews were his people, albeit not in such -"hn.d visited his people to give them bread." a sense as to secure for them more " bread " '.i'herc is no warrant, however, and no need, and "milk and honey" than other peopleA err. r. 6-14.) THE BOOK OF RUHi. 11