Ruth 1:5
“And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Both sons die, leaving Naomi bereft of her husband and her children alike.
What Does Ruth 1:5 Mean?
The second and third blows fall together. Both sons die, and now the narrator's earlier phrase returns in its fullest, most desolate form: the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Naomi is stripped of every man who gave her standing and security. She is a widow who has now buried her children, a stranger in a land not her own, with two foreign daughters-in-law and no visible future.
Notice that the text calls her simply the woman here, as if grief has worn her down to her barest identity. This is one of the lowest valleys in all of Scripture, and the Bible does not flinch from it. Yet even now the story is not over. The God who feels absent at the graveside is the same God who will, in time, fill the emptiness He seems to have allowed. Naomi cannot see it, but the One who keeps the lonely is still at work.