Ruth 1 1
My Notes Authors Matthew Henry - Commentary on the Whole Bible The first words give all the date we have of this story. It was in the days when the judges ruled (v. 1), 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. It must have been towards the beginning of the judges’ time, for Boaz, who married Ruth, was born of Rahab, who received the spies in Joshua’s time. Some think it was in the days of Ehud, others of Deborah; the learned bishop Patrick inclines to think it was in the days of Gideon, because in his days only we read of a famine by the Midianites’ invasion, Judges vi. 3, 4. While the judges were ruling, some one city and some another, Providence takes particular cognizance of Bethlehem, and has an eye to a King, to Messiah himself, who should descend from two Gentile mothers, Rahab and Ruth. Here is,