A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Naomi
NAOMI,
And her husband Elimelech, went to the land of Moab, because of a famine in Canaan. After about ten years, her husband and two sons died, leaving no children. Naomi then returned with Ruth, one of her daughters-in-law, to her own country, poor and humble. Yet it speaks well for the character and consistency of Naomi, that she so thoroughly won the love and respect of her daughters-in-law. And not only this, but she must have convinced them, by the sanctity of her daily life, that the Lord whom she worshipped was the true God. Her name, Naomi, signifies beauty; and we feel, when reading her story, that, in its highest sense, she deserves to be thus characterized.
After Ruth married Boaz, which event was brought about, humanely speaking, by Naomi's wise counsel, she appears to have lived with them; and she look their first-born son as her own, "laid him in her bosom, and became nurse to him." This child was Obed, the grandfather of David. Well might the race be advanced which had such a nurse and instructress. These events occurred about 1312, B.C.