Mahlon and Chilion

Biography

Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah were left widowed and childless after the deaths of Elimelech and his sons in Moab. When Naomi decided to return to Israel, she urged her daughters-in-law to go back to their own mothers, a move that would likely have meant rejoining Moabite customs and idol worship.

Orpah left the Jewish faith, but Ruth remained with Naomi, demonstrating a genuine conversion. In Israel, Ruth entered a levirate marriage with Boaz, a kinsman of her deceased husband Mahlon, to preserve his family line. Their son Obed, though Boaz’s biological child, was legally Mahlon’s heir and later became the paternal grandfather of King David.

Meanings of referenced names

Mahlon translates to "sickness" and Chilion to "wasting," fitting their roles in the story and following the Tanakh custom of naming children after current events, as when Naomi renamed herself Mara. Some modern scholars view this as giving the tale a deliberate fairytale quality. Alternatively, the Talmud in Bava Batra 91b equates them with Joash and Saraph from 1 Chronicles 4:22, then debates which set of names is literal and which symbolic.