Machlon
Machlon is Rut 's first husband in the Old Testament in the book of Ruth .
etymology
The Hebrew name מַחְלוֹן Machlon is derived from the Hebrew root חלה chalah "weak / powerless / sick". מֵחֲלָה machalah means "illness", Machlon can be translated as "sickly / weakling".
This name already indicates what is reported in Ruth 1.5 EU , namely that Machlon will die. The use of “speaking names” is characteristic of the book of Ruth and indicates that the characters involved should be understood as literary figures and not as historical personalities.
In the Septuagint the name is rendered with μααλων maalōn .
Biblical report
According to Ruth 1,2 EU , Machlon is the firstborn son of Elimelech and Naomi. He is an Efratite and comes from Bethlehem in Judah . He and his parents and younger brother Kiljon moved away from Bethlehem to the grasslands of Moab because of a famine at the time of the judges . There he married the Moabite woman Ruth after Elimelech's death. The name of his wife is clearly only in Ruth 4,10 EU , whereas Ruth 1,4 EU leaves open which is his wife and which is that of his brother. After ten years, he and his brother Kiljon died with no offspring. As reported in Ruth 4,9 EU , the property of Machlon passes to Boaz together with the property of his father and brother .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wilhelm Gesenius , Hebrew and Aramaic Concise Dictionary, 18th ed. 1995, p. 231
- ↑ Wilhelm Gesenius , Hebrew and Aramaic Concise Dictionary, 18th edition 1995, p. 414
- ↑ a b Irmtraud Fischer: Rut / Rutbuch. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.