The interpretation timeline

Ruth 1:20

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Ruth 1:20 · Douay-Rheims
“But she said to them: Call me not Noemi, (that is, beautiful,) but call me Mara, (that is, bitter,) for the Almighty hath quite filled me with bitterness.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
604
A.D.
Gregory the Great Patristic
c. A.D. 540–604
“In describing loftily the sweetness of contemplation, you have renewed the groans of my fallen state, since I hear what I have lost inwardly while mounting outwardly, though undeserving, to the topmost height of rule. Know then that I am stricken with so great sorrow that I can scarcely speak; for the dark shades of grief block up the eyes of my soul. Whatever is beheld is sad, whatever is thought delightful appears to my heart lamentable. For I reflect to what a dejected height of external advancement I have mounted in falling from the lofty height of my rest. And, being sent for my faults into the exile of employment from the face of my Lord, I say with the prophet, in the words, as it were of destroyed Jerusalem, "He who should comfort me hath departed far from me." … For I, my good man, have, as it were, lost my children, since through earthly cares I have lost works of righteousness. Therefore "call me not Noemi, that is fair; but call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness."”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.