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.

“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."”

“And she said, call me not Naomi, call me Mara,.... The one signifying "prosperity", according to Josephus (m), and the other "grief"; but he is not always correct in his interpretation of Hebrew words, or to be depended on; by this indeed her different states are well enough expressed, and he rightly observes, that she might more justly be called the one than the other; but the words signify, the one "sweet" and pleasant, and the other "bitter", see Exo 15:23, and the reason she gives confirms it: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me; had wrote bitter things against her, brought bitter afflictions on her, which were very disagreeable to the flesh, as the loss of her husband, her children, and her substance; see Lam 3:15. (m) Antiqu. l. 5. c. 9. sect. 2.”

“Call me not. The synagogue acknowledges her calamity, which after the coming of Christ she deservedly suffers: and she shrinks from being called beautiful, because she sees the times of her prosperity coming to an end. When first. That is, when the law turns the order of its own incarnation to the mystery of the passion of Christ. For the barley harvest expresses the time of the Lord's passion, which fell in the month of new things, that is, in the first month. Rightly therefore do they come to Bethlehem at that time, when the law preaches Christ, whom it teaches to have been born in Bethlehem, to have been slain at the pasch, that is, in the month of new things. Holy Church also labors with all her effort, that those whom she calls to the faith she may worthily imbue with the incarnation, the passion, the resurrection. The barley harvest expresses the belief of the Jews: who, the sacrament of the passion being accomplished, and the apostles preaching, come first to the faith. And they are read elsewhere to have been fed by the Lord with five barley loaves.”