Wife of ELIMELECH of Bethlehem, who loses husband and both sons in Moab and returns emptied to her home town, telling the women to call her not Naomi ('my sweetness') but Mara ('bitter'), 'for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me' (1:20). Her honest, unflinching naming of God as the author of her grief runs through the book, and her scheme to seek 'rest' for her daughter-in-law RUTH (3:1) drives its resolution. By the end the women of Bethlehem tell her a redeemer is born and 'a son has been born to Naomi' (4:17) — the emptiness reversed, and the line of David begun.