Ruth

When I’ve studied the book of Ruth in the past, my thoughts have mostly drifted toward acknowledging Ruth’s greatness. Ruth was faithful. Ruth was yielding. Ruth took care of small business. I can easily look at Ruth and admire her because she is easier for me to relate to. Ruth was an outsider. However, despite everything I have previously gleaned from the book of Ruth (see what I did there?) I can’t help but wonder if I’ve missed the main point of the text. 

The scene is set around 1100 BC, in the time of the judges. A famine had taken over the land of Israel. One family journeys to the land of Moab to survive. While famines are primarily associated with punishment for sin throughout the Old Testament, this is not the main focus of our story. Many preachers have focused on this story element and, in turn, have missed the main point. They’ve harped on how wrong it was to not trust God in the famine by staying in the promised land. They’ve emphasized this family’s stepping out of God’s will to travel to a foreign land for provision. They vindicate their claims with the fact that Naomi lost her husband and both sons, was left barren, and her sons intermarried with immoral women. As if the story could stop after the first couple of paragraphs, they drive their main point home: God can take your disobedience and unfaithfulness and turn it around for good as part of his plan. While God can do that and whatever he wants, other scriptures could drive their presumptuous points home with much more appropriate context.

The author of the book uses the first couple of paragraphs to set the scene for the audience. Simply setting a scene and stating facts does not give readers enough information to judge how or why this Israelite family ended up in Moab. Several stories could be made up to support any message a person would want to drive home. But that’s not how God intended the Scripture to be read. Sometimes, things just are.

There was a famine in Judah, and Moab was still suffering.

When biblical stories unfold, we don’t always understand why a story starts the way it does. If that part of the story is not shared, then that part is not the part we need to focus on. If God isn’t focusing on it for what he wants to convey in the text, why should we? The author does not dissect the first five verses throughout the story, so we can assume the author is just setting the scene. 

Let’s take a look at the text together:

1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. ² The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

³ Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. ⁴ They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, ⁵ both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

Ruth 1: 1-5 NIV

Continuing on into verses 6-14, the plot thickens:

⁶ When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. ⁷ With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

⁸ Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. ⁹ May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud ¹⁰ and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

¹¹ But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? ¹² Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— ¹³ would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

¹⁴ At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

Ruth 1: 6-14 NIV

News didn’t travel as quickly back then as it does now with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! Had Naomi completely cut off ties to her people in Israel, she would have never heard how her God had come through and that there was bread in Bethlehem. You can and should note this, though: Naomi and her daughters-in-law’s first response to this news is to prepare to return to Naomi’s homeland. What remarkable proof of Naomi’s influential faith in her little family despite their residence in Moab! The three women prepare for the journey and set off towards Judah.

Tarry for a moment with me in verse 9. Naomi and her daughters-in-law had prepared to make the journey together. They were in this thing together. But here, Naomi turns to her daughters and offers them a choice. She releases them from any obligations they may feel toward her and her dead sons. She acknowledges their kindness toward her and blesses her in the name of the Lord. She will not hold them to their former promises.

You might say that yesterday’s yes was sufficient for yesterday but it’s inadequate for today. Their situation had changed since yesterday, and Naomi did not want her daughters to follow her just because it was the right thing to do. Additionally, having known what it was like to adjust to life in a foreign land and being well aware of the obstacles they’d likely encounter once in Judah, Naomi reassured them of her love and prayed the Lord would guide them right where they were in Moab, the land they were already accustomed to.

Had Naomi fostered an authoritative type relationship with her daughters, perhaps they would not have responded with such an authentic display of brokenness and compassion. At first, both daughters refused to leave her side. Perhaps they were moved to stay more by the loyalty they’d acquired toward her, considering the three of them had fared the losses of all of their husbands together. In response, Naomi acknowledges her inability to provide for them the typical way their culture would have provided for them.

Naomi believed the Lord’s hand had turned against her, yet she was still returning home. Naomi loved her daughters, deferred to them, and she put the ball in their court. At this, Orpa point in the texth kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to Naomi.

Continuing on in verses 15-18, make special note of Ruth’s response:

¹⁵ “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

¹⁶ But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” ¹⁸ When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Ruth 1: 15-18 NIV

Ruth is set apart and determined to follow through with her intentions. She displays the same resolve Naomi exhibited in her decision to return to her people’s land after hearing about God’s blessing. Ruth had developed her own faith in the Lord. It didn’t matter who she was before she came to know him; what mattered was that she loved Naomi and her God and could not fathom a life apart from Naomi and her God.

Transitions often test and reveal the depth of our faith in God. Frequently, we question God’s favor in our lives when we experience significant loss. It’s human nature to look at those things that are physical, those things we can see and touch. And sometimes, we have to accept that our plans or dreams do not always align with God’s will. I find it hard to believe how the Lord remains faithful, offering us a choice to draw near or retreat even when we are in heightened times of emotional turmoil and depression. That’s the beauty of a loving relationship based on trust. Relationships founded in freedom and love say,

I chose you yesterday, and I still choose you today. You can’t get rid of me. I’m all in. I don’t care what is coming, I’m in. God is still on the throne and I’m not. If I die, bury my bones next to yours because that’s where I belong.

Ruth’s steadfast, undeniable faith and trust in Yahweh can easily be identified.

Some might even compare her response to Esther’s, “If I perish, I perish,” in Esther 4:16.

It can also be likened to Thomas’s, recorded in John 11:16, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Ruth 1 concludes:

¹⁹ So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

²⁰ “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. ²¹ I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

²² So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

Ruth 1: 19-22 NIV

My eyes are drawn to Naomi, even though they are used to noticing Ruth.

We see the bigger picture of the Bible that reveals God’s heart for people when we slow down to look at relationships in the text and not just individuals.

Naomi is in pain. She is in so much pain that she wants to change her name to match how she feels about herself. Naomi doesn’t doubt God’s sovereignty; she still believes He is who He says He is, but we see her suffering here. She went away full and is returning empty. Naomi is mourning. And yet, despite her pain, she returns. She came back. She came back with Ruth. 

The landscape now shifts, and our scene changes. What will the future hold for these women who, despite their suffering, are determined to continue on in their faith?

When you gave your life to the Lord, you were probably all in with a wholehearted yes. But perhaps you’ve experienced significant loss since then. Is your yes still a yes? Are you determined to stay steadfast in honoring and serving the Lord even when you feel neglected and forsaken? How are your relationships with others around you? When trouble hits, how can you guard your yes to not return to your Moab, but continue on to the Promised Land?