In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.2
The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there.3
But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4
These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5
and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Here are some of the issues that good commentators say a study of Ruth will bring to the fore, and I agree with them whole-heartedly:
A. Love. What is love? What is the cost of love? Why do we shy away from love? What does it mean to love when you get no love in return?
B. Gospel. How does understanding the love that we see in the book of Ruth enrich and anticipate our understanding of the gospel and God’s love for us? How is
the gospel a journey?
C. Community: How do we create community? What is the glue that keeps us together? How necessary is it?
D. Lament. How do you relate to God when he seems to have deserted you? How does faith encourage us to lament? Why do we dislike the idea of a lament?
E. Prayer. What does a praying life look like? Do we wait for God to act or do we act? What does it mean to live in a story?
F. Femininity. What does it mean to be feminine? How do we survive in a world (as Ruth’s was that was dominated by men or in ours where we don’t even know what
a woman is?)
G. Masculinity. What does a godly man look like? What characterizes him? How do you combine gentleness and power? Again, in our culture, masculinity of all types
is just called toxic and should be extinguished.
Look at those first five verses of Ruth again.
The first thing we have to notice is that suffering is the crucible for love, we don’t learn love anywhere else as we do in the crucible. Suffering doesn’t create
love, but it is a hot-house for love.
Ruth begins with suffering, Naomi’s. Look at how quickly it comes…five verses…it is like the waves of the sea and in a matter of 15 seconds we are swept into the suffering
of Naomi. Why the move to Moab? The Moabites were the product of incest between Lot and one of his daughters. As commentators will point out, Mo means who and ab means father. So, Moab, is the land of “whose your daddy”
There was always bad blood between the Moabites and Israel. When Israel asked to pass through Moab on their way to Canaan, Moab simply refused. They are the ones who
paid Balaam to curse Israel and when that didn’t work, Balaam told the Moabites that the way to get Israel was to lead them into sexual immorality…which they did. Moab, to put it simply, was a place of trouble. But there was a famine in Israel and so the move
was made.
My wife’s Grandma Barrett had four children, one died of SIDs, one of pneumonia when she was 12, the other, Dana’s mother, killed in an airplane accident. Grandma
was a bitter woman, mad at God…and humanly speaking, who could blame her?
Naomi’s losses would have been even more staggering. In that day to have no husband and no sons left a woman destitute…what was she to do? She is in a foreign
land and has no provider and in a day where women were not treated well.
I read that “a leading management consultant posed this hypothetical situation to American men: Your mother, your wife and your daughter are all in a sinking boat
and you can rescue only one of them. Who do you rescue? 60% would rescue their daughter and 40% would rescue their wife. All would leave the mother adrift. Sorry moms.
The consultant then posed the same question to Saudi men, and every one of them said they would rescue their mother. Why? In the traditional cultures of the Near East,
mothers have no identity outside the home. Their daughters marry and leave while their sons remain, forging a powerful mother son bond. Their sons are their life. Naomi has lost her life. She has no purpose, no meaning. Death would be a relief.
Think of what Paul says to the Corinthians: For we do not want you to
be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. 2
Corinthians 1:8
Life can feel that way at times. Of course, Paul would tell us why the Lord allowed this to come to him and to us, as he concludes, that this happened so that we would
not trust ourselves but Him who raises the dead. BUT, but often getting to that point is nothing but the unique artistry of God’s grace.
We are so many layers removed from true hardship, true destitution…with Naomi’s son’s wives being barren and then her son’s death she has lost her future and has no
reason to live. At her age it was highly unlikely she would remarry. As far as we know she has no trade or means of support. This is long before welfare and besides, she is in Moab!!!
Miller does an interesting explanation of the names of those in the story. As you know, names were a big deal to Israel culture…
Bethlehem=house of bread
Elimelech (her husband)=my God is king
Naomi=pleasant
Mahlon (son)=weak
Chilion (son)=frail
So here is the story retold: In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of the house of bread in Judah went to sojourn in the country
of who’s your daddy, he and his wife had two sons. The name of the man was My God is king and the name of his wife, Pleasant, and the names of his two sons were Weak and Frail. They were Ephrathites from the house of bread in Judah. They went into the hill
country of Who’s your daddy and remained there. But my god is king, the husband of Pleasant, died and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years and
both Weak and Frail died so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
Did you catch the irony? A famine in the house of bread??? God is King, is dead. Pleasant’s husband and sons have died. Is life mocking her? Worse
yet, is God mocking her?
So, suffering is the context, intense, wish I were dead suffering. But it is out of all of this that love will emerge and emerge in a way it could not have had it
not been for suffering.
Prayer: Father, while I see myself in Naomi, I also see Your mercy and grace in Jesus that has made me whole and given me new life! Help me to walk in the hope
of the new life that Christ has given! I pray that everything in my life would point to Jesus and that I would rejoice in a life of obedience to Him who has given His life for me, in Jesus name, Amen.
Hymn: All to Jesus I Surrender