The book of Ruth, like all Scripture, is written by a human author who is guided by the Spirit of God. This means that its historic context, specific details, every tension and resolution to that tension, is designed to reveal God, His ways and His perspective to us. As God reveals himself through the divinely inspired storyteller, watch for the narrative, repetition of words, and the names of people and places to have significance and meaning.
Ruth is an amazing love story, told from a woman’s viewpoint, skillfully written to entertain and to draw us into the drama which is to reveal the true hero of the story, God! Although the book is called Ruth, we quickly discover that she is not the central character, but plays a supporting role to Naomi who is a key figure in every scene. Many of us have read this story many times and know many of the details, but I challenge you as you read along and study the book again, despite your gender, to relate to the main character of the story, Naomi, and look to see the love God extends and reveals to her. If you are a Christian, Ruth is God’s love story to you.
Ruth 1:1-2 (ESV)
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.
As we read through the book of Judges we see a time of extreme social and political chaos and spiritual failure because God’s people, Israel, had slipped into such a state of moral decay, compromise and idolatry that they had become “worse than the Canaanites.” They were no longer even attempting to restore their relationship with God but “everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (cf. Numbers 15:39; Judges 21:25).
The first verse in Ruth refers to these “days of the Judges” so that we would know the dangerous and chaotic setting in which Naomi and her family lived in, and that there was also famine in the land. All of this starts building the tension in the story right away. The people and land of Israel are suffering the consequences of their sin in the covenant curses which God had promised if they didn’t obey His good law (cf. Deut. 11:14, 28; 32:24 & Lev. 26). Elimelech, Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon & Chilion (both pagan names), leave Bethlehem (the promised land God had brought them to) and went to Moab, a land of Israel’s enemies (cf. Gen. 19:30-38, Num. 22-25, Deut. 23:3-6, & Judg. 3:12-14). Christopher Ash, in his book Teaching Ruth & Esther writes; “This family did not go to a place where the people of Abraham were blessed; they went to a land where Abraham’s seed was cursed” and that it was so much more that going from point A to B to find food, but was more like saying “Things were difficult in our home country, so we emigrated to join the Islamic State in Syria” (pg. 44). Verse 1 says they went to sojourn there but vs 2 says they left their clan of the Ephrathites; left Bethlehem, which means “house of bread” and went into Moab and remained there; in essence, left their family & beliefs.
Elimelich & Naomi are like many of us who have been raised in the church and have heard about God and his ways but did not have relationship with him and did not “know” him. We all have been like Naomi & Elimelech in that we all have gone astray and done what is right in our own eyes, and we all have had false beliefs about God and who he is. We all have lived in a state of rebellion to Him, failed to trust Him and look to Him to meet our needs, and we have looked to other things to satisfy. Even now as we read this story, it is in our nature to “instinctively imagine ourselves cast to act in a story in a role with which we are sympathetic”, because we tend to think the best about ourselves and what we would do in the situation. “This idealism is a manifestation of pride” and must be resisted! Ash reminds us that “if we are to be cast as anyone in a Bible drama, it is more likely to be a villain or at best a coward” (pg. 20).
Please join me in prayer:
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your hand on me before I knew you, when I was doing what was right in my own eyes and going my own ways, looking for my needs to be met, my satisfaction and my comfort in every place but you. Thank you for convicting me of these very sins today as I read about Naomi and for convicting me of my sin of pride, thinking highly of myself when the truth is that any good in me is because of the work that you have done. Thank you for giving me the will and desire to repent! Amen.