“And she said,
‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return
after your sister-in-law’ But Ruth said,
‘Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you
lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be
my people, and your God my God. Where
you die I will die, and there will I be buried.
May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death part me
from you’. And when Naomi saw that she
was determined to go with her, she said no more.” –Ruth 1:15-18 (ESV).
“In
the days when the judges ruled” (Ruth 1:1) gives a broad time frame for the
story of Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi.
They lived after the conquest of Canaan and before about 1050 B. C. when
Saul became the first king of Israel.
Naomi and her husband Elimelech had migrated from Bethlehem to Moab to
escape the famine. While in Moab,
Elimelech died. Naomi’s sons, Mahlon and
Chilion, married Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah.
Ten years later, the sons die, childless. Here is Naomi, the Bethlehemite from Israel,
and her two widowed daughters-in-law with no means of support. Naomi is homesick for her homeland of
Israel. It’s a long way back to her old
home, but Naomi, determined to go. There
was no dissuading her, so Orpah and Ruth begin the journey with her. After a short distance Orpah is persuaded to return to her people;
but in the well-known statement of our focal verses today, Ruth makes her
commitment to Naomi and journeys with her to Bethlehem. Although the statement was made by a
daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, the scripture is frequently used in
marriage ceremonies to indicate the couple’s commitment to each other and to
God.
Imagine the hard circumstances that
faced Naomi and Ruth. First, each bereft
of husbands, they faced the prospects of finding a way to ward off hunger and
stay alive. Their way had no easy answers
for the time in which they lived, in a masculine-dominated society. Consider
the long journey over desert terrain as two women set out. Did they join a caravan? If so, this is not made a part of the
story. Arriving in Bethlehem, those who
remembered Naomi would have considered her unfortunate indeed, and under the
curse of God for her husband and sons had died (triple calamity); and besides
she had a Gentile daughter-in-law. But
the industry of Ruth and the ingenuity of Naomi were to stand them in good
stead. Ruth willingly went to work in
the fields to glean grain to have something for her and Naomi to eat and maybe
a little to sell for other necessities of life.
But as providence would have it, she was in the field of Boaz, who was
second-in-line as a Kinsman Redeemer of the two widows. He notices Ruth and instructs his overseer to
leave more grain so that the gleaner can have more to gather. Naomi, knowing that Boaz might be a possible
husband for Ruth, arranged for her daughter-in-law to meet him at the threshing
floor. This custom seems a bit bold to
us, but as it worked out, Boaz recognized there was another whose duty it was
to marry the beautiful widow Ruth, as her nearest-of-kin. At the city gate, it was determined that if
the man (unnamed) who was first in line would not take that step, purchase the
land that belonged to Emilelech, and marry Ruth, then Boaz would be free to do
so. The transaction was made in the
presence of ten elders, by the exchanging of a sandal, a token of the
agreement.. Furthermore, for his
kindness, the elders blessed Boaz and wished him offspring from the young woman
Ruth. The hardships of Naomi and Ruth
were coming to an end. God blessed them
with a worthy head-of-household, kind Boaz.
The two were married, and Obed, their son, was the father of Jesse, the
father of David, and an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. God’s providence turned their mourning into
joy, their hardships into plenty, and they in turn became blessings through “the Lion of Judah” the root of Jesse,
the root and descendant of David, the Messiah. God had in mind a special mission for
the Moabite woman named Ruth who had such determination and purpose in her
kindness toward her mother-in-law Naomi.
To God be the glory!
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