Ruth: Lesson 1

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Ruth: A Blogged Bible Study
Beerlahairoi.blogspot.com

Syllabus

5/20/08 Introduction

5/27/08 Chapter 1: Losses and Gains

6/3/08 Chapter 2: Gleaning

6/10/08 Chapter 3: Redemption Requested

6/17/08 Chapter 4: Redemption Manifested


Chapter 1: Losses and Gains

Imagine for a bit that you are a woman of the tribe of Reuben about a thousand years before the birth of Christ. You...and perhaps some companions...have a walking trip you must take. Early in the morning, you make your way from your home near the Moab border west to the road that comes up from Moab and heads North. With the sun coming up behind you, the early summer day promises to be lovely, and, when you reach the road, you decide to stop and rest just a bit and have a snack of raisins and roasted grain and a drink from the water sack before continuing your journey.

Sitting under a gnarled tree, by a large rock, munching slowly on your provisions, you are not seen by the three women coming up the road from the south. An older lady, with two young women, all in mourning garb, are moving slowly but with purpose along the road, small bundles strapped to their backs. Suddenly, they seem to realize that they have left Moab and are now in Israel, and they stop to confer. You cannot make out what they're saying, but they are obviously distressed. The older woman speaks, and points back down the road the way they came. Both younger women shake their heads, and the sound of weeping reaches you as they clasp the hands of the older woman, one on each side. The older woman rather abruptly shakes her hands free, and points back towards the south, and, although you still cannot make out what she is saying, you can detect the hard bitterness in her voice. One of the young women takes a step backwards, looking into the face of the older woman for a moment. Then, she begins to weep anew as she kisses the older woman sadly. She glances at the other young woman, who shakes her head slightly. The first young woman nods and squeezes the hand of her contemporary, and, with tears streaming down her face, turns reluctantly towards the south and heads back whence she came.

The other two women watch her for a moment in silence, then the older woman turns back to her companion and gestures back towards the south again. But this young woman shakes her head resolutely and speaks firmly. A slight shift in the morning breeze brings one phrase to your ears, 'Where you go, I will go....' When she stops speaking, the older woman looks at her intently and the young woman does not flinch under her gaze. The older woman nods once and, without speaking, turns her face toward the north and resumes her journey. The younger woman looks back south at the retreating figure and lifts one hand in a gesture of farewell, then rubs her hand across her face to wipe the tears away and turns to follow the older woman, hurrying her steps just a bit to walk beside her. They do not speak as they go over a slight rise and out of sight.

Although the book is named for Ruth, it is much a story of Naomi as it is of Ruth, especially in the first chapter. Naomi has been ten years away from her home, and she's lost her husband and then her sons. There is no mention of how they died; it has always struck me as odd that both her sons, who would have yet been young men, should die in an apparently very short time period. If it was an illness, it was odd that none of the women seemed to contract it. It seems likely that the young men died in an accident of some sort, but there's no way to tell. A now childless widow in a foreign land, she had no protection/provision at all where she was and, when she heard that the famine that provoked them to move to Moab had ended, she decided to return home. The daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, were likely living with her and helped her make the small preparations for the journey...probably selling what they could not carry with them and paying off any debts. They obviously took very little for the journey that would take them up the east side of the Dead Sea, across the Jordan, and west-southwest to Bethlehem.

There's no mention of how far the three women traveled together; at some point Naomi realized what the younger women would give up if they went with her. Perhaps she remembered how she felt, moving to a strange nation among people of strange customs. Or, perhaps in her bitterness she did not want the obligation of providing for them. Whatever her thoughts, she exhorted them to go back to their own people and find new husbands...and a future. Orpah, released from the obligation to care for her mother-in-law, decided to obey her wish. Ruth, however, refused to leave. In a beautiful little speech that is often quoted in weddings, she declared her intention to stay with Naomi all her life.

Naomi, however, did not recognize yet what Ruth was. When she arrived in her hometown, the folks there were astonished at her return. But Naomi did not even want them to call her by her name ('Pleasant'). Instead, she wanted them to call her 'Mara' ('Bitter'). 'I went out full' she told them, 'but the LORD has brought me back empty.' In typical human fashion, she put all her calamity down as God acting against her, personally. 'The Lord has afflicted me,' she lamented, 'The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.'

But standing silently beside her was a treasure whom God had seen and reached into Moab to bring out, because her character would shape a lineage. God's hand was not against them...it was for them. He had a greater destiny for them than they would have seen living in a foreign country, married to men who were content to live away from the land of God's promise. Naomi came back, not empty as she thought, but full of potential and on the brink of seeing God do great things.

It was not chance that brought them back to Bethlehem just as the barley harvest was beginning.

And, close to this same time, in the hill country of Ephraim, was another childless young woman who was beseeching God for a son. Though these women would never meet, the aged son of the Ephraimite would anoint a boy who was the great-grandson of Ruth. The time of 'everyone doing as he saw fit' was drawing to an end. There was a king coming.

But all Naomi could see at that moment was how much she had lost.

Closing thoughts: What negatives am I focusing on in my life, to the point that the blessings God has sent me are not even noticed? What have I gained that I have not even considered worth mentioning? Am I allowing bitterness in any area to prevent me from recognizing treasures God has placed in my life?