The Start - Ruth 1

Around the time of Gideon, in the area that the tribe of Judah inhabited, there was a famine. The northern area of Israel was where most of the other 10 tribes lived, but in the south, where Judah lives, the IM says “the people eof Judah regularly battled another sort of enemy: the climate. Judah occupied a rugged plateau in the semiarid lands west of the Dead Sea. Normally, the land was fertile enough to sustain fields of wheat and barley, grape vineyards, and groves of olive and fig trees. But occasionally the rains failed, the crops withered and there was famine.” It was during one of those famine times that the story of Ruth starts. There’s a man who lives in Judah named Elimelech, and his wife Naomi, and his two sons Mahlon and Chilion. TB notes that the names of the sons, and probably also of Ruth and her sister-in-law Orpah were almost certainly invented by the writer of the book and points out that the names Mahlon and Chilion means “weak” and “failure” and said that no parent, especially anciently when names meant so much, would have named their sons “weak” and “failure.” So that was interesting.

During the famine, this man Elimelech took his family out of the place in Judah, Bethlehem specifically, and into a neighboring place Moab. They lived there for 10 years and during that time, the man Elimelech dies. The two sons marry Moabite women and then the two sons die. There’s a couple of important points to be made here, first is that two have the husband and both sons die, apparently was unusual. I have always assumed that people died young back then and this was just what happened, but TB says that even at this time, the death of all the males in the family was unusual and would have been considered a curse from God by the community at large. So why was this family considered cursed? The first assumption would be that they were cursed because the sons married Moabite women instead of fellow Hebrews. TB says that this wouldn’t have been the case, however, in his opinion, because “there was no command of God against this; Deuteronomy 7:3 forbade marriage to Canaanites, but not to Moabites.” This might be a stretch, but it’s also possible because the people of Moab were kinsmen to Israel because they were descendants of Abraham’s nephew Lot, so maybe it would have been different, I’m not sure.

The second, and TB says actual, reason why the family was cursed by God was because Elimelech left Judah when he didn’t have to. Yes there was a famine but by that logic, then all of Judah should have left and looked elsewhere for food, and we don’t hear anything about that. There was something about the tradition being that it wasn’t socially acceptable to leave your homeland looking for food until the price of food had at least doubled, then it was acceptable, but at this point, when Elimelech left Judah, the price of food hadn’t double yet, so it was more of an inconvenience than a survival necessity, therefore the family was cursed and all the men died.

With all the men dead, Naomi was in a tight spot, she had no way to support herself and certainly no way to support her daughters-in-law, and she heard that the famine in Judah had abated, so she decided to return home. She knew that she couldn’t offer a good life to her daughters-in-law so she told them to go back to their “mother’s house.” TB noted that this was an interesting phrase that is almost never used because it’s always “the father’s house,” so why would it be referred to as the mother’s house here? He says that it’s because this is a story about women and women’s issues in a male dominated society. They go back and forth saying that they don’t want to leave her but the reality of the situation is that it’s going to be a tough go for Naomi and she doesn’t have a means to support herself, or them, and without remarriage or returning to their father’s homes, the girls are going to have a rough go of it as well. The girls say they will go back with her to Judah, but Naomi says something interesting, she’s too old to have more sons even if she did get remarried, and even if she did and she had more boys, the girls would have to wait decades until those boys were old enough to marry them and have more kids, like it just wasn’t a viable solution to this problem.

Orpah agrees and leaves to go back to her father’s house, and there’s no shade there, she did what was right for her and made a good decision. Ruth, however, refuses to leave Naomi and makes the famous statement, “whither thou goes, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” This is a difficult concept for me to understand because I don’t understand the mother/daughter dynamic from the daughter side of things. I don’t have a good relationship with y mother, and I can’t imagine having this level of devotion and loyalty to a mother when there is another option. I probably would do it out of guilt and obligation but I wouldn’t do the whole “I’ll die where you die” thing. I genuinely don’t understand it, and it’s actually caused me problems with my own daughter. Not problems I guess, but more like I expect there to come a day in our relationship when my daughter realizes that her life is better off without me in it and she cuts contact with me. Like it will hurt my feelings but I’ll understand, and I expect that, so the loyalty doesn’t make any sense to me. My first assumption when Ruth wants to stay with Naomi is that Ruth is not close to her own mother and doesn’t want to go back home, so stays with Naomi with whom she has at least a minimally better relationship. But that might not be the case, it seems like she genuinely loves Naomi and that they have a great relationship.

The statement “and thy God my God” is Ruth’s way of denouncing the Moabite god Chemosh and declaring loyalty to the God of Israel, Jehovah. Like Rahab, the gentile who accepted the God of Israel just through everyday stories and hearing, Rith accepted Him too, assumingly the same way without any grandiose visions or experiences or anything like that. Great faith.

Once Naomi sees that she can’t dissuade Ruth from going home, they head back to Bethlehem and when they show up, the towns people recognize her and ask, “Is this Naomi?” To which Naomi replies, “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home against empty.” The IM comments, “Naomi here used a play on words based on her name. In Hebrew Naomi means ‘sweet or pleasant’ and Mara means ‘bitter.’ When, after many years’ absence, the people greeted her in surprised by asking, ‘Is this Naomi?’, she responded by saying, ‘Call me not Naomi (pleasant), call me Mara (bitter): for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.’ This reply was not an accusation, only Naomi’s way of saying that she had endured much tragedy while in Moab.” When I read this in the IM yesterday, I totally understood where Naomi was coming from, the bitterness at her circumstances and that’s exactly how I felt yesterday but I slept well today and woke up feeling more empowered and a little bit better. It’s hard, bitterness is my natural state of being, I’ve been bitter for most of my life and I’m working on it, but it’s hard, so I relate to Naomi here and I don’t think that Jesus is mad at us for grieving tough circumstances.