This passage is the first place in the book of Ruth that we see the mention of the name and work of the Lord. Verse 6 says she didn’t just hear that there was no longer a famine but she heard “Lord had visited his people and given them food. Here we see the relationship that Naomi is acknowledging between the Lord and His people (whom she is one of) and we see the personal provision of God providing for His people.
Now we may say: Why is God providing now and not ten years ago when they left?
The famine was God’s discipline on Israel. The famine was to lead Israel to a place of repentance. And there are numerous times in the book of Judges (The story of Naomi and Ruth takes place during the time of Judges) where we see Israel calling out to the Lord and God brings deliverance or protection or provision. The discipline produced what it was supposed to produce which was the Lord’s people turning back to the Lord.
And so while we are not given the reason why the Lord chose at this time to visit His people and remove the famine, it was most likely related to a season of repentance on the part of Israel.
And so after hearing there was food in Israel, Naomi made the decision to return.
Verse 6 says, “Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab…”
It is interesting that the writer says she “arose.” I don’t necessarily think the writer is simply giving us specific details that the moment she made this decision she was sitting down and now she stands up.
I think the idea that they “arose” is that they are making the decision to no longer sit in this place of grief. They are no longer sitting in this place of mourning. It is now time to move forward with their lives as three widowed women whatever that looks like.
Now I would argue that Naomi and her husband Elimelech and their two sons never should have been in Moab. That when they left Israel it was a place of disobedience. And so I would like to believe that when she decided to return it came from a place of repentance and obedience.
But I don’t think that is the heart motivation of Naomi. I think once again her physical needs are driving her life. I think she is in a place where she has no where to go. She doesn’t have family in Moab. She doesn’t have roots in Moab. She is a foreigner there. This is no one there to provide for her.
And she is going to return to her home.
I believe that sometimes God can allow the Christian prodigal who has walked away from God, walked away from the church, the body of Christ, sometimes God can allow them to a reach a place where they have no where else to go. And in that place God begins to move their hearts toward Him. And in that moment they may not be in a place of repentance, but they know that where that are at is not where they should be.
You see people walk back into a church and they are not sure what they are looking for but they know where they have been. They might had previously had a relationship with God, maybe even surrendered their life to Christ but at some point been drawn away but the things of this world. And when the world left them unsatisfied they turned back to that time in their life where they remembered the goodness of God.
And this is the continual work of God and the grace of God. God is often drawing us back to him even when we are not in a place of repentance. God is drawing us back to him even when we may still be angry and bitter toward God. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. It doesn’t say that when we repent then we will experience God’s kindness.
You may have a prodigal child or prodigal spouse or prodigal friend in your life that has walked away from God. It may not be a easy prayer to pray but maybe your prayer for them is this, ‘God, bring them to a place where they have no where else to go but you. And bring them to a place where they are reminded of your goodness.’
In verse 6, Naomi may not realize it but God is drawing her home.
Verses 7-14
Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to return to their home so that their physical needs would be met and so that their families and their people can care for them. Again, Naomi is viewing life through her own ability. Elimelech and Naomi couldn’t provide for their sons and so they left Israel. Naomi can’t provide for her daughters-in-law and so she tells them to return to her home.
On one level it might seem like she is trying to provide for them but again she is doing it outside of the provision of God. She talks God’s provision. Verses 8-9 says, “May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!”
And it sounds like she is trusting in the protection of God but I wonder if it is more of a surface level blessing. I wonder if it is more about nice words then true faith. Sometimes we can say or pray words of God’s provision for others when we don’t really believe it for ourselves.
Naomi should have said what Moses told his Father-in-Law, a Midianite “We are setting out for the place which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.
I believe she should have said, ‘Come, my daughters, serve the Lord and find blessing in His protection and care.”
But the problem is that at this point in Naomi’s life I don’t think she has confidence that the Lord will provide for her and for these two women. At this point in her life, there is so much pain, bitterness and disappointment. She is responding to life based on what she can control.
When they tell her they won’t leave her. She says in verse 13, “No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.”
In other words, you don’t want to share in my bitter life because God is against me. The New Living Translation says, “LORD himself has raised his fist against me.”
She is saying, “You don’t want the life that I have.” Her husband has died. Her sons have died. She might assume her daughters-in-law will be taken from her. Go back to your own families maybe the Lord will bless you. But you don’t want my bitter life.
For one of the daughters-in-law, Orpah, Naomi made her case. Orpha heard her. Orpah determined that the best decision for her future would be to return to her family. And she kissed Naomi and left.
So far in this book we have seen all of the people in this story make decisions based on their own understanding and perspective. Naomi encourages her daughters to go home. Orpha agrees with that decision. But then in the middle of verse 14, someone ignores the wisdom of human logic and makes a very different decision. A decision that changes the whole storyline of this book.
Verse 14 says, “And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.”
This may be the most important verse in this short story. While one made the decision to return to her land, to her family to her gods, another woman said contrary to human wisdom, ‘I am not leaving you.’
The word “clung” used here is the same word used in Genesis 2:24 to describes how a husband cleaves to or holds tightly to his wife. It is a very intimate bond.
When it says Ruth clings to Naomi, she is saying I am joining my life with your life regardless of the pain and the disappointment and the bitterness.
And what Ruth doesn’t realize (and what Ruth has given to us) is that she is displaying how true biblical faith lives. She shows the kind of faith that says, “I am all in” regardless of the circumstances and the outcome.
Verses 15-18
Ruth is denying all that she came from, her identity as a Moabite woman and the gods of the Moabite people and she is saying, ‘I am laying that down’ and I now want my identity to be as one who is a part of the people of Israel and I want my God to be the God of Israel.
What Ruth gives to us in this moment is a picture of what faith does. Faith is not just a mental exercise but there is an action that goes with faith.
And the reason why Ruth’s action is so significant is because it is in contrast to how Elimelech and Naomi lived. Elimelech may have had an intellectual faith in God but it wasn’t displayed in how he lived. Elimelech most likely would have believed in the reality of the God of Israel. But he didn’t allow that intellectual reality impact how he lived.
James 2:17 says that faith without works is dead. Faith without the actions that represents that faith is a dead faith. Don’t just tell me of your faith, show me your faith. Don’t just tell me you are a follower of Jesus, show me through your life that you are a follower of Jesus.
Elimelech and Noami had an opportunity to live out their faith when there was a famine in the land. They had an opportunity to be still and let God to be God. But instead they fled.
The beginning of chapter 1 is an example of what it looks like to live based on your own understanding and the consequences when we live out of our own understand. And then right in the middle of chapter 1 we are surprised by this incredible statement of faith from Ruth. A faith that says I will give up my life in order to place my hope in someone else.
In Ruth, we are giving a picture of what faith does.
Now why would Ruth give herself to Naomi, to the people of Israel and to God? On the surface, it doesn’t make sense.
What did Ruth offer? Nothing. She was a widowed woman who appears to be under the discipline or judgment of God. She seems like a cursed woman.
What did the people of Israel offer? They were a country that had been in an extreme famine. And she would be going to them as a foreigner. She would go from the advantages of her homeland to the disadvantages of being an outsider.
And what did the God of Israel offer? Ruth has gotten first hand experience of seeing God allow Naomi experience deep pain and tragedy. What kind of God, if he truly is God, would allow this?
Ruth has every reason not to go with Naomi and become a part of Israel and choose to make the God of Israel her God. So why does she give up everything to go. Well, we are not necessarily told in these verses. But I don’t think this was simply a human decision made through the lens of human wisdom. I believe this was an Abraham moment.
In Genesis 12:1 God called a man named Abram and said “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” And by faith, Abram went. God revealed himself to Abram in a way in which Abram recognized that the God that was calling to him was indeed the one true God. And he trusted God with his life. In the life of Abraham we are given a picture of what faith does. It is not just a picture of faith, it is a picture of how faith lives. Abraham believed and he went.
And I believe with Ruth, we are given another picture of what faith does or how faith lives when God calls. I believe Ruth is responding in both a place of faith and obedience to a God that ironically was introduced to her by Naomi.
It is important to note that I don’t necessarily think in this statement Ruth is declaring, ‘I am surrendering my life to the one true God. I am turning away from my false idols and to one who is the maker of heaven and earth.”
But here is what I do think. I believe that just as God called Abram. God pursued and called Ruth. And placed it upon her heart to love and care Naomi wherever she goes. And God placed it upon her heart to make Israel her people and to make Him her God.
And this call to her is so strong that she even says in verse 17, “May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” Her commitment to Naomi, was made before the Lord. Because He was the one drawing her and calling her to Him.
Even if Ruth didn’t fully understand who God is, she knew His calling was real and she responded with full commitment. And while I don’t believe Ruth recognized it in the moment, she was displaying the kind of faith that God desires everyone to have who responds to him. It is a faith that is completely committed.
Faith doesn’t have to have all of the answers. But when God calls faith fully gives of ourselves. Faith fully goes where God calls. Faith isn’t half-hearted. Faith doesn’t have one foot in and one foot out. True faith fully trust regardless of the circumstances or the outcome.
Ruth has no reason to believe in her own wisdom that there is hope in her future but I believe God has placed a hope in her so deeply that she is able to turn away from what she knows and go to what is unknown.
These words of Ruth are really an incredible statement.
And this faith of Ruth is the same faith that Jesus calls us to exhibit. A faith in which Jesus said, ‘if you don’t deny yourself, if you don’t take up your cross and lay down your life for my sake, you can’t truly be my disciple.’
A faith in which Jesus says, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”
This is the commitment that the Apostle Paul displayed when he said in Philippians 3:8, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”
When Ruth committed her life to Naomi through the call of God, it was not a temporary commitment. In verse 17, she says I will die where you die.
When we read this short story it could have easily been titled Naomi because she really is the primary person in this book. But it is called Ruth (not just because later we are going to see the line of David and the Messiah will come from Ruth) but because she is an example of what faith does.
I wonder for Naomi if there was a moment of conviction seeing this Moabite woman commit to her and Israel and God in such an incredible way. I wonder if there was a moment in which God spoke to her and said, “Naomi, that is what I want from you.”
Every day we have a decision to walk by faith or by our own understanding. And every day we have the decision to deny ourselves and follow Jesus or take control of our life and simply give lip service to Jesus.
May we have the faith of Ruth that says, ‘I am all in” regardless of the outcome.