Ruth 1:8-18 – “Learning From Real People”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁴And they lifted up their voices and they wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and Ruth clung to her. ¹⁵And she said, “Look. Your sister-in-law has returned to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law.”

 ¹⁶And Ruth said, “Do not insist to me to leave you, to return from after you, because to where you go I will go and in where you remain I will remain. Your people my people, your God my God. ¹⁷Thus may the LORD do to me and thus may He add if death divides between me and between you.”

¹⁸And she saw, because one making herself strong to go with her, and she ceased to speak with her.

As I have enjoyed the luxury of slowing down to really ponder over these verses, I find the human emotion described is almost overwhelming. Here are these three ladies. Together they have shared sorrow upon sorrow. Each has buried her husband, Naomi also her two sons, her only two sons. As if that weren’t enough grief for one lifetime, the loss of their men has left them destitute. Who knows what deprivations they have suffered in their common poverty?

Finally Naomi resolves to return to Canaan. The girls obviously deeply love her, perhaps have no real culturally acceptable alternative, and so determine to go with her. But realize, for them, this walk is a walk away from everything they’ve ever known. Naomi at least is returning to the familiar. Obviously the girls’ mothers at least are still living, as Naomi urges them to return there, so as they walk along, they are leaving their own families. They are leaving their people, their familiar streets and hills, their dialect, and who knows what all else? And what are the girls walking to? They are going as foreign women (and foreign widows at that) into a nation which has been traditionally their bitter enemies. As they walk along they cannot possibly know whether they are walking into anything better or perhaps far worse. What if they get there and Naomi dies? Where will that leave them?

Then as they walk along, they come probably to the Jordan River, the border, and they face a decision: plunge into this unknown world with this woman they love, or tear themselves away from her and everything she has meant to them and return at least to a familiar, though hopeless world. No wonder they wept aloud in verse 8 and then “wept again” in verse 14. It is all an absolutely heart-wrenching time of seemingly utter hopelessness and deeply painful decisions, none of which offer any sure promise.

I think before we pass any judgment whatsoever on any of them, we need to pause and try for a moment to feel their pain. Commentators have traditionally been quick to label Naomi as a bitter, angry woman. She even calls herself that when they arrive in Bethlehem (v20). Orpah has been quickly cast as the half-hearted follower, who like Pliable, turns back at the point of decision. Ruth has been portrayed as a serene and noble woman of deep and exemplary resolve. Every one of these characterizations may contain an element of truth, and each may be worthy of observation and consideration, but I would suggest we do these poor ladies a heartless injustice if we judge their actions without first sympathizing with them in the depth of their sorrows.

What do I mean? Consider Naomi. It is true we find her in a spirit of bitterness. “It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has gone out against me” (v.13). “I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty” (v21). It is true. We find her in a spirit of bitterness – but should we judge the woman’s entire life, her entire character, on the state we find her in when she’s just buried her entire family and has been reduced to abject poverty? Didn’t Job talk a lot like this after he had to bury his ten children, lost all his worldly wealth, and finally his very health as well? With Job, we have the luxury of being told he was “blameless and upright,” before he said things like “In His great power … He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. I cry out to You, O God, but You do not answer … You turn on me ruthlessly” (30:18-21). After all of that, the Lord told Job’s three friends, “I am angry with you, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has” (42:7).

Notice too that everything Naomi says sounds an awful lot like the book of Lamentations – which, by the way is inspired Scripture. And may I remind us all as well that on the night before the Cross, the Savior Himself sweat great drops of blood and said, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death” (Mt 26:38).

I would suggest, before we condemn Naomi, we should look at the rest of what we’re told about her and consider what kind of person we find. Consider first that she is deeply loved by her two daughter-in-laws. Daughter-in-laws? We’re talking about a relationship which very often is far less than affectionate. The very nature of the relationship almost guarantees some element of friction. Yet, here are two girls who deeply love this woman, their mother-in-law! I think if we consider the other things Naomi says, we’ll see why – that she is actually a very kind-hearted, selfless woman whose character has endeared her to these two girls.

Think again about what she said in v8, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home.” If she were a selfish woman, she would rather have insisted they go with her, that they “owed” it to her out of respect. Think about it. She needs these young women. When they get to Bethlehem, it is Ruth who goes out and gleans in the fields. Naomi is getting too old for such hot, heavy labor. It is Ruth who goes out to gather what little food can even be had for the two of them. Yet we find Naomi here, thinking not of herself, but of these two girls. “May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then listen too as she says to them, “May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me.” If she were really just a bitter woman, the easiest thing for her to do would have been to lash out at these girls, to perhaps implicate them in the deaths of her sons, to pounce on whatever weaknesses they may have had as wives. Yet, all she can do is express gratitude to them.

I would like to suggest we err to paint Naomi as a bitter woman. I think the other evidence indicates to us a kind-hearted, godly woman, whom we have the misfortune of meeting just at the moment she reaches the very lowest point of her human existence. Her story (and since we know the end) should encourage us in our darkest moments to perhaps rise above the bitterness of our hearts. But too, may her example help us not to be harsh with good people in the midst of their suffering. Perhaps we need to learn to just “give them space” and trust that their love for God will yet conquer the temporary bitterness of their emotions.

I think we can do the same with poor Orpah. Before we’re too harsh, we need to sympathize with this young woman’s plight. Not so long ago, she was a young girl, dreaming of a husband and a family, and a place of her own. Then this handsome young fellow Chilion stepped into her life and it was all falling in place. Her dreams were coming true. There was a wedding. He took her into a home. And suddenly, even before she could become a mother, she lost it all. Now we find her facing this extremely difficult decision of whether to follow her mother-in-law into the unknown, or at least remain in her familiar world.

I can say I wish she had seen what Ruth saw. I wish she could have had the faith to travel to Israel and, like Ruth, find hope in “the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (2:12).  I don’t know how grace worked in Ruth’s heart where it seems it did not in Orpah’s. But I see too much of myself in her to quickly cast stones. For myself, it only moves me to pray for my family, my children and grandchildren, that when they come to those same decision points in their lives, that grace will win, and that they, like Ruth, will always find that our God is a “rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”

Before I close this post, I want to just briefly consider Ruth herself. I love vv.16,17. I memorized her immortal words many years ago. I seriously wonder if ever in all of human history were there ever uttered such words of simple but profound grandeur? And there is much to admire. She clearly understood the spiritual ramifications of her choice, “Your God shall be my God.” Further, there was, in fact, something within her that compelled her decision. The Hebrew of v18, actually describes Ruth as “one strengthening herself.” It gets translated as something like, “She was determined,” but, for whatever it’s worth, the Hebrew is very clearly reflexive, that there is something volitional going on inside her. She is in fact a young woman to admire.

But once again, I think we do her a great unkindness if we simply read her words and envision a resolute but serene young woman standing there in the road. Let us pause to remember she speaks these words through tears. Her world is nothing but despair and uncertainty. While we admire her words (and we should), let’s also let our hearts feel sympathy for this poor girl. No young woman should have to suffer what she has suffered. But then, from that vantage, I suppose we only admire her more. She exemplifies for us the matchless beauty of faith. Hoping against hope, this young woman is doing what she’s doing, saying what she’s saying, because her heart has found hope in the God of Israel. That’s what I mean by the matchless beauty of faith. She has nothing but faith – and that makes her a woman who speaks words still ringing three thousand years later.

Even in the Bible, if we let the people be real people, we only learn more.