Ruth 1:6,7 – “Decisions"

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

⁶And she arose, she and her daughters-in-law, and she returned from the fields of Moab for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the LORD had visited His people to give them bread. ⁷And she went out from the place where she had been there and the two of her daughters-in-law with her, and they went in the way to return to the land of Judah.

The more I study these opening verses, the more I’m convinced it was a bad decision for Elimelech to take his family to Moab. As I’ve said before, I’m loath to be too hard on him because I know what it feels like to be in that kind of position. There is a famine going on. People are going hungry, some may even be starving. You have a wife and children to care for. You feel like you must do something to insure they’re provided for. The weight of it bears on you constantly. You’re faced with options. You think you see the best option and go for it. Then as the years go by, you realize that was a really bad decision and deeply regret it. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It even seemed like the “right” thing to do at the time, but 20-20 hindsight tells you it was a bad decision after all.

For me, this is one of the beauties of constantly studying the Bible. As I’m going along, living my life, making decisions, and going on living, I often find over time the Bible reveals to me inconsistencies between what I’m doing and what I’m finding it says. Those inconsistencies bother me, though at the time I may not know what to do with them. Then as I continue to study and pray and live my life, it becomes clearer and clearer to me exactly what is wrong and what I need to do differently. For me, this is a glorious freedom. It is freedom from me – the freedom to actually be able to rise above me, to see my life from God’s perspective, then to actually be able to implement changes that to me are (finally) clearly faith-driven.

As I would “look back” on Elimelech’s decision, I believe I would conclude (as so many times in my own life) that it really was a lack of faith thing. Hamilton Smith said, “The famine tests our faith. Elimelech was in the land of God's appointment for Israel. The tabernacle was there; the priests were there; the altar was there, but, in the governmental ways of God with His people, the famine was there; and the test for Elimelech was this, could he trust God in the famine and remain in God's appointed path in spite of the famine?” The key words here are “God’s appointed path.” Although I cannot personally find a single passage of Scripture that clearly says it was wrong for him to take his family to Moab, yet obviously the Lord’s plan for the Jewish people was for them to live in Canaan. Clearly, to leave Israel was to leave the land where Yahveh was their God (at least in principle) and to go live in a land that didn’t even acknowledge Him. Now, perhaps, it is 20-20 clear. Faith could have kept him in Israel. He should have just stayed there. The Lord would have provided for them.

Jewish tradition held that Elimelech and his sons died as judgment for that lack of faith. Once again, I’m not sure we need to be that harsh. I would rather look at it this way: On the understanding that it was wrong, obviously the Lord could not bless Elimelech and his family there. As a loving Father, He couldn’t allow them to just have a wonderful life there. He had to bring to bear circumstances that would make them want to get back where they belonged. The same thought is illustrated in the story of the Prodigal Son. It was his hunger that moved him to remember his father’s home. The other factor here is to realize that, even if it was wrong, the Lord was moving to bring Ruth to Israel. We may not understand why all these events had to play out, but in fact, the Lord wanted Naomi and Ruth to return to Israel. As Matthew Henry said, “Sometimes earth is embittered to us, that heaven may be endeared.” In their case, Moab was embittered to Naomi (and perhaps to Ruth), that Israel might be endeared. And of course it worked.

Back to the story, Elimelech is now dead, but Naomi is left to carry on. What should she do? She’s at a critical decision point herself now. She basically needs to go back where at least there is family around, where there is some hope that someone cares. Spiritually speaking, she needs to be in the “right place.” I’m not so sure how much of this she understands and how much she simply wants to go “home.” But whatever her reasons, she comes to a turning point and makes a decision. This time it is a good decision.

She hears “in the fields of Moab” that the famine is over. I suspect there is in fact a faith element here because what she hears and what moves her is that “the Lord has visited His people to give them bread.” It isn’t just “the famine is over.” It is that the Lord is at work. It has to do with “His people” (in contrast to the Moabites among whom she’s living), and there is food to eat, not just because the Stock Exchange has gone up and inflation is down; it’s not because Congress has passed a new public works program. The famine is over specifically because “the Lord is giving His people bread.” As confused and perhaps embittered as Naomi may be, note it is still, and always will be, all about the Lord. That was Job’s strength as well, I believe. As much as he suffered, as embittered as he became, yet it was all about the Lord and what He was doing in Job’s life. So it is with Naomi.

And so she gets up and says, “We’re leaving Moab. We’re going back to Israel.” For whatever reason, both girls accompany her. I don’t know if culturally it was shameful for them to go back to their fathers? Perhaps that is why Naomi will counsel them to go back to “their mothers’ homes” – maybe the only way culturally to “get in the door” was to go to Mom first? But for whatever reason, they all head out together.

It is interesting to me to note that the Hebrew literally says, “and they went in the way to return to the land of Judah.”   Note the “in the way.” I have often noted that Hebrew seemed to place a major significance on the term “the way.” Jeremiah says, “Here is the way, walk ye in it.”  Haggai said, “Consider your ways.” Jesus came and said, “I am the Way.” Note along with this how it says, “…she went out from the place where she had been there,” and that two times in the same verse it names that place as “the fields of Moab.” It seems to me, the Hebrew is taking literary pains to highlight that they are leaving Moab (by implication a bad place) and going in the right way – the way to Judah.

Such is our life. Lots of decisions.