May 06, 2024 | Be God's Light
Ruth Vows to Stay with Naomi
Scripture: Ruth 1 (NIV)
1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2 The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3 Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”
Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”
14 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
Devotional
During the period of the book of Judges we have a beautiful story told in the book of Ruth. The story begins in Bethlehem. At the conclusion of this book, we see that Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of King David, and the ancestor of Jesus. That is why Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem when she was about to give birth to the Son of God (Luke 2:1-8).
But Ruth herself was not from Bethlehem. She was not even from Judah, or a Jew at all. Rather, she was from Moab, on the other side of the Dead Sea. It was there that she met and married one of the people who left Bethlehem during a famine in search of a better place to live and eat.
In time, Ruth’s husband died, as did his brother and father. She was left alone with her foreign mother-in-law, a woman named Naomi. After the famine had ended and her husband and sons had died, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. Perhaps there she could be provided for by a relative. She released her two daughters-in-law from any obligation.
It is then that Ruth famously replied, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried” (Ruth 1:16-17).
Think about each of these statements. What would the implications be for a Moabite woman moving among the Israelite people?
Where you go I will go.
Where you stay I will stay.
Your people will be my people.
Your God will be my God.
Where you die I will die.
Where you are buried I will be buried.
Poem
Grace Presence
Dedicated To Lisa
The great grace to enter a family
So very unlike one you’ve known
To learn a new way of being
Unusual customs be shown
This is the grace honed in marriage
This is the great task to pursue
Allowing another increasing
A willing decreasing of you
The patience to stay at a bedside
Of one who is sickly, in need
The courage to stand at a graveside
With family adopted, to grieve
This presence, the off’ring of true love
This presence, this carrying lift
When borne long with empathy sharing
Becomes a miraculous gift
Then staying with faithfulness steady
As new journeys span forth ahead
When future’s path dark lies before you
When choosing another instead
“Wherever you go, I’ll be with you,
Wherever your home, there is mine
I’ll travel this life set before you
I’ll carry your burden as mine”
