God’s Strength Through Naomi

It has been said that when a soldier dies on the battlefield, two remembrances go through his mind, God and his mother.

There is a special relationship between a mother and son, a mother and her daughter that is different from that of a father. In the book of Ruth, we see a little family that relies on one strong mother. She deals with tragedy and guides what is left of her family back to God. The book of Ruth is a story about repentance; courage, hope and the choices we make that affect not only our own lives, but also generations that follow.

Preceding the story is that this was during a time when the people were being ruled by judges and there was not a king. In Judges it tells that chaos reigned throughout the land and “ every man did that which was right in his own eyes”, much as we see today. We are living in a time when there is mass confusion of who we are and what God intends our lives to be. When we wander away from God, we can see from history that very little good will come. God is not happy with the people around Bethlehem and brings a famine to the land that was known for its bounty. Now it is a land that is starving.

If I were to gather some people and ask what is the book of Ruth about, you would get different answers. There are many things that can be drawn from this book as with most books of the Bible. Again and again we see how God uses people that are just common people, unimportant people with lives that are much like our own. Another story that is one of my favorites is the woman at the well or I like to call it, The Woman With No Name. These are folks that we can relate to. Most important, this is a book about God and how He uses seemingly unimportant people to accomplish His purposes.

Ruth 1

1 During the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land. A man left Bethlehem in Judah with his wife and two sons to live in the land of Moab for a while.

2 The man's name was Elimelech (meaning God is King an indication of his faith), and his wife's name was Naomi (meaning delightful or lovely). The names of his two sons were Mahlon (means sickly) and Chilion. (means frail person). They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the land of Moab and [settled] there.

3 Naomi's husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons.

4 Her sons took Moabite women as their wives: one was named Orpah and the second was named Ruth. After they lived in Moab about 10 years,

5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two children and without her husband.

6 She and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to His people's [need] by providing them food.

7 She left the place where she had been living, accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, and traveled along the road leading back to the land of Judah.

8 She said to them, "Each of you go back to your mother's home. May the Lord show faithful love to you as you have shown to the dead and to me.

9 May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the house of your [new] husband." She kissed them, and they wept loudly.

10 "No," they said to her. "We will go with you to your people."

11 But Naomi replied, "Return home, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Am I able to have any more sons who could become your husbands?

12 Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was [still] hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons,

13 would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying? No, my daughters, [my life] is much too bitter for you [to share], because the Lord's hand has turned against me."

14 Again they wept loudly, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15 Naomi said, "Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law."

16 But Ruth replied: Do not persuade me to leave you or go back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord do this to me, and even more, if anything but death separates you and me.

18 When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.

19 The two of them traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole town was excited about their arrival and [the local women] exclaimed, "Can this be Naomi?"

20 "Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara”, she answered, "for the Almighty has made me very bitter.

21 I left full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has pronounced [judgment] on me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?"

22 So Naomi came back from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

A beautiful story that is almost Shakespearean. This story is tragic but also about redemption and hope. Naomi left Bethlehem with a husband and two sons and goes to a foreign country to survive famine only to lose those who are closest to her. She is in a land that does not serve Yahweh but foreign gods. She knows that she must return home and to the only one who really cares for her, the only true god, the god of the Jews. We must remember also that this foreign land, Moab, was only one to four days walk from Bethlehem.

We struggle through life asking questions, one of those being, why is this happening to me? Studying the Bible we find parallels in our own lives. Sometimes we see the Holy Spirit telling us that we must go to the bottom before we can go up.

Elimelech leaves his home with his family to provide for his family. What we see is that disaster follows him and the little family suffers while one strong woman survives and God provides. We do not know why the father and sons die; the Bible does not give us any clues. Some suspicion it is because the sons took foreign wives. We do not how old the boys were when they left Bethlehem and there is no way of knowing how long they had been married before they died. I suspect that they were married shortly before they died because there were no children.

There is some discrepancy here between commentators because during this time, under the law of Deuteronomy, Moabites were not allowed to enter the congregation but were allowed to inter-marry. It was not till later, under Jewish law, men were forbidden to marry foreign women. There was a good reason for this. Often times the men (and women) who married outside the faith, were marrying someone with foreign gods and soon found themselves worshipping those same foreign gods other than Yahweh.

Niomi’s daughters-in-law want to return with Naomi and she is weighing the consequences. If they go with her, there is little chance that she could provide for them and little chance of them finding a husband. We have to look at some weakness in Naomi for not wanting her daughters-in-law to go back with her. If she had been in a stronger state of mind, she would have encouraged them to go with her and serve the one true God.

Verse 16 is such a beautiful statement of devotion to Naomi. No matter how low Naomi may feel about herself and her situation, she has had a huge impact on Ruth. From this we can gather that Naomi’s faith in Yahweh was strong and so strong that Ruth declares that Naomi’s god will be her god. Even though Ruth was not a daughter from her own blood, Ruth claimed Naomi as her mother above her own people and above the prospect of finding a husband in her own country. Therefore, she clung to Naomi confident that her future was with Naomi. That God would some how fulfill their needs even though Naomi is expressing that God has abandoned her.

In verse 21 and 22, Naomi believes that God is against her or punishing her. She wants to be called Mara (meaning bitter or sad). Often times in our misery, we believe hat God has abandoned us, which is not true. From experience, God intervenes in our lives to make a correction to turn us in a new direction. When time has passed and the healing has taken the place of the hurt, we will find that we have arrived at a new place. A place that we could have never imagined, and a place that God can best use us.

I have read several commentaries and most of them agree that Naomi and her husband were being punished by God. I have to disagree. The commentators are missing the big picture. Israel was being punished by a famine because they had not put God first. Naomi and Elimelech left in order to survive. The death of Elimelech and the two sons are not explained so we really do not know what happened or what bad things they had done. Marrying gentiles would not be a correct answer because we have seen this happen in OT scripture and they were not punished. I do believe this was God teaching and giving a new direction through tragedy.

In chapter 2, we find that Naomi is changing her attitude. Since her return to Bethlehem, she has found hope; she has found her vocation and purpose in guiding Ruth toward her future.

Naomi does not realize it but she has led Ruth to the one true God and that Ruth will forever be established in the genealogy of Jesus. Naomi saw her life as empty, God had other plans to fill her life with more love than she could have imagined. She had a daughter that loved her and Boaz and Ruth would give her grandchildren. I think of the couples I have seen during my life that were filled with anxiety because they could not bare children of their own. This desire for children is a natural instinct that drives couples believing that their marriage is incomplete without children. Then, something happens when adoption comes into their lives, happiness and fulfillment.

Skipping ahead to Ruth 4:

¹⁴ Then the women said to Naomi, “Praise the Lord, who has not left you without a family redeemer today. May his name become well known in Israel. ¹⁵ He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. Indeed, your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” ¹⁶ Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and took care of him. ¹⁷ The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Romans 8:28  
We know that all things work together for the ultimate good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.

Naomi is blessed with grandchildren and the promise of God has been in control all along to bring about the prophecy that Jesus would come from the line of David. It just doesn’t get any better than that for an ending.

There is a story about if a butterfly in the Amazon jungle moves its wings and stirs the air; we will feel the breeze in Minnesota. Each one of our lives has an affect on another person. Will we have the strength of Naomi to leave a positive affect of our life here on earth?

Do you trust God? If you do, do others around you know that God is your Savior and Lord over your life?

Jude 1:24

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.