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A Love Story for All Time    
A study in the book of Ruth
lesson #1: Ruth chapter one.

Scripture:

It happened in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. 2The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab, and continued there. 3Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. 4They took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they lived there about ten years. 5Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband. 6Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that Yahweh  had visited his people in giving them bread. 7She went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house: Yahweh deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead, and with me. 9Yahweh grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.”

Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voice, and wept. 10They said to her, “No, but we will return with you to your people.”

11Naomi said, “Go back, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12Go back, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, ‘I have hope,’ if I should even have a husband tonight, and should also bear sons; 13would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me much for your sakes, for the hand of Yahweh has gone out against me.”

14They lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth joined with her. 15She said, “Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.”

16Ruth said, “Don’t entreat me to leave you, and to return from following after you, for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God  my God; 17where you die, will I die, and there will I be buried. Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death part you and me.”

18When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking to her.

19So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. It happened, when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they asked, “Is this Naomi?”

20She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21I went out full, and Yahweh has brought me home again empty; why do you call me Naomi, since Yahweh has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” 22So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.

Ruth chapter One       (World English Bible)

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A Love Story for All Time    
A study in the book of Ruth
lesson #1: Ruth chapter one.

Bible Study:

The book of Ruth is a wonderful love story. It’s a short book, easy to read. But it isn’t necessarily simple. The culture, for one thing, is quite different from our own. So it’s easy to miss the significance of a detail here or there.

But we can deal with that. As we go through the book, we’ll talk about some of the customs and what they mean to the story.

The meaning of the story itself is the other great difficulty. As with many stories in the Bible, there is a deeper meaning to the people and the events. Ruth’s story is very much connected to our own.

For one thing, her story could take place in any generation. Separation, loneliness—these happen to people all around us. We argue with God. We blame him for our losses.

So when Ruth finds an answer, the answer might speak to our own heart, to our own loneliness and separation.

But Ruth’s life was more significant than she knew. Her child was more than an answer for her own loneliness. She stands in a royal genealogy that brought kings to Israel. That’s why the story of Ruth affects our lives, even thousands of years later.

When the New Testament marks the family of Jesus, Ruth will be there. The plan of God included Ruth, both in her own life and in the continuing lives or her children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and so on.

So let’s look at this small book that tells the story of a woman named Ruth.

You find Ruth in the Old Testament between the book of Judges and the book of First Samuel. The location of the book suggests a story of its own.

The book of Judges describes the early history of the people of Israel as they struggle to own their promised land and as they discover their lives as a special people of God.

In the book of Judges, the people are merely tribes, hardly a country yet. They are much less than special. The stories of Judges tell of several miserable failures. The people can not do right, so they can not be much of a holy nation for God.

They stumble into one mistake after another. And when they do, and when they cry out to God for help, he sends a leader to rally the people, to call them to repentance, and to lead them to freedom once again.

Those leaders are called Judges. They are heroes. They are mostly great military leaders. Some are failures, as far as character is concerned. Some are good people.

Gideon was a judge. God called Gideon to defeat an invading army, and the first thing he had to do was tear down a statue of another god that the people were worshipping. The statue was in his own back yard.

Samson was a judge. He was a fool, also. But he was strong, and God used him to torment another country that was trying to invade Israel. So Samson gave rest to the people, in a way, even though he never got his own life figured out.

Samson is a great summary of the time of the judges. There are miserable failures and great successes, all in the same era. Israel is caught between obedience to God and outright rebellion, and they can’t seem to figure out what they want to do.

And so the book of Ruth begins in the days of the judges.

At the end of the Ruth is the book of First Samuel, which tells the story of the first kings of Israel. Saul was a failure. David was a success. First and Second Samuel are essentially David’s story.

And so the book of Ruth ends with the mention of David. The line of the kings will come from Bethlehem, and it will come through Ruth. David will be her great-grandson, or something like that.

So let’s tell her story.

We begin in Bethlehem, a very important town, but a small one. It lies within the tribe of Judah, and a family lives there. A father and mother with two sons. The names aren’t important right now, so we’ll just ignore them.

When a famine makes life very difficult in Bethlehem, the family moves away to what they hope will be a more favorable life. It sounds like the move was supposed to be temporary, but they are gone for ten years, at least.

And in those ten years, life changes for the family. The father dies, and that might have happened early on. The sons settle in a place called Moab, and they find wives there.

One of the wives is Ruth. She is not from the tribe of Judah. She is from Moab. And here we have the first hint of a problem.

Every mention of the people of Israel suggests family. The nation is named for Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel along the way. He had a son named Judah, and the tribe of Judah is simply the family of this son of Jacob.

All the tribes are named for children of Jacob, or grandchildren in a couple of cases. They are family. Their inheritance and their land all come through their relationship to the tribe.

They live in the shadow of a promise made to Abraham, who was Jacob’s grandfather. The people of Judah were experiencing God’s promise that came to them through their great-great-great-great-grandfather, down through their family line.

So when the famine comes, and this man moves his family off their home place, out to a strange country, some people might suggest that he is stepping away from the promise. He is leaving the place where the blessing of God can find him.

I’m not sure that he did anything wrong, but the people in his community might have thought so. They might have had the same question. Why move away from a promised land to a place that doesn’t even worship the same God?

In the history of Israel, Moab is an enemy. They fight against the people of Isreal when they come out of Egypt. At the time of Ruth, they are not friends, certainly, of the tribe of Judah. Maybe an uneasy peace exists. But they are not friends.

So here is a family out in a foreign place, an unfriendly place, perhaps, and they have a very difficult life. They left Judah to escape starvation and poverty, but they find death in Moab.

First the father dies. The sons take wives and begin their own families, but both sons die in Moab. They leave three widows alone. Naomi, the mother, with two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth. 

It would be difficult at this point to understand the depth of their trouble. Three women, alone in a culture that had few jobs outside the home, and no Department of Social Services to help them.

They have few choices. Find new families, new husbands to take care of them, or beg. Or worse.

Noami turns back toward Judah. She decides to return home. She has family there, and the situation in Judah has improved. So she will hope to find pity there from her extended family.

At first, the daughters are ready to come with her. They had their own families in Moab, but they preferred to become strangers in a strange land, if they could remain with their mother-in-law.

The women all seem to be genuinely close. There is a great sadness when Orpah leaves her mother-in-law, so this must have been a very close family.

I think they loved each other. And I think that tells us something about the whole family, the men included. I think you have to imagine this as a group of good people, nice people, caring and considerate.

When Naomi speaks about her bitterness, I don’t think she is necessarily a complainer. I think she just feels a real sorrow at the loss of her family. Her two sons must have meant a great deal to her, and her marriage was probably a good relationship.

Death brings grief, and that grief often turns to anger, or bitterness, or guilt, or depression, at least for a season.

This first chapter is all about loss and grief and sorrow. When one daughter-in-law turns back, the women weep for the separation, just one more sorrow on top of so many that they have already experienced.

The words of Naomi offer some insight into the culture. A woman who lost a husband might find another husband from the same family. A brother might step up to offer the woman the security and safety that she needed.

It was a formal responsibility for a brother of the husband to look out for the widow, and it was taken very seriously. Everyone knew how difficult it was to survive alone. So cultural laws had some provision for women to find protection within a family.

But Naomi can offer no hope for other sons. She will not marry again, and even if she would bear new sons at her age, the boys would be far too young for her daughters-in-law.

It is an absurd hope, and it highlights the hopelessness of these women. They are in a very difficult situation. Their hope lies in that person who will step forward and help them.

If such a person exists.

In the first chapter, he does not.

Some of the most powerful words in this chapter are spoken by Ruth. They say something about the affection the women must have shared. Ruth makes a bold commitment. She will go with Naomi, no matter what. She will die with Naomi, if it comes to that.

Your people will be my people, she says. And that says something about moving to a new place. She is giving up her heritage to become a part of Naomi’s family and culture. She will take on everything that goes along with being a part of the tribe of Judah.

And she adds, your God will be my God.

In those days, every nation had its own version of an idol and a temple and worship. The idols were like mascots for our modern college basketball teams. When Moab went to fight, they carried a symbol of an animal or something with them.

So if you lived in Moab, you fell under the protection of the god of Moab.

And if you moved to Judah, you worshipped Yahweh, the God of Israel.  

When Naomi’s family moved to Moab, they apparently did not give up their worship of God. At least, I don’t think they did. Naomi doesn’t blame the god of Moab for her trouble. She blames her God, the God of her people.

So Ruth may have known all about the God of Judah.

Whether she did or not, Ruth is willing to take on a new worship for the sake of her friendship with Naomi.

Whether Ruth’s decision was intentional or not, it was a good decision. Sometimes we search for God. Sometimes we find him almost by accident. Either way, to end up under the shadow of the Almighty God is a good thing.

At this point in the story, though, there is no hint of grace. Only sadness.

When Naomi returned to the town of Bethlehem, all the people were moved by the sight of this grieving woman who had lost so much. They could see the evidence of her loss, and it was almost inconceivable.

She has gone out full, as Naomi tells it, and she returns empty. No family, no grandchildren, no hope. She is a sad and broken woman, and there is no hope in sight.

But above all, the book of Ruth is a story of hope. The answer will begin to form itself in the next chapter. For now, Naomi is home, Ruth is with her, and the fields are ready for harvest.

And there the first chapter ends.

[.]

A Love Story for All Time    
A study in the book of Ruth
lesson #1: Ruth chapter one.

Paraphrase:

This happened in the old days, before the time of the kings, back when Israel was led by Judges, who were called by God to serve the people whenever a great need arose. There was a famine, and everyone was suffering.

One man from the tribe of Judah decided to take his family to live in Moab, which was another country, and one that was not especially friendly. The man took his wife and two sons, and they left their home town of Bethlehem and settled in Moab for a while, which turned out to be quite a long time.

Along the way, the man died. Both sons married women from Moab, but after a few years both sons died, also. That left the three women alone. The mother’s name was Naomi, and her daughters-in-law were Orpah and Ruth.

By this time, the famine in Judah was over. Left without sons or husband, Naomi decided to return to her own country, and her daughters-in-law wanted to go with her. But Naomi told the women to stay in Moab.

“You have been good to me,” she said. “Each of you return to your mother’s house. May my God deal kindly with you, just as you have been kind to my family and to me. And may you find rest in the house of a new husband.”

The women were crying at the thought of leaving Naomi. “We’ll come with you to your people,” they said.

But Naomi said, “I have nothing to offer you, so why do you want to go with me? I will never have sons, and if I did, you would never wait for them to grow up. Go home, and find new husbands. The hand of God has been very cruel to me. If you come with me, you will only suffer too.”

There was a lot of sadness and a lot of crying, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law and walked away. But Ruth would not go.

“Go after your sister-in-law,” Naomi said. “She has gone back to her people and to her god.”

But Ruth wouldn’t hear of it. “Don’t ask me to leave you,” she said, “for where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and they will bury me there. God will be my judge when I say that nothing but death will separate you and me.”

Naomi could see that nothing was going to change Ruth’s mind, so she stopped arguing. They went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived, the whole town was talking about them.

“Is this Naomi?” they asked. They couldn’t believe all the misery that Naomi had endured.

“Maybe I should change my name,” Naomi said. “My life is not pleasant, so don’t call me Naomi.”

As you might know, that’s what the word Naomi means. Pleasant.

“Don’t call me that,” Naomi said. “Call me bitter, because God has given me a very bitter life. When I left, I was full. Now I am empty. Don’t say that I am pleasant, because God has given me nothing but suffering.”

So Naomi was home again, and Ruth was with her.

And in the fields around Bethlehem, the barley harvest was just beginning.

Ruth chapter One       (paraphrased)

[.]

A Love Story for All Time    
A study in the book of Ruth
lesson #1: Ruth chapter one.

Story:

The Long Journey to Pleasant Valley

by Bob Freye

Chapter One: Bitter

Like all the buildings in Pleasant Valley, the café was nothing more than a simple plank design, a barn of sorts, with a large room for dinner guests in the front and a few rooms upstairs for lodgers. Beth Homestead kept a room for herself and managed her kitchen with little help.

Her business was mostly regulars, men who had no wife or daughter to keep house, who wanted a taste of home-cooked food occasionally. There were a few cowhands. They dragged in mud when it rained and trail dust when the weather was dry. But they paid for their food, and their business was always welcome. 

Most folks in Pleasant Valley were respectable. They kept a house and a job or farmed outside of town. Many of them worked for the Bozeman family, either directly as ranch hands or indirectly, supplying the many items that were needed for such a sprawling cattle empire.

One good thing, you didn’t see anyone in Pleasant Valley without a job. Not for the last few years, at least, since the crops were good again. There was always something to do to make a living.

The town had very little compassion for laggers or transients or anyone who might feel too sorry for themselves to go out and work a day.

You might say that they had almost forgotten how to feel pity.

Until the day the stage came through town.

Pleasant Valley was a regular stop for the stage line and for a variety of freight haulers. But when people talk, they still remember the one particular day.

The coach pulled up outside of Beth’s café and left two women on the plank sidewalk. The driver stepped down to help his passengers off the coach, and even lifted the older woman up out of the mud onto the sidewalk.

He didn’t do that often. He wasn’t that kind. Most people just found their own way off the coach and sorted out their luggage when it was tossed down onto the street.

So this was different. People took a closer look to be certain. No, it was the same driver. Hard as shoe leather, it must have taken something pretty important to change his routine.

He even poked his head inside the café and huddled for a moment with Beth, as if they were two furtive conspirators, talking in hushed voices away from the customers. When he returned to the coach, he left a dollar in Beth’s hand.

She followed him out and watched him work the horses as the coach made its way out of town. She could hear him yelling, urging the team to pick up speed, as if he was in a hurry to catch up to a more comfortable version of himself.

Beth sized up the two women that had been left in her care. One was old enough to be Beth’s grandmother, from the look of it. Life had not been kind to the woman. She stood bent over, as if a heavy weight was fixed to her shoulders.

Beth thought she looked vaguely familiar, though the memory lay hidden behind the lines of the woman’s face. 

A puzzle for later.

They were traveling together, the older woman and her much younger companion. And both had dressed too lightly for the cold nights.

“What brings you to Pleasant Valley?” Beth asked.

The older woman formed the answer with great difficulty.

“It was home,” she said.

But not now, it would seem. They would not be dumped on Beth’s doorstep if there was still a home or family here.

Beth walked to the edge of the plank sidewalk and looked down into the mud of Main Street.

“Did they forget your bags?” she asked.

The younger woman shook her head. “No bags,” she said. “It took every penny just to come here.”

Beth felt a churning inside her. She felt in her pocket for the coin. She could almost bet that this had been a bad bargain.

“The driver paid for a meal,” she explained. “I don’t know why. He’s not one for charity. But you’re welcome to come inside and eat.”

The older woman shook her head.

“It’s paid for,” Beth said.

“We don’t need a meal,” the younger woman started to say, and then she corrected herself. “Well, we do, but—“

“The man paid for a meal, and that’s all.” Beth would stand firm on that subject.

“We need a room,” the young woman said. “My mother-in-law is not well.”

She was right. The older woman looked to be about to fall down right then and there.

“She lost her husband and two sons,” the younger woman said. “She only wants to come home for a while, maybe to find help here, or maybe just to be among friends until—”

Beth stared hard at the older woman. “I don’t remember you,” she said.

“They called her Naomi,” the younger woman said.

Beth’s eyes went wide.

“No, no, no!” she sputtered. “I remember when you left town! It wasn’t that long ago. Oh, I don’t believe it!”

“It’s been hard,” the younger woman added.

Beth turned to her. “And you are—“

The young woman said her name, and Beth noticed a bit of an accent. Not from around here. She had come a long way just to care for her mother-in-law.

“Well, Ruth, welcome to Pleasant Valley.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t so pleasant for us,” the woman said.

There was that churning again. And this time, Beth recognized it. Not the dread of a bad business deal but great sorrow. Great pity. And guilt.

The guilt was the worst. It was going to make Beth do something she didn’t want to do.

“I have a room upstairs,” she said. “You can stay for a while.” She leveled a finger at the two women. “But don’t cause me any trouble. Whether you’re a stranger or born right here in the valley, it makes no difference. I still have a business to run.” 

“I can work,” the young woman offered.

“Not for me. I don’t have any jobs open.”

“I can clean,” the woman said. “I can wait tables.”

“There’s no money in it.”

“I’ll work for tips.”

Beth laughed.

“Tips! We don’t get tips here. People pay the price of the meal, and that’s all. They don’t have any extra to leave behind for you, just because you bring them their potatoes and steak.”

“Then I’ll work for the room!”

She was strong, this stranger. Not rude, and not disrespectful. But strong.

“Take your mother upstairs,” Beth told her. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

“I’m serious,” the young woman said. “I’ll work.”

“Right now, you’ll eat a dollar’s worth.”

The young woman did not move.

It’s not a bad thing to be strong, Beth thought. She would need that strength.

“Sometimes there’s food left over. You can clear tables for me, but you’ll have to live off what the customers don’t eat.” 

Beth really didn’t know if she could make good on that offer, but she couldn’t just throw the women out into the mud. She held the door open as her new lodgers limped into the café.

Beth lingered outside and stared out toward the edge of town. A freight wagon was dumping hardware alongside a pile of lumber. A maze of strings and wooden stakes marked the site of a new barn.

The Bozeman’s needed space for horses, and that would mean workers in town. Workers in town meant customers in the café. 

For just a moment, Beth let herself feel more at ease. It might turn out that she would need the help. Maybe this wouldn’t be a complete waste of her time.

You never know about such things, she thought. But either way, whether it would all  prove to be a benefit or a burden, something was about to happen. 

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