Ruth 1: 8-18 – “Three Women, Three Choices”
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
June 10, 2007
Text
Ru 1:8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead 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 and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
Ru 1:11 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 gone out against me!”
Ru 1:14 At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.
Ru 1:15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
Ru 1:16 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 anything but death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Outline
Vss. 8-10 - First Exchange - (Naomi’s character)
Vss. 11-14 - Second exchange - (Orpah’s character)
Vss. 15-18 - Third exchange - (Ruth’s character)
Introduction
Our three women from last week are now on the road to Israel.
Naomi - the woman from Israel who has lost her husband and two sons,
is headed back to her homeland in hope of finding family, sustenance and some kind of home in which to live out her remaining days.
Orpah and Ruth – the two younger widows of Naomi’s sons, women who were born and raised in Moab, headed toward an unknown land with nothing to support them but who they are and what they can carry.
These are not just three women on a trail, but three stories in the making. Each of these three women has just recently been faced with tragedy,
and each of the three responds out of her own character.
Today I want to look at the character of each of these three women.
There are three exchanges between the women, and each exchange reveals something about the nature of the woman highlighted by it.
My goal is that we learn something by listening to these women cope with the sorrow that has entered their lives.
Naomi
Naomi leads the journey, and she’s determined to return to her homeland of Israel.
The time between the death of her sons and her departure from Moab is minimal, probably so that she won’t be a burden on her 2 daughters-in-law.
She’s in a hurry because if she was to stay with them, then they would have to take care of her. Not only that, but she also lived in a society where any man who wanted to marry either Orpah or Ruth would also have to assume the care of their mother-in-law Naomi.
This would greatly reduce the likelihood of them ever getting remarried, for not many men would marry a woman who brings an extra burden along with her, especially a woman who is a foreigner and had such bad fortune follow her.
In our day and age, this scenario seems absurd, but in their time remarriage was the very best these young widows could hope for,
and Naomi did not want to interfere with that in anyway.
The two widows have started to travel with her, but she doesn’t really want their company. She doesn’t confront them until they’ve all walked some distance down the long road to Israel.
I think this is very deliberate. If she had tried to refuse their help at home, they would not have understood what they were walking away from.
You don’t fully appreciate your home until you’ve left it,
and these women might have never ventured outside their village.
But now that they’ve distanced themselves from home, they’ve been separated from everything that sustained them.
Their source of water is gone, fresh food, companions, family,
even their favourite shade tree is nothing but a memory to them right now.
Naomi knows all this because she’s been through it once already when her husband brought her to Moab.
She knows the power of the pull to return home, and she uses it to try and get her two daughters-in-law to change their minds and go home.
Her words bear nothing but love and concern for these two young women. Her appeal for them to return to “their mother’s home” indicates a concern that they go back to an environment where they would be given the mothering care they need in this time of loss.
In other words, Naomi believes that they are in no shape to be taking care of her. They need to be taken care of themselves by the families they’ve grown up in.
She invokes the Lord to bless them with both kindness and rest.
The kindness is in return for the kindness they have already shown.
She’s saying that they’ve done more than enough already, and she’s right.
They have no obligation to accompany her; they’ve already shown a spirit of caring that goes above anything that could be expected from them.
The rest she wishes for them is more than a quick nap or leisurely siesta. The term is meant to be heard with a permanence to it.
She’s praying that God give them a life that is settled - stable - the kind of life that they could have if they stayed behind and got on with their lives.
Again, that stability was only available at that time through remarriage, so this is what she wishes for them.
She seals her exhortation with a kiss - a kiss that’s meant to seal the deal and say good-bye once and for all.
The women must have been needed a chance to blow off a lot of emotion, for this heartfelt plea triggers an outburst of tears and weeping that was brewing since the two sons passed away.
Through the tears, however, the women seek to remain close to Naomi, and reaffirm their commitment to see her through this journey.
Her demonstration of love has led to their sense of devotion to her being deepened, and though she wants then to go on they see her as more important then ever.
As this first exchange comes to an end,
Naomi comes through here as a strong and caring woman.
She recognises how good the other two have been and thanks for them for it, praying that God give them kindness and rest in their lives. She is almost entirely selfless.
She is also very practical – she wants the younger women to fully realize what they are turning away from. She wants what best for them, and she is relentless in dissuading them from sticking with her on her journey home.
If I had to wrap up her character in one word it would be “determined.”
The next exchange between the women targets all that they are leaving behind, and with one of the women it really hits home.
ORPAH
We know little about Orpah, one of the two widows. She might be the older of the two, since her name is mentioned first when it comes up in pairs.
To this point in the story, she has been as loving and devoted and selfless as Ruth, and both women have gone beyond what they had to in order to help Naomi.
There’s certainly nothing in this entire tale that would ever infer that she is inferior to her sister in law Ruth.
However, as Naomi describes in graphic detail the supposed folly of their continuing devotion, the fear of losing what she still has begins to overpower the sense of duty to her mother in law.
And Naomi really doesn’t pull any punches. She is without child and husband, so there is very little chance she’ll ever find them a son to marry.
So she would be a burden in two powerful ways.
We’ve already discussed that she would scare off any potential suitors because they wouldn’t want to have to take care of her too.
She now reminds them that she also could not supply them with a new husband herself because she’s too old to either remarry or have kids.
In doing so, she is introducing us to a very strong tradition that their society lived under. It’s a tradition that influences the outcome of this book, so it’s one we need to understand in order to appreciate what happens later in the story.
In their day, if a man died and left a wife behind,
one of his brothers or kin was expected to take her in as his own wife.
This was called the levirate law, and it was intended to be a safeguard for both the dead man’s family name, and the widow, so that she wouldn’t be left destitute.
If the deceased had died without having children, the brother was to have children with the woman that could carry on the deceased’s name. These children would take the name of the deceased and carry on his family tree.
If the widow did have children, the brother was expected to take care of her until her children were grown and could carry on the family name.
It seems convoluted to us, but within the society of that day,
it worked as a method of ensuring that a family name did not disappear, and that widows were not left to fend for themselves.
Well, Naomi sees no way of providing her daughters-in-law help through this law, so she wants them to stay in their homeland amongst their own family members.
Furthermore, she feels that God has brought this calamity down on her, and she doesn’t want them to be punished along with her.
She feels this is her problem and she needs to face it on her own.
According to Naomi, if they were to follow her they would be wasting their lives away, all for a woman with no future to live or to give.
It was her problem, not theirs, and they weren’t doing any good by sticking it out with her as she came home to whatever God had waiting for her.
All this is enough for Orpah, and with a heavy heart she turns back to the only home she had ever known.
She’s not betraying anyone - she’s already been kinder than any one could expect her to be. The price of staying with Naomi was simply too much to bear.
At the end of Naomi’s second plea to stay, they all break down again,
and this time Orpah decides that she’s just not ready to go on.
She turns back before she’s too far away.
Although some vilify her at this point for not staying loyal to Naomi, I don’t. She knows who she is and turns around before she gets herself in deeper than she can go.
If I had to use one word to describe her, it’s realistic.
There’s one more kiss, but this time it’s from Orpah to Naomi.
She’s headed back home, and that’s the best thing she could have done.
One woman remains, the other widow Ruth. The rest of the story is really about her, and we’re going to see why in this next exchange of words.
RUTH
Exasperated, Naomi sizes this last daughter-in-law up and says, in not so many words, “GO HOME!”. The fact that she brings up “her gods” as well as “her home” is meant to exasperate that differences between them.
She’s saying,
“This is between me and my God , not you and yours.
I’m going back to my home, where I belong.
You go back to your home, where you belong.”
Taking this verbal slap in the face, Ruth responds with words rivalling the most devoted of lovers. She pledges to remain loyal to Ruth on several different levels, including:
- travels - settlement
- citizenship - faith
- fate (destiny, death) - final resting place
Naomi had been quite thorough in explaining all the details of what they would be giving up. She did this in order to scare them off.
Ruth uses this same thoroughness to express her devotion to Naomi, listing off every thing ahead of them and promising to see her through it.
One might be tempted to say that Ruth’s devotion is born in weakness - she’s so weak that she can’t imagine life without Naomi, and she’s not able to let her go.
I disagree with that - I think that she’s just as strong as Naomi and maybe even stronger. She’s simply committed to helping this widow not live life alone, and her readiness to do so has not been broken by the enormity what she is giving up.
At the same time express her readiness to submit herself to the will of God. She does this by placing herself under God’s hands, in effect converting from following her gods to living under the rule of the God of Israel.
This shows not only devotion but depth of character. She knows that this is all bigger than her, and that she needs God to see her through.
We never learned what brings Ruth to the point of being a believer in God, but something does, and by this time in the story she has shown a level of faith and devotion that stands as a role model for all believers.
At this point Naomi gives up. She’s facing someone more willing to help her than she is ready to go on by herself. And praise God for that!
May we all come up against this kind of love in our lives - I know I have!
The kind of love that won’t let you go even when you try to chase it away.
The kind of love that sees the price it has to pay and then asserts that it is willing to go on with you.
The kind of love that is relentless and ultimately irresistible.
It is this love that really moulds her as a person and best defines her.
If one word best described her, it would be faithful
CONCLUSION
As our three women move on, we never here of Orpah again. One hopes that she’s does well, and that she finds stability and rest at her home.
Her realistic approach to life has probably brought her just as much as can be expected - a new home with a new husband and a new chance to build a future.
Naomi makes it home, much to the amazement of those who remember her. Her arrival causes quite a stir, but she’s not very excited. Her determination has brought her home, but it hasn’t brought her much joy.
Now that her hopes are realised, she realises that life isn’t going to get much better, and that’s she’s got some long, lonely years ahead.
Her heart, now that the journey’s over, is deflated.
The pain of all that’s gone on has overwhelmed her,
and she’s reduced to bemoaning her losses.
Ruth, ever faithful, stays by her side. They arrive in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Perfect timing, actually, for this is the best time for widows and those in need to go and scavenge the fields for grain.
This timing is yet another sign that God is not leaving them behind, and that they have hope of more to come.
Again, the hope is faint - no more than a promise of fields full enough to allow some scraps for the women to keep themselves alive.
Even so, she remains faithful, and as we’ll see in the days ahead, her faithfulness does not go unnoticed.
Although it hasn’t yet brought her any more than it brings Naomi - it buoys her spirits and allows her to seize the opportunities that will present themselves in the days ahead.
Let’s pray. Blessing - read from Numbers 6:24-26.
