Am in the studio this week with Haddon Robinson, Alice Mathews, and Brian Hettinga recording programs for the radio series “Discover the Word.” We’re in the middle of an extended series of conversations about the Old Testament book of Ruth.
Ruth is a tragic short story with a good ending.
Here’s a summary of the first chapter:
During a famine in southern Israel, at a time when “everyone did what was right in their own eyes, a couple from the town of Bethlehem took their two sons and moved across the Jordan valley to the land of Moab. While finding food, the family also found heartache. Over the next ten years, the father died and even though the people of Moab were regarded as enemies of Israel, the family’s two sons married Moabite women… before both sons also died. The Jewish mother, whose name was Naomi, was left with two Moabite daughters-in-law.
Eventually, Naomi heard that the famine in Israel had come to an end and she decided to move back to Bethlehem. Assuming that her daughters-in-law had no future with her, she urged them to go back to the family of their birth, and marry Moabite men.
Both daughters-in-law loved Naomi and cried at the thought of leaving her. One, however, reluctantly left and returned to her Moabite family. The other, a young woman named Ruth, made this now famous commitment to her mother-in-law: “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. I will die where you die and will be buried there. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!”
The two widows’ arrival in Bethlehem caused a commotion. When some of the towns people said, “Is this Naomi?” she replied “don’t call me Naomi (which means “my delight”), but call me Mara (lit bitterness), “For the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me home empty. Why should you call me Naomi when the LORD has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy?” So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by her daughter-in-law Ruth, the young Moabite woman. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.”
That’s the way the first of four chapters ends, and that’s where our recording also ended yesterday.
At this point, even though Ruth’s commitment to Naomi expresses some of the most inspiring words of the Bible, chapter one is a series of tragic events and emotions… without the rest of the story.
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