Family as Community

March 21, 2010

Background Scripture: Ruth 1:1 – 16
Lesson Passage: Ruth 1:1 – 9, 14b – 16

The Book of Ruth is one of two biblical books that bear the name of a woman for its title. It is a glimpse of history written in short story form. Although it is a short story, it moves at a pace such that one can experience Hebrew history during the time of the judges. The main character, Ruth—from whom the book gets its title, isn’t Hebrew by birth but a Moabite. She marries into a Hebrew family and is widowed a short time afterwards. From that point to the end of the book, this becomes a novel that vividly displays the sincere love and devotion Ruth has for her mother-in-law Naomi. In fact, passages from this book are used in weddings today to establish vows between the groom and bride. It is striking that those passages are not vows or commitments between Ruth and her husband but they are vows that Ruth makes to her mother-in-law. So strong was the admiration and love Ruth had for her mother-in-law that Ruth willingly forsook her kindred, homeland, and religious worship, or gods, in exchange for those of Naomi. One must suppose that she could only have known about these through her interactions with Naomi.

As the book opens, we see a caring Hebrew husband and father uproot his family from their homeland in order to provide a living for them during a famine. During their pilgrimage in Moab, the husband, Elimelech died and left his wife and two sons to fend for themselves in a foreign land. It was this situation that led his two sons to marry women of Moab; this was a practice that Israel avoided. A timeframe of ten years is given but it is not clear if this is the timeframe of the sons’ marriages or the total time of stay in Moab. What is clear is that both sons died within this timeframe and left their mother Naomi with their now widowed Moabite wives. As fate would have it, while Naomi was experiencing hardship in a foreign land, God was blessing her relatives back in her homeland. Although she was now destitute by Hebrew standards, being without a husband or sons to fend for her, she decided to be destitute in her homeland rather than in Moab. Naomi advised her daughters-in-law to return each to her mother’s house and she pronounced a blessing of God upon them. Naomi told them that they were young enough to remarry and build households. Both daughters-in-law expressed a tearful desire to stay with Naomi and return to her homeland with her. Naomi assured them that this was an unwise decision since she would not be able to supply them with husbands of herself—even if it were possible, it could not be done in a timely manner. After shedding more tears, one of the young women left but Ruth remained steadfast. Ruth’s verbal response to Naomi can be considered the central theme of the entire book. Ruth was committed to giving up her kindred, her homeland, and her gods in exchange for all of these that belonged to Naomi. Although Naomi was destitute by Hebrew standards, Ruth saw a wealth of benefits in her and she was sold out on the idea of not walking away from it. Naomi had become Ruth’s family and Ruth was committed to this new community.


Robert C. Hudson
March 15, 2010