Naomi's Loss and Return

In the days when the judges ruled, a famine struck the land of Israel. A man named Elimelech from Bethlehem—ironically, 'house of bread'—took his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, to sojourn in the fields of Moab. It was meant to be temporary, a survival strategy during hardship.

But sojourning turned to settling. In Moab, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi widowed in a foreign land. Her two sons married Moabite women—Orpah and Ruth. For ten years they lived there, but then tragedy struck again. Both Mahlon and Chilion died, leaving three widows with no husbands, no children, no protection, and no future.

Naomi heard that the Lord had come to the aid of His people by providing food for them in Judah. The famine had ended. So she prepared to return from Moab with her two daughters-in-law. They set out on the road that would take them back to Judah.

But on the journey, Naomi stopped. 'Go back, each of you, to your mother's home,' she urged them. 'May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.'

She kissed them goodbye, and they wept aloud. Both initially insisted, 'We will go back with you to your people.' But Naomi pressed them. 'Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons who could become your husbands? Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—would you wait until they grew up? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord's hand has turned against me!'

This was the ancient law of levirate marriage—a brother-in-law could marry his brother's widow to preserve the family line. But Naomi had no more sons. She had nothing to offer.

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, turned, and went back to her people and her gods. It was a reasonable choice, a practical choice. But Ruth clung to Naomi.

'Look,' said Naomi, 'your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.'

But Ruth spoke words that have echoed through the centuries: '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. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.'

This was covenant language, a vow of complete and permanent loyalty. Ruth was not merely accompanying Naomi out of duty; she was embracing Naomi's people and Naomi's God. A Moabite woman was choosing the God of Israel, abandoning her homeland, her family, her security, and her future prospects.

When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem.

When they arrived, the whole town was stirred. The women exclaimed, 'Can this be Naomi?'

'Don't call me Naomi,' she told them. Naomi means 'pleasant.' 'Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.'

So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.

Naomi saw herself as empty, but she was wrong. The faithful God was already at work. The harvest was beginning—both in the fields and in the purposes of God. And Ruth, the foreigner who clung to Naomi and to Naomi's God, would prove to be the key to redemption that Naomi could not yet see.