July 29, 2025 • 34 mins
What if everything you thought you knew about the book of Ruth was missing the heart of the story?
Forget the Hallmark-style romance narrative—Ruth's story plunges us into a world of devastating loss, social vulnerability, and unexpected redemption. The true power of this ancient text lies in how it showcases God's compassion for the marginalized through ordinary people acting justly within divinely established systems.
In this opening episode of our five-part Ruth series, we explore how this book fits within the broader biblical narrative using the Bible Story Path framework. We decode the rich meanings behind Hebrew names—Elimelech ("my God is king"), Naomi ("pleasant"), and her sons whose names eerily foreshadow their fate—to uncover layers of meaning invisible to modern readers.
The historical context proves crucial: Moab's origins from an incestuous relationship, its prohibition from Israel's assembly "to the tenth generation," and its history of enticing Israelites into idolatry all create a backdrop of danger when Naomi's family seeks refuge there during a famine. When her husband and both sons die in this foreign land, Naomi is left utterly destitute with two Moabite daughters-in-law and little hope of restoration.
Rather than rushing to neat theological answers, this exploration invites us to sit with Naomi in her profound loss. Where is God when everything falls apart? How does divine compassion manifest through human justice rather than miraculous intervention? These questions resonate deeply with anyone who has faced devastating circumstances and wondered if God sees their pain.
Connect with me @WeWhoThirst on social media to share how Naomi's story resonates with your own experiences of loss and vulnerability as we await the next chapter in this remarkable journey of redemption through righteousness.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jessica LM Jenkins (00:00):
Contrary to what you've probably heard, the
book of Ruth is not a love storyor a guide on biblical romance.
Instead, this is a book oftrouble and hardship that
showcases our God's compassionas he reaches out for the weak
(00:21):
and the vulnerable and cares forthem through the actions of
righteous people acting justlyin the society and systems that
God set up for all of theirflourishing.
I am so excited that you arehere with me to learn about the
book of Ruth in this five-partseries.
(00:43):
To understand what is happeningin the book of Ruth, we need to
look at the Hebrew, we need tolook at the historical context
and we need to really wrestlewith what the characters in the
text are experiencing.
I believe the book of Ruth waslikely crafted during the
monarchy of Israel.
(01:04):
There's a lot of places thebook of Ruth points to David.
Some of the big themes of thebook point to David and the
Davidic rule, in some wayslegitimizing his rule, and so we
are going to use those aspectsof the Hebrew text to help flesh
out the story and some of whatis going on in this text.
(01:27):
But first let's set the scene.
Let's see where are we in thestory of Scripture.
Overall, in my work as a Bibleteacher, I use something called
the Bible Story Path to help uskeep in mind the full story of
scripture.
(01:48):
The Bible Story Path is 12words.
That goes through the entirething to help you keep it all in
your mind.
Every account fits in somewhereon the Bible Story Path and so,
if we were to go through theBible Story Path, we have
creation, adam and Eve, fathers,abraham, moses, conquest,
joshua, judges, samson's one ofthe judges, kingdom, david,
(02:12):
solomon, exile.
We had daniel return, ezra,nehemiah, and then the silence,
and then we have a gospel withjesus and disciples.
We have the church age, wherewe live now, and then we look
forward to the future, newcreation.
So all of biblical history fitsonto this Bible story path and
(02:32):
if you want to learn more aboutthat specifically, check out my
website, mewhothirstcom, or myEtsy that goes under the same
name, and I have downloads andexplanations of the Bible story
path there.
I have an excellent trifoldbrochure that has the entire
thing with all the books of theBible.
Highly recommend it.
I'll be sure to link it in theshow notes.
So when we look at the book ofRuth, we have the book of Ruth,
(02:55):
the events of the book of Ruthare situated in the judge's time
period, and we'll talk a littlebit more about that when we get
into the text.
The original hearers in mybelief those who received the
Book of Ruth would have existedjust one time period later, in
the kingdom time period.
There would be a king, therewould be a formal government and
(03:18):
the Book of Ruth some scholarsthink it was written by a woman,
or at least originally composedby a woman.
So perhaps you have an oraltradition of Ruth's story being
passed down through generationsof women that a scribe took and
then wrote out to finally writethe book of Ruth in similar to
(03:38):
the form we have today.
So that gives us some basiccontext and background of the
book as a whole.
It is a book that helps toundergird King David's
legitimacy as king, and we willtalk about why that would be
important according to theMosaic law here in a moment.
But in order to really get intothe book of Ruth, we have to
(04:03):
allow ourselves to hear it insome ways, the same way the
original hearers would haveheard it.
In the text of scripture in theHebrew language, a lot of names
have meanings that aresignificant.
Now, all names have a meaning.
My name is Jessica.
Jessica means wealthy in someways, and my parents named me
(04:26):
Jessica or wealthy that I wouldbe wealthy and overflowing with
the character of God.
That was the blessing they gaveme with my name.
But when you hear Jessica, youdon't think wealthy, that's not
at all on your mind, even thoughthat is the meaning behind my
name.
But in the Hebrew language alot of names had overt meanings.
It was like if I named my childApple, you think about Apple
(04:50):
immediately every time you hearit.
Or if I named my child Grace.
That is a character quality.
It has a meaning and it's overt, it's in your face, shall we
say.
The Hebrew names are likewise.
They are overt, they are inyour face.
So I'm going to read the firstfive verses of the book of Ruth
and, rather than thetransliterated name, which is
(05:11):
what we're used to hearing, I'mgoing to say what the name means
in Hebrew.
So it'll sound very different,but it will give you a more
immersive feel into the storyand we'll do this in each
episode for the passage that weare going through in that
episode.
Today we are doing chapter one,one through five.
(05:32):
We're just doing the basicintroductory information,
because there's a lot to breakdown to really help us flesh out
everything that's going on.
So let me read that to us now.
This is my own translation fromthe Hebrew text, so I'm not
reading a different Bible.
And then it happened in the days.
The judges judged that therewas a famine in the land and a
(05:56):
certain man from the city ofbread in the tribe of the Lord
be praised, went sojourning inthe fields of incest.
He and his wife and his twosons.
The name of the man was my Godis king, the name of his wife,
pleasant, and the name of histwo sons, sick and wasting away.
(06:16):
They were very fruitful onesfor the city of bread in the
land of the Lord be praised, andthey came to the fields of
incest and they were there.
Then, my God is king, thehusband of a pleasant, died.
She herself and her two sonswere left.
Then they took to themselveswomen of the incestual land.
(06:38):
The name of the first one wasTurnable, the name of the second
was Refreshing Friend.
And then they lived there about10 years and then, weak and
wasting away, died, also the twoof them, and then the woman was
left from her two sons and fromher husband.
So when we start walkingthrough this story, the names
(07:03):
themselves give us huge hintsonto what's going to happen
before we even get there.
And we're going to go verse byverse in a moment, but I want to
sit in the pain for a moment.
These first five verses open upa ton of questions, ton of
(07:30):
questions, and they allow us tosee the darker part of life that
we don't always want to talkabout in our churches or our
Bible studies.
We are used to environmentswhere we put on our happy face
and we praise the Lord, and thatis what we do.
But when you read the book ofRuth, you have to wrestle with
loss, you have to wrestle withpain.
The book of Ruth is really inmany ways Naomi's story, more
(07:55):
than Ruth.
These first five verses centeron Naomi.
She is the one who loseseverything except for Ruth,
except for her God.
Naomi's pain is palpable inthese first five verses.
As she starts the passagepretty much as high as a peasant
(08:17):
woman could get in the ancientworld.
She is a wife, she is a motherof not one but two sons, so she
is a matriarch.
She has a face and a voice inher community.
She has a presence and a placeand then she loses it all.
She loses her home, she losesher community, she loses her
(08:38):
husband and she loses her twosons.
And the text says she is left.
So let's walk through the textverse by verse and see what else
we can pull out.
Verse one says it happened inthe days the judges judged.
So this, of course, as wealready discussed, takes us to
the time of the judges.
In our English Bibles, the bookof Judges happens right before
(09:02):
the book of Ruth.
Now, if you recall the book ofJudges, this was a very
tumultuous time in the life ofIsrael.
The theme phrase of the book ofJudges is and they had no king,
so everyone did what was rightin their own eyes.
The people are just doingwhatever they want.
There is no king, and the bookof Judges is largely pointing
for the people's need for a king, or at least for the reason
(09:24):
they thought they needed a king.
God was their king, but theydidn't want to accept his reign
and his rule.
And so it happens in the daysthe judges judges.
Scholars are not sure whichjudges the story of Ruth would
have happened under.
I looked at several differentcommentators and one of them
(09:45):
gave us a spread of judges thatwas pretty much the whole book.
Another said it might have beena couple at the end, around
Jephthah or Samson.
We really don't know.
Which judges might have beendoing their judging during the
time of Ruth.
But this is a time period ofwhere everything is very tribal.
(10:07):
We don't have a lot of peopleacting righteously.
They're not acting how Godwants them to act, which is why
we keep having to have judges,because during the time of
judges they would go through acycle.
The people of Israel would fallaway from the Lord, they would
disobey God, and so God wouldcurse them, as he promised to do
in the Mosaic Law.
And the Mosaic Law is like ifyou honor me, god, I will bless
(10:28):
you.
If you disobey me, if youdishonor me, if you bring shame
to my name, I will curse you.
And we see that play out inreal time in the book of Judges.
They would disobey God, theywould shame God, they would
worship other gods and he wouldbring enemy nations in to
conquer them and oppress them.
And then they would cry out tothe Lord.
The Lord would raise up a judge, a deliverer, a military leader
(10:51):
usually, who would come anddefeat that enemy kingdom and
then the cycle would start over.
While that deliverer, thatjudge, was ruling, they would
have peace.
And this happened all overIsrael, different tribes.
If you look at a list of thejudges, it's all over the nation
of Israel.
So it's kind of during thistumultuous cyclical time that
(11:13):
the Book of Ruth happens, and soit happened in the days of the
judges that there was a faminein the land.
A famine was one of the thingsthat God said might happen as a
curse if you're not obeying me.
So this is not unexpected.
That there would be a famineduring the time of judges, when
nobody's doing God way andthey're all doing what is right
(11:34):
in their own eyes.
This is perfectly to beexpected.
But it also highlights that thebook of Ruth showcases God's
care for the weak and thevulnerable, with righteous.
People function justly in thesystems God set up in the Mosaic
law.
That is significant.
This is not just individualsdoing the right thing, it is
(12:00):
individuals choosing to work thesystems God created for the
flourishing of his people.
So there is a famine in the landNow.
Famine often could mean no rain.
With the geography, carol Myershas pointed out that sometimes
you could have some fields thatgot the water they needed and
(12:21):
some who didn't.
So famine could be somewhatlocalized, even within a small
community like Bethlehem.
It could be somewhat localizeddepending on the rain, depending
on groundwater, all sorts ofthings, but there's a famine in
the land.
So this seems to be at leasttribal, it's at least the
(12:42):
general geographic region.
This means that people aregoing to be not doing well.
There's going to bemalnutrition, there's going to
be starvation, there's going tobe a breakdown of community
relationships because people aregoing to be just focused on how
they can get.
(13:02):
And so during this, a certainman from the city of bread, from
Bethlehem, in the tribe of theLord be praised Judah, went
sojourning in the fields ofincest for Moab.
So immediately we see irony inthis text.
There is a famine in the cityof bread, a city that is
(13:31):
supposed to be fruitful.
The breadbasket of the region,the chief father of their entire
tribe, was named the Lord bepraised.
But we're in a time of judgeswhere the Lord is not praised.
People are running off anddoing their own thing, and so
(13:53):
this certain man leaves.
He leaves the city of bread, heleaves the land that should be
praising the lord and hesojourns in the fields maybe
they had food when israel didn'tin the fields of mo sojourning
is where you leave your land andyou go and stay as a refugee or
(14:17):
a foreigner in somebody else'sland, hoping to have physical
safety, hoping to have food.
We see Abraham and Isaac didthis when there was a famine,
when they were in the land.
But for those originallyhearing this, there's going to
be red flags going offconstantly.
You have a man from the city ofbread where there is no bread.
(14:39):
It's a famine in the landthat's supposed to be worshiping
the Lord leaving that land.
The ancient world thought aboutgeography and purity in
overlapping terms.
They believed that wherever theLord was was the most most pure
.
So when there was the templewould be the temple before the
temple.
We're going to center it on thetabernacle, which for some of
(15:00):
the time was in shiloh, which isa bit north of jerusalem.
We're not sure where thetabernacle was necessarily at
this point, but we can use thatas a general reference point.
So in their mind for purity,the tabernacle or the temple is
going to be the most holy, themost pure place in the land, and
then it moves out from there.
So you have the Holy of Holies,which is the absolute most pure
(15:21):
.
Then the tabernacle or thetemple is pure, and then the
city or the surrounding regionis going to be pure, and then
the land of Israel is going toalso be pure.
But we see this man.
He's moving outside of that,he's moving into impure
territory.
That is going to strike dangerbells in the mind or it should
in the mind of the hearer who'sfamiliar with the purity maps of
(15:43):
the day.
But he's not just goinganywhere, he's going to Moab.
Moab has a very sordid historyfrom top to bottom.
The name Moab I said incesthere, but it literally means in
Hebrew Moab from father.
Because the people of Moab,according to the book of Genesis
(16:05):
we'll see this in Genesis 19,.
You can go read the passage thepeople of Moab came from an
incestual relationship betweenLot and his daughter.
The daughters, if you recallGenesis 19, get their father
pregnant, they get their fatherdrunk and then they sleep with
him and get pregnant by him.
So, and then she bears a child,one of the daughters, and
(16:28):
literally names him from father.
So not a good look.
There's a lot of sexualinnuendo just in the name.
And so he's going to the cityof Moab, which started from an
incestual relationship.
And then in Deuteronomy 23, 2through 3, it says and I'm
(16:51):
reading the NIV no one born of aforeign marriage or any of
their descendants may enter theassembly of the Lord, not even
in the tenth generation.
No Ammonite or Moabite or anyof their descendants may enter
the assembly of the Lord, noteven in the tenth generation.
And this was because, whenIsrael was coming to the land,
(17:13):
moab refused to offer themhospitality, even though they
were tribal relations, which wasa huge, shameful offense.
And so the Lord said the peopleof Moab may not enter the
assembly, they may not worshipat the tabernacle, they may not
worship at the temple.
They can live among you, butthey are not to be core
(17:36):
worshipers in the tabernacle andthe temple for 10 generations.
Now, why is this significant?
Because, as I said, the book ofRuth points to David, who is
Ruth's great-great-grandson orgreat-grandson.
He is much less than 10generations away, and Solomon is
(17:57):
much less than 10 generationsaway, who is going to build the
temple of God.
So this could be a concern.
And so, again, moab is aconcerning place to be.
We have the ancestralbeginnings of Moab we have their
exclusion from the assembly ofIsrael.
(18:19):
Then Moab hired Balaam to curseIsrael.
God wouldn't let Balaam curseIsrael, so he had the bright
idea of having Moabite womenseduce Israelite men into pagan
worship.
That's in Numbers 22 through 25.
So Moab has a history ofseducing Israelite men to their
(18:40):
gods, away from the Lord.
Then, most recently, to thebook of Ruth, eglon, king of
Moab was conquering and treatingpoorly the tribe of Benjamin,
which is just north of Judahgeographically, and Bethlehem is
like right on the borderbetween the tribal territories
(19:01):
of Judah and Benjamin.
Jerusalem is in the tribe ofBenjamin's territory in the Old
Testament and Bethlehem is justlike a couple miles south of
Jerusalem and the border goesbetween them.
So a certain man from the cityof bread, which has no bread,
leaves the land that worshipsthe Lord to go, stay temporarily
(19:26):
in this land that is known forincest, it's known for a lack of
hospitality, it's known forsexual deviancy and inviting
Israel to rebel against the Lordand it is known for oppressing
God's people.
That is where he decides to go,and this man took his wife and
(19:52):
his two sons with him, and thename of the man was my God is
King.
In a time where there is noking, where God is supposed to
(20:13):
be king.
This man's parents named him myGod is is King to point to who
the true king is.
And yet, because of the famine,he walks away from the land of
his God.
The text of Ruth does not putshame.
It does not say anything aboutwhether Elimelech or my god is
(20:35):
king made the right choice here.
It leaves those questionslingering in our minds.
It doesn't tell us what theauthor thinks, but nothing good
comes of this decision.
The name of the man was my godis king.
The name of the man was my Godis King.
The name of his wife was Lesant, the name of their two sons,
(20:57):
sick and Wasting Away.
Every time I talk about thesons, I get the question who
would name their child Sick andWasting Away?
Well, we don't know for surethat that is their literal given
name.
The person who wrote down thetext of Ruth could have fiddled
(21:20):
with the spelling a little bit.
There are words that aresimilar sounding.
That could have been their name, but they just flipped the
spelling a little bit.
We know things can be spelledmultiple ways.
Again, my name is Jessica.
It is spelled J-E-S-S-I-C-A,but if you really wanted, you
could spell my nameG-E-S-S-Y-K-A-H.
(21:43):
Now, because our names don'thave significant meaning that we
know of.
That wouldn't change themeaning of my name.
But if you use their T-H-E-R-Eor their T-H-E-I-R, those have
two different meanings eventhough they sound the same
because they're spelleddifferent.
So we could have something likethat that their name sounded
(22:04):
like sickly and wasting away andthe person who wrote down the
story changed it.
It could be that this was anickname that these boys got,
that just stuck with themthrough to adulthood.
We all know somebody who got anickname and they are still
called that nickname by almosteveryone today, especially if
(22:27):
you're dealing with foodscarcity and you have young men
who might be very well, sicklyand wasting away.
You have two little boys.
You know Naomi didn't name themthat, but maybe they have food
allergies or maybe famine hasbeen a concern for a while.
So they are malnutritioned.
They haven't been able to growstrong.
They are not healthy, they arenot strong, which may be why a
(22:51):
limelight's like we got to getout of here because they're not
going to survive a famine.
We've had such malnutritionalready that they're not going
to make it.
So we got to go, and so theirnames could have come from just
being not healthy young men inan era where they're all
sustenance farmers and if youlose a harvest it's going to
(23:11):
have huge impact on yourchildren's ability to grow.
We don't know where the namescame from, but Malchon and
Chilion sound like the Hebrewwords sickness and wasting away.
And so my God is king, pleasant, sickly and wasting away.
We're very fruitful ones, orEphratites from the city of
(23:35):
bread, bethlehem, in the landthat the Lord be praised of
Judah.
Ephratites, a very fruitful onecould be their clan designation
, showing which part of thetribe of Israel they are with,
they are aligned with.
It is interesting, if you lookat 2 Chronicles 2, that the
(23:56):
great-grandmother of the manBethlehem, for whom we believe
the city was named, thegreat-grandmother of Bethlehem,
was a woman named Ephrata.
So it's possible that she hadsignificance in creating this
clan of which now Elimelech is apart, in creating this clan of
which now Elimelech is a part.
(24:17):
So Elimelech verse 2, takes hisfamily and he leaves Israel, he
leaves Judah, he leavesBethlehem and goes to Moab.
They go to the fields of Moabyou have a picture here of them
leaving a dry, desolate, crackedearth, famine land and they go
to the fields.
I picture, you know, wheatwaving in the wind, the amber
(24:39):
waves of grain, and so they goto the fields of Moab.
Oh, maybe they'll be okay.
Abraham found sustenance inEgypt, isaac found sustenance
when there was a famine.
Maybe there's hope.
And then, while they were there, elimelech, the husband of
Naomi, dies.
The text doesn't tell us if hedied because of his decision.
(25:01):
We don't know why, but we just.
The text continues to go frombad to worse.
There's a famine, they leaveGod's land and now the patriarch
of their family dies and she,naomi herself, and her two sons
were left.
This gives the imagery ofabandonment.
(25:21):
They have just they're left.
They have nothing.
But the sons took to themselveswomen from Moab, moabite women.
This may give the audience, theoriginal audience of the book
of Ruth, pause, because youremember, balaam had the
suggestion of sleep or sendMoabite women to seduce
(25:42):
Israelite men, and now we seeIsraelite men marrying Moabite
women.
Did Naomi and her sons leave theworship of the God of Israel?
Did they adopt Moabite worship?
We don't know, but that's aquestion that should be going
around in our mind, that wouldbe going around in the mind of
the original audience.
(26:03):
The name of one of the womenwas Turnable or Orpha Now Orpha.
We're not really sure what itmeans.
Some people think it means theback of the neck, which is where
you kind of get the Turnableidea, but nobody quite knows
what it means.
I went with turnable.
The name of the second wasrefreshing friend.
That would be Ruth, and thenthey lived there for 10 years.
(26:27):
So now Naomi's family has gonefrom sojourning in Moab to
living in Moab.
This Hebrew word indicatessettling.
They're living there, they'remaking a home there, they have
married, they are living there.
We do not know what customs theyare adopting, but we know that
(26:48):
often women would be in chargeof some of the household worship
, and women were often involvedin the ancestor worship and the
daily routines that wouldinclude incantations and prayers
and all of these things to yourgod.
Whoever you're worshiping,women would be doing these
things on a daily basis.
(27:09):
And so when they bring thesewomen in, there's a question of
does Naomi, as the matriarch,retrain these women in prayers
and incantations for the Lord,or does the family adopt the
Moabite religion?
When I was studying for thispodcast, someone asked would
(27:33):
Ruth have had a dowry?
It's very likely both Ruth andOrpha would have brought dowries
into the marriage.
It's not mentioned in the text,but those sorts of things are
assumed by the ancient culture.
But it also may be that Ruthand Orpha were not from a
well-off family.
They may have been from afairly poor, destitute family
(27:55):
themselves, which is why Naomi'ssons could marry them, because
Naomi's sons don't have a lot tooffer.
They don't have land, theydon't have a house.
They might be hiring themselvesout as day laborers somewhere,
but that's the best they can do.
They might be like rentingsomething, and so they may have
had a dowry if their familycould afford it.
(28:18):
But if they married thesesojourning men who have
practically nothing, it seemsthey may not have had much of
their own wealth at all.
They may be from a very poor,very low class family in Moab
family.
In Moab, dowries were standard.
But you have to have somethingto give as an inheritance to
(28:38):
give your daughter a dowry, andwe just don't know anything
about their family background toknow whether their families had
enough wealth to invest in theunion of the daughters, with
Naomi's sons to invest a dowry.
So they live there about 10years and it's not stated but no
(28:58):
children are born.
They live there 10 years andthen, weak and wasting away
Malchon and Chilion, they alsodie.
So no children are born.
They sojourn.
They've decided to marry,they've decided to live, to make
their home, and they stay therefor 10 years.
(29:19):
Presumably the famine has letup we don't know exactly when it
let up, but they're juststaying.
And the question is would theyhave stayed there forever if
Mahon and Chilion hadn't died?
Why are they still there after10 years?
Is it because Ruth and Orphadon't want to go Again?
Questions that we have.
But for Naomi, these whole fiveverses sink deeper and deeper
(29:44):
and deeper into pain and sorrow.
She loses everything.
She loses her home, she losesher community.
She loses her home, she losesher community, she loses her
husband, she loses her two sons.
And the last phrase of versefive says and then the woman.
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It doesn't even name her.
And then the woman was left fromher two sons and her husband.
She has no status.
She has no status, she has nowealth.
She has nothing except twoforeign daughters-in-law, and
next time we will talk about howshe's going.
What is she going to do withthese women?
Evidently they were probablyliving with her rather than with
(30:27):
, rather than her, with theirhouseholds old, but they may not
be able to make an income,especially if Malchon and
Chilion were day laborers You'renot day laboring, you're out or
maybe they were at some wealthyman's plantation and he's like,
yeah, you can live in thatshack if you work in my fields
(30:47):
as a laborer, and so maybethat's how they were making
their money.
But now Naomi has nothingbecause she can't necessarily do
the work needed to keep hertemporary home and her
daughters-in-law are dependenton her because she is the
matriarch and they married intoher family and there are family
obligations that are necessaryto be upheld in this culture.
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So as we look at the book of Re,there, sorrow upon sorrow upon
sorrow, and it leaves our heartwondering where is God in all of
this?
Where is hope in all of this?
And that's questions I want toleave you with at the end of
this episode on purpose.
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I want to leave you with at theend of this episode on purpose,
because often in our lives wecome to the end of a situation
and there it doesn't seem to behope, there doesn't seem to be
answers, and we are left withwhere is our God?
Often, in Bible studying, wewant to rush to application.
We want to find the answer, wewant to find the application,
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but sometimes we need to justsit in the pain and the loss and
feel the feelings ofdespondency and of losing
everything.
Naomi has nothing.
That does not mean she'swithout hope.
We know that because many of usknow the rest of the story, but
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she doesn't know the rest ofthe story.
So, as you wait for the nextepisode of this Ruth podcast,
ponder Naomi's perspective.
Ponder how you would respond ifyou were in this situation
where you have lost everything,you are left, you are abandoned.
That is the kind of languagehere.
(32:39):
She's abandoned, she hasnothing, she is completely
destitute, and what we will findis that there is a God who
cares for the destitute, is thatthere is a God who cares for
the destitute, but he doesn'talways show up when or how we
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expect.
So come back next time when weare going to re-engage Naomi's
story and see what is she goingto do with these
daughters-in-law.
While you are waiting for thatnext episode, get on my social
media channels at WeWhoThirstand give me some feedback.
Talk to me about Ruth and Naomiand what you have learned from
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this episode.
How do these first five versesfeel to you as you process your
life with loss and pain andsuffering, or have you had the
type of life where you can'trelate to loss, pain and
suffering?
How do you view those who havehad loss, pain and suffering?
Contrary to what you've probably heard, the
book of Ruth is not a love storyor a guide on biblical romance.
Instead, this is a book oftrouble and hardship that
showcases our God's compassionas he reaches out for the weak
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and the vulnerable and cares forthem through the actions of
righteous people acting justlyin the society and systems that
God set up for all of theirflourishing.
I am so excited that you arehere with me to learn about the
book of Ruth in this five-partseries.
(00:43):
To understand what is happeningin the book of Ruth, we need to
look at the Hebrew, we need tolook at the historical context
and we need to really wrestlewith what the characters in the
text are experiencing.
I believe the book of Ruth waslikely crafted during the
monarchy of Israel.
(01:04):
There's a lot of places thebook of Ruth points to David.
Some of the big themes of thebook point to David and the
Davidic rule, in some wayslegitimizing his rule, and so we
are going to use those aspectsof the Hebrew text to help flesh
out the story and some of whatis going on in this text.
(01:27):
But first let's set the scene.
Let's see where are we in thestory of Scripture.
Overall, in my work as a Bibleteacher, I use something called
the Bible Story Path to help uskeep in mind the full story of
scripture.
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The Bible Story Path is 12words.
That goes through the entirething to help you keep it all in
your mind.
Every account fits in somewhereon the Bible Story Path and so,
if we were to go through theBible Story Path, we have
creation, adam and Eve, fathers,abraham, moses, conquest,
joshua, judges, samson's one ofthe judges, kingdom, david,
(02:12):
solomon, exile.
We had daniel return, ezra,nehemiah, and then the silence,
and then we have a gospel withjesus and disciples.
We have the church age, wherewe live now, and then we look
forward to the future, newcreation.
So all of biblical history fitsonto this Bible story path and
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if you want to learn more aboutthat specifically, check out my
website, mewhothirstcom, or myEtsy that goes under the same
name, and I have downloads andexplanations of the Bible story
path there.
I have an excellent trifoldbrochure that has the entire
thing with all the books of theBible.
Highly recommend it.
I'll be sure to link it in theshow notes.
So when we look at the book ofRuth, we have the book of Ruth,
(02:55):
the events of the book of Ruthare situated in the judge's time
period, and we'll talk a littlebit more about that when we get
into the text.
The original hearers in mybelief those who received the
Book of Ruth would have existedjust one time period later, in
the kingdom time period.
There would be a king, therewould be a formal government and
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the Book of Ruth some scholarsthink it was written by a woman,
or at least originally composedby a woman.
So perhaps you have an oraltradition of Ruth's story being
passed down through generationsof women that a scribe took and
then wrote out to finally writethe book of Ruth in similar to
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the form we have today.
So that gives us some basiccontext and background of the
book as a whole.
It is a book that helps toundergird King David's
legitimacy as king, and we willtalk about why that would be
important according to theMosaic law here in a moment.
But in order to really get intothe book of Ruth, we have to
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allow ourselves to hear it insome ways, the same way the
original hearers would haveheard it.
In the text of scripture in theHebrew language, a lot of names
have meanings that aresignificant.
Now, all names have a meaning.
My name is Jessica.
Jessica means wealthy in someways, and my parents named me
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Jessica or wealthy that I wouldbe wealthy and overflowing with
the character of God.
That was the blessing they gaveme with my name.
But when you hear Jessica, youdon't think wealthy, that's not
at all on your mind, even thoughthat is the meaning behind my
name.
But in the Hebrew language alot of names had overt meanings.
It was like if I named my childApple, you think about Apple
(04:50):
immediately every time you hearit.
Or if I named my child Grace.
That is a character quality.
It has a meaning and it's overt, it's in your face, shall we
say.
The Hebrew names are likewise.
They are overt, they are inyour face.
So I'm going to read the firstfive verses of the book of Ruth
and, rather than thetransliterated name, which is
(05:11):
what we're used to hearing, I'mgoing to say what the name means
in Hebrew.
So it'll sound very different,but it will give you a more
immersive feel into the storyand we'll do this in each
episode for the passage that weare going through in that
episode.
Today we are doing chapter one,one through five.
(05:32):
We're just doing the basicintroductory information,
because there's a lot to breakdown to really help us flesh out
everything that's going on.
So let me read that to us now.
This is my own translation fromthe Hebrew text, so I'm not
reading a different Bible.
And then it happened in the days.
The judges judged that therewas a famine in the land and a
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certain man from the city ofbread in the tribe of the Lord
be praised, went sojourning inthe fields of incest.
He and his wife and his twosons.
The name of the man was my Godis king, the name of his wife,
pleasant, and the name of histwo sons, sick and wasting away.
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They were very fruitful onesfor the city of bread in the
land of the Lord be praised, andthey came to the fields of
incest and they were there.
Then, my God is king, thehusband of a pleasant, died.
She herself and her two sonswere left.
Then they took to themselveswomen of the incestual land.
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The name of the first one wasTurnable, the name of the second
was Refreshing Friend.
And then they lived there about10 years and then, weak and
wasting away, died, also the twoof them, and then the woman was
left from her two sons and fromher husband.
So when we start walkingthrough this story, the names
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themselves give us huge hintsonto what's going to happen
before we even get there.
And we're going to go verse byverse in a moment, but I want to
sit in the pain for a moment.
These first five verses open upa ton of questions, ton of
(07:30):
questions, and they allow us tosee the darker part of life that
we don't always want to talkabout in our churches or our
Bible studies.
We are used to environmentswhere we put on our happy face
and we praise the Lord, and thatis what we do.
But when you read the book ofRuth, you have to wrestle with
loss, you have to wrestle withpain.
The book of Ruth is really inmany ways Naomi's story, more
(07:55):
than Ruth.
These first five verses centeron Naomi.
She is the one who loseseverything except for Ruth,
except for her God.
Naomi's pain is palpable inthese first five verses.
As she starts the passagepretty much as high as a peasant
(08:17):
woman could get in the ancientworld.
She is a wife, she is a motherof not one but two sons, so she
is a matriarch.
She has a face and a voice inher community.
She has a presence and a placeand then she loses it all.
She loses her home, she losesher community, she loses her
(08:38):
husband and she loses her twosons.
And the text says she is left.
So let's walk through the textverse by verse and see what else
we can pull out.
Verse one says it happened inthe days the judges judged.
So this, of course, as wealready discussed, takes us to
the time of the judges.
In our English Bibles, the bookof Judges happens right before
(09:02):
the book of Ruth.
Now, if you recall the book ofJudges, this was a very
tumultuous time in the life ofIsrael.
The theme phrase of the book ofJudges is and they had no king,
so everyone did what was rightin their own eyes.
The people are just doingwhatever they want.
There is no king, and the bookof Judges is largely pointing
for the people's need for a king, or at least for the reason
(09:24):
they thought they needed a king.
God was their king, but theydidn't want to accept his reign
and his rule.
And so it happens in the daysthe judges judges.
Scholars are not sure whichjudges the story of Ruth would
have happened under.
I looked at several differentcommentators and one of them
(09:45):
gave us a spread of judges thatwas pretty much the whole book.
Another said it might have beena couple at the end, around
Jephthah or Samson.
We really don't know.
Which judges might have beendoing their judging during the
time of Ruth.
But this is a time period ofwhere everything is very tribal.
(10:07):
We don't have a lot of peopleacting righteously.
They're not acting how Godwants them to act, which is why
we keep having to have judges,because during the time of
judges they would go through acycle.
The people of Israel would fallaway from the Lord, they would
disobey God, and so God wouldcurse them, as he promised to do
in the Mosaic Law.
And the Mosaic Law is like ifyou honor me, god, I will bless
(10:28):
you.
If you disobey me, if youdishonor me, if you bring shame
to my name, I will curse you.
And we see that play out inreal time in the book of Judges.
They would disobey God, theywould shame God, they would
worship other gods and he wouldbring enemy nations in to
conquer them and oppress them.
And then they would cry out tothe Lord.
The Lord would raise up a judge, a deliverer, a military leader
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usually, who would come anddefeat that enemy kingdom and
then the cycle would start over.
While that deliverer, thatjudge, was ruling, they would
have peace.
And this happened all overIsrael, different tribes.
If you look at a list of thejudges, it's all over the nation
of Israel.
So it's kind of during thistumultuous cyclical time that
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the Book of Ruth happens, and soit happened in the days of the
judges that there was a faminein the land.
A famine was one of the thingsthat God said might happen as a
curse if you're not obeying me.
So this is not unexpected.
That there would be a famineduring the time of judges, when
nobody's doing God way andthey're all doing what is right
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in their own eyes.
This is perfectly to beexpected.
But it also highlights that thebook of Ruth showcases God's
care for the weak and thevulnerable, with righteous.
People function justly in thesystems God set up in the Mosaic
law.
That is significant.
This is not just individualsdoing the right thing, it is
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individuals choosing to work thesystems God created for the
flourishing of his people.
So there is a famine in the landNow.
Famine often could mean no rain.
With the geography, carol Myershas pointed out that sometimes
you could have some fields thatgot the water they needed and
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some who didn't.
So famine could be somewhatlocalized, even within a small
community like Bethlehem.
It could be somewhat localizeddepending on the rain, depending
on groundwater, all sorts ofthings, but there's a famine in
the land.
So this seems to be at leasttribal, it's at least the
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general geographic region.
This means that people aregoing to be not doing well.
There's going to bemalnutrition, there's going to
be starvation, there's going tobe a breakdown of community
relationships because people aregoing to be just focused on how
they can get.
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And so during this, a certainman from the city of bread, from
Bethlehem, in the tribe of theLord be praised Judah, went
sojourning in the fields ofincest for Moab.
So immediately we see irony inthis text.
There is a famine in the cityof bread, a city that is
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supposed to be fruitful.
The breadbasket of the region,the chief father of their entire
tribe, was named the Lord bepraised.
But we're in a time of judgeswhere the Lord is not praised.
People are running off anddoing their own thing, and so
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this certain man leaves.
He leaves the city of bread, heleaves the land that should be
praising the lord and hesojourns in the fields maybe
they had food when israel didn'tin the fields of mo sojourning
is where you leave your land andyou go and stay as a refugee or
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a foreigner in somebody else'sland, hoping to have physical
safety, hoping to have food.
We see Abraham and Isaac didthis when there was a famine,
when they were in the land.
But for those originallyhearing this, there's going to
be red flags going offconstantly.
You have a man from the city ofbread where there is no bread.
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It's a famine in the landthat's supposed to be worshiping
the Lord leaving that land.
The ancient world thought aboutgeography and purity in
overlapping terms.
They believed that wherever theLord was was the most most pure
.
So when there was the templewould be the temple before the
temple.
We're going to center it on thetabernacle, which for some of
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the time was in shiloh, which isa bit north of jerusalem.
We're not sure where thetabernacle was necessarily at
this point, but we can use thatas a general reference point.
So in their mind for purity,the tabernacle or the temple is
going to be the most holy, themost pure place in the land, and
then it moves out from there.
So you have the Holy of Holies,which is the absolute most pure
(15:21):
.
Then the tabernacle or thetemple is pure, and then the
city or the surrounding regionis going to be pure, and then
the land of Israel is going toalso be pure.
But we see this man.
He's moving outside of that,he's moving into impure
territory.
That is going to strike dangerbells in the mind or it should
in the mind of the hearer who'sfamiliar with the purity maps of
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the day.
But he's not just goinganywhere, he's going to Moab.
Moab has a very sordid historyfrom top to bottom.
The name Moab I said incesthere, but it literally means in
Hebrew Moab from father.
Because the people of Moab,according to the book of Genesis
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we'll see this in Genesis 19,.
You can go read the passage thepeople of Moab came from an
incestual relationship betweenLot and his daughter.
The daughters, if you recallGenesis 19, get their father
pregnant, they get their fatherdrunk and then they sleep with
him and get pregnant by him.
So, and then she bears a child,one of the daughters, and
(16:28):
literally names him from father.
So not a good look.
There's a lot of sexualinnuendo just in the name.
And so he's going to the cityof Moab, which started from an
incestual relationship.
And then in Deuteronomy 23, 2through 3, it says and I'm
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reading the NIV no one born of aforeign marriage or any of
their descendants may enter theassembly of the Lord, not even
in the tenth generation.
No Ammonite or Moabite or anyof their descendants may enter
the assembly of the Lord, noteven in the tenth generation.
And this was because, whenIsrael was coming to the land,
(17:13):
moab refused to offer themhospitality, even though they
were tribal relations, which wasa huge, shameful offense.
And so the Lord said the peopleof Moab may not enter the
assembly, they may not worshipat the tabernacle, they may not
worship at the temple.
They can live among you, butthey are not to be core
(17:36):
worshipers in the tabernacle andthe temple for 10 generations.
Now, why is this significant?
Because, as I said, the book ofRuth points to David, who is
Ruth's great-great-grandson orgreat-grandson.
He is much less than 10generations away, and Solomon is
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much less than 10 generationsaway, who is going to build the
temple of God.
So this could be a concern.
And so, again, moab is aconcerning place to be.
We have the ancestralbeginnings of Moab we have their
exclusion from the assembly ofIsrael.
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Then Moab hired Balaam to curseIsrael.
God wouldn't let Balaam curseIsrael, so he had the bright
idea of having Moabite womenseduce Israelite men into pagan
worship.
That's in Numbers 22 through 25.
So Moab has a history ofseducing Israelite men to their
(18:40):
gods, away from the Lord.
Then, most recently, to thebook of Ruth, eglon, king of
Moab was conquering and treatingpoorly the tribe of Benjamin,
which is just north of Judahgeographically, and Bethlehem is
like right on the borderbetween the tribal territories
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of Judah and Benjamin.
Jerusalem is in the tribe ofBenjamin's territory in the Old
Testament and Bethlehem is justlike a couple miles south of
Jerusalem and the border goesbetween them.
So a certain man from the cityof bread, which has no bread,
leaves the land that worshipsthe Lord to go, stay temporarily
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in this land that is known forincest, it's known for a lack of
hospitality, it's known forsexual deviancy and inviting
Israel to rebel against the Lordand it is known for oppressing
God's people.
That is where he decides to go,and this man took his wife and
(19:52):
his two sons with him, and thename of the man was my God is
King.
In a time where there is noking, where God is supposed to
(20:13):
be king.
This man's parents named him myGod is is King to point to who
the true king is.
And yet, because of the famine,he walks away from the land of
his God.
The text of Ruth does not putshame.
It does not say anything aboutwhether Elimelech or my god is
(20:35):
king made the right choice here.
It leaves those questionslingering in our minds.
It doesn't tell us what theauthor thinks, but nothing good
comes of this decision.
The name of the man was my godis king.
The name of the man was my Godis King.
The name of his wife was Lesant, the name of their two sons,
(20:57):
sick and Wasting Away.
Every time I talk about thesons, I get the question who
would name their child Sick andWasting Away?
Well, we don't know for surethat that is their literal given
name.
The person who wrote down thetext of Ruth could have fiddled
(21:20):
with the spelling a little bit.
There are words that aresimilar sounding.
That could have been their name, but they just flipped the
spelling a little bit.
We know things can be spelledmultiple ways.
Again, my name is Jessica.
It is spelled J-E-S-S-I-C-A,but if you really wanted, you
could spell my nameG-E-S-S-Y-K-A-H.
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Now, because our names don'thave significant meaning that we
know of.
That wouldn't change themeaning of my name.
But if you use their T-H-E-R-Eor their T-H-E-I-R, those have
two different meanings eventhough they sound the same
because they're spelleddifferent.
So we could have something likethat that their name sounded
(22:04):
like sickly and wasting away andthe person who wrote down the
story changed it.
It could be that this was anickname that these boys got,
that just stuck with themthrough to adulthood.
We all know somebody who got anickname and they are still
called that nickname by almosteveryone today, especially if
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you're dealing with foodscarcity and you have young men
who might be very well, sicklyand wasting away.
You have two little boys.
You know Naomi didn't name themthat, but maybe they have food
allergies or maybe famine hasbeen a concern for a while.
So they are malnutritioned.
They haven't been able to growstrong.
They are not healthy, they arenot strong, which may be why a
(22:51):
limelight's like we got to getout of here because they're not
going to survive a famine.
We've had such malnutritionalready that they're not going
to make it.
So we got to go, and so theirnames could have come from just
being not healthy young men inan era where they're all
sustenance farmers and if youlose a harvest it's going to
(23:11):
have huge impact on yourchildren's ability to grow.
We don't know where the namescame from, but Malchon and
Chilion sound like the Hebrewwords sickness and wasting away.
And so my God is king, pleasant, sickly and wasting away.
We're very fruitful ones, orEphratites from the city of
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bread, bethlehem, in the landthat the Lord be praised of
Judah.
Ephratites, a very fruitful onecould be their clan designation
, showing which part of thetribe of Israel they are with,
they are aligned with.
It is interesting, if you lookat 2 Chronicles 2, that the
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great-grandmother of the manBethlehem, for whom we believe
the city was named, thegreat-grandmother of Bethlehem,
was a woman named Ephrata.
So it's possible that she hadsignificance in creating this
clan of which now Elimelech is apart, in creating this clan of
which now Elimelech is a part.
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So Elimelech verse 2, takes hisfamily and he leaves Israel, he
leaves Judah, he leavesBethlehem and goes to Moab.
They go to the fields of Moabyou have a picture here of them
leaving a dry, desolate, crackedearth, famine land and they go
to the fields.
I picture, you know, wheatwaving in the wind, the amber
(24:39):
waves of grain, and so they goto the fields of Moab.
Oh, maybe they'll be okay.
Abraham found sustenance inEgypt, isaac found sustenance
when there was a famine.
Maybe there's hope.
And then, while they were there, elimelech, the husband of
Naomi, dies.
The text doesn't tell us if hedied because of his decision.
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We don't know why, but we just.
The text continues to go frombad to worse.
There's a famine, they leaveGod's land and now the patriarch
of their family dies and she,naomi herself, and her two sons
were left.
This gives the imagery ofabandonment.
(25:21):
They have just they're left.
They have nothing.
But the sons took to themselveswomen from Moab, moabite women.
This may give the audience, theoriginal audience of the book
of Ruth, pause, because youremember, balaam had the
suggestion of sleep or sendMoabite women to seduce
(25:42):
Israelite men, and now we seeIsraelite men marrying Moabite
women.
Did Naomi and her sons leave theworship of the God of Israel?
Did they adopt Moabite worship?
We don't know, but that's aquestion that should be going
around in our mind, that wouldbe going around in the mind of
the original audience.
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The name of one of the womenwas Turnable or Orpha Now Orpha.
We're not really sure what itmeans.
Some people think it means theback of the neck, which is where
you kind of get the Turnableidea, but nobody quite knows
what it means.
I went with turnable.
The name of the second wasrefreshing friend.
That would be Ruth, and thenthey lived there for 10 years.
(26:27):
So now Naomi's family has gonefrom sojourning in Moab to
living in Moab.
This Hebrew word indicatessettling.
They're living there, they'remaking a home there, they have
married, they are living there.
We do not know what customs theyare adopting, but we know that
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often women would be in chargeof some of the household worship
, and women were often involvedin the ancestor worship and the
daily routines that wouldinclude incantations and prayers
and all of these things to yourgod.
Whoever you're worshiping,women would be doing these
things on a daily basis.
(27:09):
And so when they bring thesewomen in, there's a question of
does Naomi, as the matriarch,retrain these women in prayers
and incantations for the Lord,or does the family adopt the
Moabite religion?
When I was studying for thispodcast, someone asked would
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Ruth have had a dowry?
It's very likely both Ruth andOrpha would have brought dowries
into the marriage.
It's not mentioned in the text,but those sorts of things are
assumed by the ancient culture.
But it also may be that Ruthand Orpha were not from a
well-off family.
They may have been from afairly poor, destitute family
(27:55):
themselves, which is why Naomi'ssons could marry them, because
Naomi's sons don't have a lot tooffer.
They don't have land, theydon't have a house.
They might be hiring themselvesout as day laborers somewhere,
but that's the best they can do.
They might be like rentingsomething, and so they may have
had a dowry if their familycould afford it.
(28:18):
But if they married thesesojourning men who have
practically nothing, it seemsthey may not have had much of
their own wealth at all.
They may be from a very poor,very low class family in Moab
family.
In Moab, dowries were standard.
But you have to have somethingto give as an inheritance to
(28:38):
give your daughter a dowry, andwe just don't know anything
about their family background toknow whether their families had
enough wealth to invest in theunion of the daughters, with
Naomi's sons to invest a dowry.
So they live there about 10years and it's not stated but no
(28:58):
children are born.
They live there 10 years andthen, weak and wasting away
Malchon and Chilion, they alsodie.
So no children are born.
They sojourn.
They've decided to marry,they've decided to live, to make
their home, and they stay therefor 10 years.
(29:19):
Presumably the famine has letup we don't know exactly when it
let up, but they're juststaying.
And the question is would theyhave stayed there forever if
Mahon and Chilion hadn't died?
Why are they still there after10 years?
Is it because Ruth and Orphadon't want to go Again?
Questions that we have.
But for Naomi, these whole fiveverses sink deeper and deeper
(29:44):
and deeper into pain and sorrow.
She loses everything.
She loses her home, she losesher community.
She loses her home, she losesher community, she loses her
husband, she loses her two sons.
And the last phrase of versefive says and then the woman.
(30:05):
It doesn't even name her.
And then the woman was left fromher two sons and her husband.
She has no status.
She has no status, she has nowealth.
She has nothing except twoforeign daughters-in-law, and
next time we will talk about howshe's going.
What is she going to do withthese women?
Evidently they were probablyliving with her rather than with
(30:27):
, rather than her, with theirhouseholds old, but they may not
be able to make an income,especially if Malchon and
Chilion were day laborers You'renot day laboring, you're out or
maybe they were at some wealthyman's plantation and he's like,
yeah, you can live in thatshack if you work in my fields
(30:47):
as a laborer, and so maybethat's how they were making
their money.
But now Naomi has nothingbecause she can't necessarily do
the work needed to keep hertemporary home and her
daughters-in-law are dependenton her because she is the
matriarch and they married intoher family and there are family
obligations that are necessaryto be upheld in this culture.
(31:12):
So as we look at the book of Re,there, sorrow upon sorrow upon
sorrow, and it leaves our heartwondering where is God in all of
this?
Where is hope in all of this?
And that's questions I want toleave you with at the end of
this episode on purpose.
(31:34):
I want to leave you with at theend of this episode on purpose,
because often in our lives wecome to the end of a situation
and there it doesn't seem to behope, there doesn't seem to be
answers, and we are left withwhere is our God?
Often, in Bible studying, wewant to rush to application.
We want to find the answer, wewant to find the application,
(31:54):
but sometimes we need to justsit in the pain and the loss and
feel the feelings ofdespondency and of losing
everything.
Naomi has nothing.
That does not mean she'swithout hope.
We know that because many of usknow the rest of the story, but
(32:17):
she doesn't know the rest ofthe story.
So, as you wait for the nextepisode of this Ruth podcast,
ponder Naomi's perspective.
Ponder how you would respond ifyou were in this situation
where you have lost everything,you are left, you are abandoned.
That is the kind of languagehere.
(32:39):
She's abandoned, she hasnothing, she is completely
destitute, and what we will findis that there is a God who
cares for the destitute, is thatthere is a God who cares for
the destitute, but he doesn'talways show up when or how we
(32:59):
expect.
So come back next time when weare going to re-engage Naomi's
story and see what is she goingto do with these
daughters-in-law.
While you are waiting for thatnext episode, get on my social
media channels at WeWhoThirstand give me some feedback.
Talk to me about Ruth and Naomiand what you have learned from
(33:24):
this episode.
How do these first five versesfeel to you as you process your
life with loss and pain andsuffering, or have you had the
type of life where you can'trelate to loss, pain and
suffering?
How do you view those who havehad loss, pain and suffering?
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