Ruth 1: “Dealing with Famine”
April 27, 2008
A famine is a widespread shortage of food in any region that soon leads to malnutrition and starvation. Disease filled epidemics and death often follow. The word famine occurs 94 times in the New International Version of the Bible and is found in as early as Genesis 12 and as late as Revelation 18. Famines are still a problem today as Wikipedia reports that an estimated 70 million people died in famines during the 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine).
Both Abraham and his son Isaac left the Promised Land for the land of Egypt because of famines. Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt followed just one verse after he finally arrived in the Promised Land. Famines brought Joseph to power in Egypt (Genesis 41f), Elijah into further conflict with Ahab (1 Kings 18:1), forced Elisha to perform a miracle to keep an entire group of people from dying (2 Kings 4:38), and famines even describe the results of the visitation of the pale horse in Revelation 6.
A famine also forms the faith-test behind the book of Ruth, the book we will be studying the next four weeks. Read with me: “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
Verse 1 tells us the book of Ruth takes place in the time of the Judges. Judges 2:10-23 summarizes how God interacted with the Israelites during this time. The entire generation that experienced the Exodus from Egypt was now dead. Without the leadership of Moses and Joshua, the nation continually turned away from God and worshiped the Canaanite gods and particularly Baal. Baal worship consisted of men having sex with cult prostitutes in the hopes that these “fertility rites” would result in many male children and tremendous harvests. God, in turn, would then send judgment on the nation for their idolatry. A military incursion from an enemy nation was the primary form of judgment, but famines often worked just as effectively. Eventually, the Israelites would repent of their idolatry, and God would raise up a judge who lead the nation out from under the oppression.
(Judges 2:10-23: After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD's commands. Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did." The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.)
So as the book of Ruth begins, Elimelech and his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, should be on their knees repenting of the sin that led to the famine instead of heading for Moab to escape the punishment. Since the nation of Moab traced their origins to the birth of a son to Lot through his daughter and worshipped pagan gods, Moab was one of the nations to be destroyed not lived in for protection. The principles of the covenant relationship the Israelites enjoyed with God were the same from the time of the Exodus to the end of the nation of Israel at the close of the Old Testament. So when Psalm 37:18-19 states, “The days of the blameless are known to the LORD, and their inheritance will endure forever. In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty,” these words would have been as true for Elimelech as it was for King David. The words of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, "When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel—each one aware of the afflictions of his own heart, and spreading out his hands toward this temple—then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of all men), so that they will fear you all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers” (1 Kings 8:37-40).
God’s judgment fell on Abraham for his lack of faith in God’s ability to provide for him in a time of famine. Remember, in Genesis 12 when Abraham left the Promised Land for Egypt so soon after he arrived? In Genesis 15:12f, Abraham found out his descendants would becomes slaves in Egypt for 400 years before they would finally be established in the land of Canaan. If such a great man of faith as Abraham could not believe in God’s provision for food in the time of famine, how could his descendants not only believe in God’s provision for food but also for peace in a land of tribal warlords and choose to worship God alone in a land of sexually oriented pagan idols? God held no hope for Abraham’s immediate descendants. Elimelech followed in this faithless tradition.
After Elimelech’s two sons married Moabite women instead of women from the tribe of Judah, Elimelch, Mahlon, and Kilion all died in less than a ten-year period. This left three widows, two Moabites and one Judahite, without any men and any earthly hope. Listen as Naomi bluntly summarizes their future from an earthly perspective: “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. 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 and said to her, "We will go back with you to your people." 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? 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-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!" (Ruth 1:8-13).
The welfare system of Ruth’s day gave every widow a way by which she would have either a husband or a male child to provide for her. We will get more specific with this process in the coming weeks as this process is at the heart of the story of Ruth. For this morning please understand that Naomi’s words accurately reflect the cultural norms at the time of the Judges.
Naomi has made her choice. She will leave the pagan land of Moab and return to her Bethlehem in Judah. Her daughters-in-law now have to make their choices. “At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her. "Look," said Naomi, "your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her." 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. 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." When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem” (Ruth 1:14-19).
Orpah represents the mistakes so many make, the mistake Elimelech made. Elimelech’s faith in the God of the covenant was minimal at best. He has left us no statement of his faith, only his actions. His actions show when his faith was most tested, he thought only in the natural and left his hometown of Bethlehem and allowed his sons to marry for convenience from among the Moabites. Naomi displays a deeper walk of faith. When she speaks to her daughters-in-law of God, she calls Him by His covenant name, Yahweh or LORD (all in caps in the NIV to differentiate this Hebrew name from Lord, the more generic Hebrew name). She talks about the Hebrew view of heaven, finding “rest,” and understands more correctly the actions of God in her life (1:13). With these two examples to choose from, Orpah thinks like Elimelech and takes Naomi’s practical advice. She went “back…to your mother’s home…(to) find rest in the home of another husband.” Verse 15 also indicates she has tried the God of the Israelites and found Him wanting so she returns to “her gods,” or Baal.
Ruth, on the other hand, becomes a sterling example of faith. Instead of worrying about her future and especially about finding a husband, she is content to spend the rest of her life as a daughter of Yahweh, Naomi’s God. To be with the God of Israel, she is willing to leave her home, her culture, and her future. She takes as stern of an oath of commitment as she can make: “May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (1:17).
Ruth is striking a blow for single people everywhere. Finding a family of faith was more important to her than finding a family of comfort. Naomi’s dire prediction of her future could not influence her choice. When Naomi returns to Bethlehem, and tells those who once knew her to call her “Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter” (1:20) instead of Naomi which means “pleasant,” Ruth is silent. So much more will become evident in the weeks to come as we watch God reward faithfulness. This morning it is important for us to understand that, while God does not deal with us today in the direct “do good receive blessings, do bad receive punishments” way he dealt with the nation of Israel when they existed in covenant relation with Him on the earth, we cannot let the bad things that happen to us change us for the worse. Negative circumstances on this earth cannot change us from being pleasant people bitter people. Our sinful actions or just the general circumstances of life may drive us to our knees, but they should not lead to us jumping in the car and driving away from our problems. Remaining faithful and waiting upon the Lord is the only choice a Christian has if we want the blessing of God rather than the practicality of man.
Please let these coming four weeks teach us that what God has in store for the faithful is far better than what our wisdom would choose. Faithfulness to a loving God is the best choice.