Joshua had challenged Israel to serve the Lord. He knew of their readiness to embrace the gods of the Canaanites and foresaw that they would continually lapse into idolatry. This led to all kinds of immorality and sooner or later they were oppressed by their enemies. The stories of Gideon and Samson illustrate this cycle of events ‑ the persistent rise and fall of devotion to Yahweh, the only true God. When they cried to the Lord in their distress He heard their prayer and restored their fortunes. This was the time of the Judges which came after Joshua and before Samuel appeared on the scene, eventually to give them a king. God had promised that if they were faithful to Him He would supply their every need ‑ crops would yield abundantly and their animal stock would multiply. When they sinned greatly by trusting in pagan gods they prevented God from helping them. He kept His Word and shut up the heavens so that there was no rain and consequently no crops. Israel had famines as Moses had warned Israel in one of his final addresses to the nation recorded in Deuteronomy 11.17. The people in and around Bethlehem suffered like the rest.

There lived in Bethlehem a man and his wife, Elimelech and Naomi. They had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. All of these were good Hebrew names. The famine was beginning to bite and they were short of food. This was a fairly local famine and news came that there was food in the country of their neighbours, the land of Moab. Israel were distantly related to the Moabites through Lot but Moses had put a strong prohibition on marriage with these neighbours (Deut.23.3). Doubt has been cast upon the wisdom of Elimelech in leaving the land of Israel but now there is further transgression of the rules because the two young men found wives in Moab. Were they courting disaster? Ruth and Orpah are distinctly Moabite names; what kind of an upbringing would these foreign women give to any children that were born to the two couples?

Before long Elimelech had died and Naomi was left to complete the rearing of her two sons, Mahlon and Chilion in a strange environment. The boys married Ruth and Orpah and for ten years lived apparently contentedly in Moab. Then the hand of death struck again and the two young husbands were laid to rest in foreign soil. Undoubtedly, some will have seen in that disaster the hand of God, punishing those who had disobeyed His laws but as the story unfolds it takes a most unusual twist. That God's hand was with Ruth there can be no doubt, and somehow during her days of courtship and marriage she had learned of Israel's God ‑ the one living and true God. She perhaps noticed the difference between the worship of Yahweh and that of her own people who bowed to the idol of Moloch. She was basically of Hebrew stock ‑ was it a lamb returning to the fold?

God now acted to save His people and they once more had bread to eat. The famine had passed. The news of better things in Israel reached Naomi's ears and she longed to return to the land of her birth. She made plans and the two young widows shared her interest. They had learned to love her and they decided to go with her to Bethlehem. After a while Naomi realised that life would not be easy for the young women and persuaded Orpah to return home to her own people and perhaps marry again from them. Ruth was not so easily turned from her desire both to help her mother-in-law and to discover more about Israel. The words she used in her declaration to Naomi virtually embrace the covenant of Israel. "Your God shall be my God". When Israel had settled in Canaan a generation or so before, a man of Judah called Salmon had married Rahab the Jericho heroine and a prostitute, who had saved the spies' lives. His son Boaz was Mahlon's nearest kin and he discovered that his inheritance included the beautiful girl from Moab. Mahlon, having died childless, now had a legal child through Boaz and Ruth Obed, grandfather of King David and ancestor of the Lord Jesus was the legal grandson of Elimelech. If the family had not made the temporary migration to Moab that line of descent of messianic character would not have been formed. God moves in a mysterious way ‑ Rahab, Tamar, Ruth and Bathsheba somehow are part of a wonderful plan to bring salvation to Israel, Moab and many millions more. Perhaps after all Elimelech and Sons had a rather important part to play in God's great scheme of things. Perhaps after all, they weren't being disobedient to Him when they went to Moab. It is a good thing to reserve judgment when we don't know all the facts ‑ as is so often the case.

Let Prof. Knight in his little Torch Commentary (SCM) on the Book of Ruth, have the last word when he comments on the "significance of a seemingly trivial decision" which may affect future generations. ‑ "Such a thought as this forces us to realise how essential it is for frail humanity to lean in utter dependence upon the wise and loving guidance of God".

DN