Ruth 1:1-18

Rth 1:1-18

Wordsworth.

The Preacher's Homiletical Commentary thus describes the scene of action: At first Bethlehem, then Moab, then Bethlehem and the regions around once again. Bethlehem, two short hours' journey south of Jerusalem. The most attractive and significant of all the world's birthplaces (Schubert). Under ordinary circumstances a fruitful land. Remarkably well watered in comparison with other parts of Palestine (Benjamin of Tudela). Even in the present state of Palestine, deserves its old name. Ritter says, "Notwithstanding poor cultivation, the soil is fruitful in olives, pomegranates, almonds, figs, and grapes." Hepworth Dixon thus describes its present appearance: "A string of gardens, a few steep fields, much crossing of white roads so many that the point of junction may be called the Place of Paths a glen which drops by leaps and steps to the great Cedron valley, makes the landscape. Yet the slope which is thus bound in by higher tops and more barren crests, has a winning beauty of its own, a joyous promise of bread and fruit, which puts it first among the chosen places of Judea. The old word Ephrath meant Place of Fruit, the newer word Bethlehem meant House of Bread; one following the other, as barley and maize come after grapes and figs, and the sower of grain succeeds to the breeder of goats and kine. The little bit of plain through which Ruth gleaned after the young men, together with a level of stony ground here and there in the glen toward Mar Saba, are the only corn lands occurring in the hill country of Judea for many a league.... The lovely green ridge of Bethlehem is the scene of some of our most tender and gracious poems: the idylls of Rachel, of Ruth, of Saul, of David, of Chimham, of Jeremiah, of the Virgin-mother; the subjects of these poems being the foremost passages in Israel's religious life." Dixon's Holy Land.

Moab, on the other side, and S.E. of the Dead Sea, from Bethlehem. A district about forty miles long by twenty in width. In parts a luxuriant land when cultivated. The uplands are very fertile and productive (Professor Palmer). Now but scantily populated, but presenting evidences of former plenty and fertility.

Ruth's Election

THERE was a famine in the land" ( Rth 1:1 ). Necessity drives men forth, and is therefore to be regarded as a blessing rather than a curse. It is prosperity that may be looked upon, in some senses and under obvious limitations, as a danger, if not a malediction. "Necessity is the mother of invention." We owe nearly all we have to necessity: we owe next to nothing to prosperity. Why do men hasten to the city every morning, pouring in great living floods out of every railway terminus, and hastening away, scarcely speaking to one another, scarcely knowing one another? What is the explanation of this rush and tumult and speechless haste? Necessity necessity of some kind, necessity real and proper, or something that is a mistaken necessity; still, need is the word of explanation and solution. Why are all those ships upon the sea, full of men, women, and little children? What is the meaning of this leaving of fatherland, this cutting asunder of tender and vital associations? Necessity. Men are going out to make lands, to create civilisations, to establish themselves in free, independent, secure, and happy life. Prosperity does not drive men out; prosperity keeps them at home. Hardship is the real blessing of life, when properly measured and properly received. All children should have "a hard time of it," under proper regulation. The children of this day are being ruined. They are being confectioned and coddled to death. By the time they are fifteen years of age they have seen everything; there is nothing more to be seen: they have travelled over the picture-galleries of Europe; they have heard all the great speakers, musicians, and others; they have seen all the great sights; they are over-powered with weariness. This should not be so: but it must continue to be so until parents see the reality of the case. Five years in the workhouse, the expenses being discharged by the parents, from five years of age to ten, would make men of the children. How they would then enjoy daisies, buttercups, little birds, half a day's rollicking freedom in the green meadow! How pleased they would be with any occasional dainty found upon the table! how doubly valuable the sweet kiss! But we will not have it so. Hence, the children are brought up to be pests to themselves, and nuisances to the public. God however takes this matter into his own hands, and he graciously sends famine and need and difficulty, sickness and death, and a thousand black teachers down into his great public school, to show men the real charm of life, and to bring to bear upon them the most sacred and ennobling impulse which can inspire and sanctify their industry.

"There was a famine in the land." There is always a famine. Not always a famine of bread and a thirst for water: that is the poorest of all famine; the real famine is a famine of the heart a famine of love, trust, sympathy, longing for help and not finding it, hoping and praying for sympathy and care, and the hope dying without an answer. Even that is not the worst famine of all: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord;" there shall be no voice from heaven: the communication between the worlds shall be cut off, and men who would try to pray will have their prayers sent back as the only possible reply; but even these days, properly received, may be turned to high advantage. Religion has now become a satiety. We can go to church so much that we hardly care to go at all. The gospel is preached to us in so many ways that we have become quite critical about them, and have "opinions" concerning them, what hungry man asks metaphysical questions about the bread that is set before him in the pangs of his necessity? Were there more conscious need there would be less criticism and infinitely greater enjoyment.

So the little story moves on. "And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons" ( Rth 1:1 ). And the husband died, and the two sons also departed this life. How is it the men die first? Surely, this is cruelty, from our point of view, that the men should thus have the best of it that the men should be rid of the burden whilst they are quite young, and the women left to weep and wonder, and slave and suffer unspeakably, displaying a patience that might reverently be called divine. "Why should not they have the best of life and go into heaven first, and be there to meet those who need more discipline meet those to whom longer exposure in the bleak air would do good? But it is well.

The two sons of the woman married, and they, as we have seen, also died, after dwelling in Moab about ten years; and this was her position a position of widowhood three souls in heaven, three new stars in the crown of night, three openings into the better land, where even she had an inheritance in the God of Israel. Then good news came to her: "She had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread" ( Rth 1:6 ). To live in this Hebrew faith would be life indeed; "the Lord" was always so near to the pious Hebrew; it was "the Lord" that sent rain; it was "the Lord" that sent the delivering angel; it was "the Lord" that spread the field with abundant harvests; it was "the Lord" who turned on the fountains of water and made them gush and sparkle in the sunshine. Account for it as we may, there is a warmth in the thought, which now and again touches us according to the pressure of our necessity and the stinging of some mortal pain. We have not gained much by striking out "the Lord" from our vocabulary, and putting in "the laws of nature," and "the courses of creation," and "the natural evolution of material;" the gain is on the other side. Blessed are they who have faith to stand by the living words, and to run unto them as men who are pursued run into a strong tower. The time will come again when "the Lord" shall be a name used with reverent familiarity: men shall own the Lord in the breaking of bread, in the lying down to slumber, in the resurrection from sleep, in every pulse of the living day. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Here we have a beautiful little picture:

"And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house: the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me" ( Rth 1:8 ).

"Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept" ( Rth 1:9 ). Not a word was said. There are times when words are simply useless; there are sacred hours when the best-chosen words fall upon our ear with a sense of irritation. "They lifted up their voice, and wept;" they kissed to one another all their meaning. A lifetime was in that pressure, memories not to be spoken in detailed expressions consecrated that kiss of love. Who can without tears cut the associations of memory and of happy and sacred life? The heart that can do so is a heart no more; it is but a piece of stone. Look upon Naomi and her daughters-in-law, see them kissing one another, and hear their weeping, and say, This is dying! What we call death is hardly so to be named at all; it is translation, liberation, sanctification, coronation; but this parting, sundering, tearing of human hearts, this division of the life-currents this is death! The reflection should be laid to heart in all directions. The old man at home died when his prodigal son left him. The house became a cemetery when the evil deed was done. This is the kind of death men should think about. The other death expiration, throwing off the "mortal coil" call not this death in any sense that is distressful! The death is in parting, the giving up the dear associations of life, in sacrificing the whole store of blessed memory.

Now we approach the issue. After further speech, reasoning on the one side and on the other, we come to this conclusion:

"And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her" ( Rth 1:14 ).

Precisely how people are characterised and distinguished today. We do not blame Orpah; she was loving, but Ruth was more loving. That is the patent, and yet in some senses subtle, distinction. It is hard to fix upon the point where one man's quality exceeds another. For a long time they seem to be equal, but a critical juncture occurs, and at that point the quality of the man is determined. Still, let us not forget that the distinction is between loving and loving more, not between hatred and love, not between aversion and attachment, but between love and love. Orpah loved Naomi, and indeed wanted to go with her, with a constancy, however, that was open to reasoning; Ruth loved her and shut out all reasoning, because of the passion of her affection.

Who can read the next two verses without punctuating them with tears?

"And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me" ( Rth 1:16-17 ).

Selected Note

" There was a famine in the land " ( Rth 1:1 ). The first mention of a famine which occurs in Scripture is in Genesis 12:10 , where we read that so early as the days of the patriarch Abraham "there was a famine in the land," which is described as so grievous as to compel the father of the faithful to quit Canaan. The country to which he resorted was, as we might expect, the land of Egypt, the early and lasting fertility of which is a well-known historical fact. In Genesis 26:1 , this famine is designated as "the first," that is, the first known, or of which there was any record. The same passage informs us of another famine which afflicted "the land" in the days of Isaac, who seems to have contemplated a descent into Egypt, but who, being instructed of God, removed to a part of Arabia Petræa ( Gen 26:17 ) named Gerar, a city of the Philistines, whose monarch's name was Abimelech.

Even Egypt, however, was not exempt from the desolations of famine ( Gen 41:30 ). The ordinary cause of dearth in Egypt is connected with the annual overflow of the Nile.... This famine was made by Joseph the occasion of one of the greatest social revolutions which history records. The details may be found in the book of Genesis; and it is enough to say here that, as the special administrator of the affairs of the country, Joseph got into his hands all the property of the kingdom, including the land (excepting that which belonged to the priests), and gave the same back to the people as tenants-at-will, on condition of their paying to the king "the fifth "probably of the annual produce.

From these statements it appears that three successive generations were in these early days visited by famine. The Scriptural narrative shows that in after-ages famines were, in ancient times, more frequent than they are now; and this justifies the use which is made of so terrible a scourge by the sacred writers, and especially the prophets and our Lord himself, in the highly figurative language which they employ in their righteous endeavours to turn wicked men and wicked nations from the evil of their ways (Ezekiel 6:11 ; Mat 24:7 ). In Amos 8:11 sq., a heavier woe than even the want of bread is appropriately spoken of under the appellation of a famine: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land; not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it: in that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst." The ensuing verse shows that idolatry was the moving cause of this heavy punishment.

Prayer

O thou that hearest prayer to answer it in great love, we come to thee in Christ thy Son, the Priest of the whole creation. He only knoweth how to pray. Lord, teach us also how to pray; inspire us with reverence; elevate us with a sense of awe; subdue and chasten us by all the sweet influences of the altar. May we look far on high, no cloud coming between us and the Father whose face our soul seeks. We would talk with God; it hath so pleased him that we may talk in our own way, out of our broken heart, telling all the tale of our sin and shame, our trespass and misery, and receiving in reply the eternal gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Thou knowest all our life every stain upon it, every flaw, every shortcoming; every honest purpose, every resolute endeavour to be right and to do thy will. What, then, can we tell thee? Yet thou art pleased to hear our speech, for the very utterance of our words thou hast made a means of grace. We speak to thee of thy goodness first, for it is first, midst, last; it is like the sky: we cannot tell where it begins, where it ends; we have measured the earth, and weighed it, and written our signature all over its face, but we know nothing about thy sky; it is an image of thyself in vastness, in grandeur, in majesty. As the heaven is high above the earth, so are thy thoughts above our thoughts and thy ways above our ways. We therefore speak of thy mercy as ever-abiding: it is the light of the morning; it is the rest of night; it is the song of all time. Because thy compassions fail not, therefore are we not consumed. We live upon pity; we owe our existence to thy tears; if thou didst hate us surely thou wouldst crush us with some great bolt of thunder. Yet thou dost spare us, and visit us, and care for us: herein is a love beyond all words. By thy providence thou dost draw us to thy grace. Thine is a gradual process, so that having looked upon the great letter of thy goodness in life we ask for further instruction, and are led, step by step, into the inner and upper sanctuary where is the eternal truth. We first see the great cross of wood we are amazed, we are struck with horror, our soul dies within us in very disgust; then we look at the Sufferer, and he transfigures the cross and makes it like a living tree, the leaves whereof are for the healing of the nations; we still look on, and out of his death there comes new life, new hope, new grace; we then say, Truly this Man was the Son of God; then we cast ourselves upon him, having no other refuge, no other hope our sin our only plea, our penitence our only hope. Thus the cross of Christ becomes heaven's brightest treasure, the very centre of all glory, the very majesty of the throne. We come to that cross night and day. Thou hast not yet taken it down; thou wilt continue it until thy purpose is all served: then cometh the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom unto God and the Father, and the Lord shall be all in all. Meanwhile, we would be saved by the cross, elevated and ennobled by the cross; we would be crucified upon it, that knowing the mystery of its pain, we may also know the power of the resurrection of Christ. We speak of thy goodness, but we know not what we say until we see the cross. Our first acknowledgments are full of selfishness. Thou hast given unto us loaves and fishes in the wilderness, and found a couch for us in the night-time and fountains of water in unexpected places, and we feel glad: but the gladness is stained through and through by self-regard. It is nothing to be glad for these things: these are appeals to our inferior nature; but when we are glad for Christ, for the spirit of grace, for the revelation of truth, for the opportunity of suffering for Christ, and for the occasion of serving him, for all the hopes which point to a destiny of deeper consecration, then we begin to touch the very magnanimity of thy Son. Our life we would live in thy sight. It is a poor little thing, cooled by the cold, affrighted by that which is high, troubled by that which is unknown; yet, nursed by thy grace, inspired and inflamed by thy Spirit, it becomes invested with somewhat of thine own almightiness a grand life, a gift of God, not less than any donation of his hand; a mystery full of hope and full of dignity. Do with us what thou wilt. We like to be on the mountain-top first lighted by the sun, on which the eventide lingers; we like to have our own way; we like to turn our wishes into realities; we like to be strong, rich, full of friends, and having everything according to our own desire. Herein is our fault. It is this self-enlargement and self-idolatry that shames us when we really understand it. We thought it faultless once; it seemed to be quite right; it is now all wrong. This we have been taught in the school of Christ a hard lesson, the last lesson that is taught there. So now we know what is meant by self-denial, self-obliteration. Yet we hardly know it. When we think we are dead behold we rise up again the old pride, the ineradicable vanity, starting up in self-defence. Lord, slay us! Lord, kill us, that we may enter into our nobler selves. Take away the old man and his deeds; slay him; put him where he never can rise again; yea, banish him from our memory, and set up within us the kingdom of the new man, Christ Jesus, self-denying, self-obliterating, the great man, who lives for others, in others, and in their gladness becomes his true self. Rule all things; we know thou wilt. We are startled by the little foam, and run away as if it could do us harm. The floods lift up their voice, but they cry themselves to rest. The Lord reigneth. We put ourselves within the sanctuary, and from its open windows we behold the method of God in the world so wise, so good, so unknowable in all its mystery, yet so gracious in its accessible points. Feed us evermore with the bread of life. Lord, evermore give us this bread! make us slaves of Christ that thus we may become freemen. Amen.