Elimelech, Who Left the Promised Land
6Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how Yahweh had visited his people in giving them bread. 7She went out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her. They went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May Yahweh deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead, and with me. 9May Yahweh grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices, and wept. 10They said to her, “No, but we will return with you to your people.” 11Naomi said, “Go back, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12Go back, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, ‘I have hope,’ if I should even have a husband tonight, and should also bear sons; 13would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for Yahweh’s hand has gone out against me.”
14They lifted up their voices, and wept again; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth joined with her. 15She said, “Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.” 16Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
No one knows who wrote the book of Ruth, but it records well how God works through the life of one family, in keeping with their faith. The writer describes in detail how far the people of Israel had fallen in the days of the judges, and shows plainly how differently each person’s life turns out, depending on the judgments and decisions they make.
The events of Ruth are thought to belong to the days of Gideon, the judge of the late twelfth century BC, when the forty years of peace that Israel had enjoyed after the victories of Deborah and Barak had come to an end and the Midianites were oppressing the land. This dating rests on the fact that David, who began to reign in Hebron in BC 1010, was Ruth’s great-grandson.
The story runs like this. A family living in Bethlehem could not hold out against a famine and moved to the land of Moab. While they were living there, Elimelech, the head of the household, his elder son Mahlon, and Chilion, Ruth’s husband, all died, for reasons we are not told. With the men of the house gone, Naomi the mother-in-law and Ruth her daughter-in-law returned to Bethlehem. There Ruth married Boaz, the man God had chosen, and became David’s great-grandmother. That a Gentile woman stands in the genealogy of the Messiah confirms both that Ruth is true history and that it is a record of the history of redemption. As we follow Ruth’s steps, we hope to grow one step further in our own faith — through the God who worked in her, and through the devotion of a frail woman who spent herself to keep her family together.
If you read Ruth not merely as the story of one household but see the God who guides their lives, you will hear what Scripture is saying. The Bible tells us that God’s purpose is the salvation of souls. In Ruth we want to meet the God who links people of faith together like stepping stones and carries out his work of salvation through those ties. Then we will see how God used a famine to bring Ruth, a woman he had prepared, into Naomi’s family, and so made her an ancestor of Christ.
Genesis 3:15
15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
The “offspring of the woman” of whom God spoke to Satan more than once is Jesus. Because Jesus accomplishes the work of salvation, he becomes Satan’s enemy and will bruise his head.
Genesis 9:8-9
8God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9“As for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your offspring after you,
In Genesis 3 God hinted that the woman would have offspring. In chapter 9 he spoke more specifically: the offspring of the woman who would come by this promise would be descended from Noah, who survived the judgment of the flood.
Genesis 21:12
12God said to Abraham, “Don’t let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your servant. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For your offspring will be named through Isaac.
Then in chapter 21 God spoke once more, saying that the “offspring of promise” would come through Isaac, Abraham’s son. Here he points clearly to Christ.
Isaiah 11:10
10It will happen in that day that the nations will seek the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner of the peoples; and his resting place will be glorious.
In Isaiah 11:10 God declared that in that day the root of Jesse would stand as a banner of the peoples, that the nations would seek him, and that his resting place would be glorious; and in saying so he singled out David, the root of Jesse. The apostle Paul, too, proclaimed in Romans that every prophecy had been fulfilled.
Romans 1:2-3
2which he promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning his Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh,
The book of Ruth, then, is one stage in the fulfillment of the prophecy that Jesus would come into the world. Through Ruth’s life a stepping stone was laid, and God has a purpose for your life as well. May you never forget it.
Ruth 4:21-22
21and Salmon became the father of Boaz, and Boaz became the father of Obed, 22and Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse became the father of David.
The wife of Boaz named here is Ruth. She bore Obed, and Obed became the father of Jesse, the father of David. Through genealogies like this, Scripture proves that the work of redemption Jesus came to accomplish at his first coming is real history. David could be born because Ruth overcame her hard circumstances by faith and took her stand. In the same way, the choices we make moment by moment, weighed by what is good, will play an important part in carrying out God’s work.
Because Israel had no leader after Joshua died, the period of the judges in which Ruth lived was corrupt and dark. The people had entered Canaan by the hand of God, but when they saw how comfortably the Gentiles lived, they forsook him out of a craving to prosper in the world. When the people grew corrupt, God himself put them through the fire. Yet whenever Israel cried out from the depths of suffering, he raised up a judge to rescue them. God longed to establish Israel as his own set-apart people, a holy nation shining the light of salvation.
Israel, however, took the daughters of the Gentiles as wives, wanting a share in their abundance. Fallen as they were, they did not stay faithful, and they sank deeper and deeper into evil. In the end they went back to the very wickedness that had filled the earth before the judgment of the flood.
The last chapter of Judges records that there was no king in Israel. God himself was Israel’s king, and if Scripture still says there was no king, it would mean that Israel had drifted that far from faith. For 342 years, every time Israel strayed, God raised up judges and helped them turn back, yet human beings would not give up their longing for the world. So God’s wrath was as great as the love with which he had shown them grace, and he disciplined them so that they would return to being his people.
To be rebuked is, even so, a sign that we are loved by God. If God turned his attention away from us, he would leave us without affliction or rebuke, as illegitimate children are left, and so we would instead lose our way and end up as servants of Satan. If we do not grasp how deep God’s love is, we will be unable to bear even a little difficulty, and we will become prodigals who leave him.
When a severe famine struck Bethlehem, Elimelech, Ruth’s father-in-law, left Canaan, the land to which God had led his people.
I suspect Elimelech weighed it all carefully before he left home. He would have talked it over with friends and relatives, and he would have struggled with it. But whatever the matter, the choice is ours alone to make, and so are its consequences; we must not forget this, and must always weigh things with care. In suffering we ought to lean on God all the more and endure. But those were days when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, so Elimelech judged that leaving Bethlehem was right, and he took his family and went to Moab.
Until then God had taught Israel that he cared for them, giving abundant harvests when they obeyed and sending famine and crop failure when they turned from him. Had Elimelech truly met this God, he would not have left Bethlehem when the famine came.
Micah 5:2
2But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times.
Micah prophesied that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. Abandon Bethlehem, where the Savior was to be born, and there is no place anywhere on earth where we can dwell. Once Israel, which stood at the center of God’s work of redemption, fell into sin, the land became so desolate that even they could not live in it.
Your heart, like Bethlehem, is a place where God’s eyes and ears rest. If by sin you lay waste the temple where the Spirit of the holy God dwells, you will lose his protection and face suffering in both body and spirit. Anyone may meet trouble and famine, but today, instead of bringing every problem to prayer and repentance, we try to leave the hard place at once.
We must realize, then, that the only way through suffering, the only way to live, is to stand firm in Christ, and we must endure. Each time a trial comes, instead of running from it, we have to go into God’s embrace, like chicks gathered under a hen; only there can we survive. So hardship is the hen’s urgent voice calling her chicks. A chick that ignores its mother’s call and goes its own way, with no shelter around it, will soon be in danger or die. Elimelech was like such a chick: he did not hear God’s voice, he did as he pleased, and he never came home. He died in Moab.
Elimelech’s name means “God is king,” and Naomi’s means “gracious one” or “lovely one.” Their son Mahlon’s name means “sickly,” and Chilion’s “one who longs” or “one who yearns.” Read by their names alone, the story goes like this. Elimelech had praised God as king, and Naomi was lovely because she had received grace. But when their faith decayed, it bore fruit as sickly as Mahlon, and like Chilion they became people who longed and yearned only for the comforts of the world. Elimelech had abandoned the faith that would overcome affliction with patience and grow through it, and that wrong choice plunged his whole family into misery.
Depending on the faith with which we weigh and decide the problems before us, we may set out, like Elimelech, on a road from which there is no return, or we may become, like Ruth, an ancestor of blessing.
Elimelech belonged to the tribe of Judah, the family from which the Messiah, Israel’s hope — Jesus Christ, the true King — had been promised. For a man of Judah, the tribe promised the Savior, to leave the promised land could only bring down God’s wrath; it was a dangerous act that broke the covenant Abraham had received.
When we are spiritually filled, we too praise God as king and give him thanks. At such times we look gracious and lovely, like Naomi. But if we cannot overcome worldly desire by faith, our faith grows sickly and our hearts will fill with longing for the world. To resolve to step outside the fence of God’s protection is a perilous thing and a foolish judgment. What is truly sad is that those who cannot endure suffering in the Lord go out into the world in search of a way to live, and in the end they cannot live there either.
Elimelech would have left for Moab thinking it would be all right to go against God’s will, so long as he and his family could live comfortably in the world. Or perhaps he did not think of God at all.
Moab lay east of the Dead Sea and was home to the descendants of Lot. Because they worshiped Chemosh, who was offered human sacrifice, it was far too desolate a land for God’s people to live in. The Moabites were born of Lot, who was rescued when Sodom was destroyed by God’s judgment, and his elder daughter. They were a nation under God’s curse, forbidden ever to enter the assembly of Israel. Elimelech went to Moab to make a living, but it would have been hard to live alongside people who sacrificed human beings to their idols. For when those who belong to God forsake grace and live as the world lives, that in itself is like a discord in which nothing fits together. Elimelech and his two sons went to the land of Moab to stay alive, and there they perished forever.
With her husband dead, Naomi had no more reason to remain in Moab. In those days a woman had to follow her husband’s decisions while he lived and her son’s once he died. But now that her husband and sons had all passed away, she resolved to go home. Her mind made up, she now found her daughters-in-law weighing on her heart, because it would not be easy to take young widows, Gentile women at that, back to Bethlehem.
Ruth 1:12-13
12Go back, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, ‘I have hope,’ if I should even have a husband tonight, and should also bear sons; 13would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for Yahweh’s hand has gone out against me.”
Naomi told her daughters-in-law to return to their own families: even if she found a husband and bore sons, how could they wait for those children to grow up? Israel had the law of levirate marriage, under which, if the eldest son died without an heir, his widow married the younger son to keep the family’s name alive. The law was there, but Naomi had no husband and could not give them sons, and that is why she urged them to go back. In a sense, the two daughters-in-law were the fruit of Naomi’s life in the world. To send them away would be as painful as giving up for good the sons she had loved, though they were already dead.
Hearing their mother-in-law tell them to go back, Orpah, the elder daughter-in-law, and Ruth, the younger, clung to her and wept aloud. They wept because, though their husbands were gone, they had grown so close to her that they had not imagined parting. Her words must have torn the two of them, because now that their husbands were dead and their mother-in-law could bear them no sons, there was no hope even if they stayed with her. For a woman who had married a Jew, going back to the Moabites would be hard; and for a Moabite born and raised in Moab, following her mother-in-law to Bethlehem was likewise a venture, which would have made it a burden to them. In the end Orpah chose to return to her own people, and Ruth stepped forward to follow her mother-in-law to the end.
Ruth 1:16
16Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God.
Why did Ruth settle on this course? Because Orpah and Ruth saw Naomi differently. Orpah saw only the physical: a kind-hearted mother-in-law. Ruth saw the spiritual: one of the people of Almighty God. Orpah, grieved as she was, made up her mind that she must go back because her mother-in-law had no earthly hope to offer. Ruth understood what her mother-in-law meant by sending her away, but she most likely judged that if she went back, it would be hard to go on serving God. When we discern well between the spiritual and the physical like this, we gain the wisdom to grasp God’s intent as well.
Ruth asked herself what lay in her mother-in-law’s heart: why had Naomi not told them to return to their people before they set out, but suddenly, partway to the land of Judah? To Ruth, the command to turn back sounded like its very opposite, an earnest plea to come home with her, and like a question: did she have faith in God enough to go with her to Bethlehem, even without a husband?
As Orpah turned back, Naomi told Ruth that, just as her sister-in-law was returning to her people and her god, she too should go. Ruth answered that where her mother-in-law was, she would be also. Perhaps this was the very answer Naomi had been waiting for. A Moabite woman could survive in the land of Israel only if the choice was her own, not if her mother-in-law dragged her along. Watching Orpah, Naomi said, “Your sister-in-law has gone back to her people, and to her god.” We can see that these words carry a further meaning: if you do not go back now, you must live as one of God’s people and as one who serves God.
Naomi returned to Bethlehem with Ruth. Just as sinners driven out of Eden hear the good news of the gospel and return to their true home, Naomi heard the joyful news that God had visited his people and given them bread, and she came back to the promised land. The news that the famine was over was gospel news, like the news that Jesus Christ has atoned for our sins and opened the way to God.
Naomi lost her worldly fruit — her husband and her two sons — but she gained Ruth, a fruit of faith. Ruth did feel compassion for her mother-in-law, but she joined the people of God because she had a clear knowledge of God and a faith of her own. She came to believe that the God Naomi told her about was greater than any other god. Though her father-in-law and her husband had died and only vulnerable women were left, she did not dwell on that dark reality; she came to Israel to serve Almighty God.
Had Ruth looked at Naomi and wondered how one of God’s own people could be so wretched as to lose her husband and sons, she would have left without a backward glance, as Orpah did. But rather than fixing on the trouble in front of her, Ruth had met Almighty God, and that is why she chose the promised land.
If we look only at the world, we too can only become Orpah; but if we trust the God who has given us eternal life, we will make the same choice as Ruth. If we who hope for the Kingdom of God refuse to settle down in our present comfort, and trust the God who works through every season and circumstance as stepping stones, we will possess the eternal land, just as he gave Naomi the promised land. Israel prized bloodline, and yet Ruth, a Moabite woman, came in and became a member of God’s assembly. This shows that the Kingdom of God is not founded on bloodline; its condition is faith.
When Naomi came home with her daughter-in-law Ruth, the whole town was stirred because of her. When she had left for Moab with her husband and sons, Naomi had been lovely and beautiful; now she reappeared a widow who had lost her family and all her wealth, with a widowed daughter-in-law at her side. It was, I imagine, the talk of the town. Even so, they welcomed her back with sincerity.
Ruth 1:20
20She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
Naomi is laying bare her heart: she had gone out full, and she had come back like this because Yahweh had punished her. Because she knew she had sinned against God, she understood full well how much courage it had taken to come home, and how mixed the feelings of those welcoming her must be.
She knew, without having to hear it, how the gossips would sneer to see her come home ruined, and what they would say: that she had forsaken God for the world and come back ruined after all. So she told them not to call her Naomi but Mara, a name meaning bitterness. Every life has its crises. Whether we pass through them with God or flee from hardship to the land of Moab will determine how our life ends; we must therefore choose with care. Naomi took courage and came home, and her hometown, just beginning the barley harvest, welcomed her with plenty.
If you too have wandered far, I hope you will find the courage, as Naomi did, to resolve to come back. Only make up your mind and return, and God will take you into his arms with abundant grace, like the father who welcomed the prodigal. Whether you went out reluctantly, following a husband, or by your own choice, if you will only come back, your suffering will end and you will find peace.
Going out into the world is easy and coming back is hard, but because Naomi took her stand in faith, Ruth could become one of the people of God. And when Ruth chose Jerusalem, fear and pain must have come with that choice; yet once she resolved in faith, God blessed her as an ancestor of Jesus and worked the miracle of bringing her into the assembly.
Whoever chooses well can receive blessing and live in it. The world you live in is dark, but when you choose in faith, you can live a life of peace, kept safe in the light of Christ.