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Ruth Chapter One
Ruth 1
Chapter Contents
Elimelech and his sons die in the land of Moab. (1-5)
Naomi returns home. (6-14) Orpah stays behind, but Ruth goes with Naomi.
(15-18) They come to Bethlehem. (19-22)
Commentary on Ruth 1:1-5
(Read Ruth 1:1-5)
Elimelech's care to provide for his family, was not to be
blamed; but his removal into the country of Moab could not be justified. And
the removal ended in the wasting of his family. It is folly to think of
escaping that cross, which, being laid in our way, we ought to take up.
Changing our place seldom is mending it. Those who bring young people into bad
acquaintance, and take them out of the way of public ordinances, thought they
may think them well-principled, and armed against temptation, know not what
will be the end. It does not appear that the women the sons of Elimelech married,
were proselyted to the Jewish religion. Earthly trials or enjoyments are of
short continuance. Death continually removes those of every age and situation,
and mars all our outward comforts: we cannot too strongly prefer those
advantages which shall last for ever.
Commentary on Ruth 1:6-14
(Read Ruth 1:6-14)
Naomi began to think of returning, after the death of her
two sons. When death comes into a family, it ought to reform what is amiss
there. Earth is made bitter to us, that heaven may be made dear. Naomi seems to
have been a person of faith and piety. She dismissed her daughters-in-law with
prayer. It is very proper for friends, when they part, to part with them thus
part in love. Did Naomi do well, to discourage her daughters from going with
her, when she might save them from the idolatry of Moab, and bring them to the
faith and worship of the God of Israel? Naomi, no doubt, desired to do that;
but if they went with her, she would not have them to go upon her account.
Those that take upon them a profession of religion only to oblige their
friends, or for the sake of company, will be converts of small value. If they
did come with her, she would have them make it their deliberate choice, and sit
down first and count the cost, as it concerns those to do who make a profession
of religion. And more desire "rest in the house of a husband," or
some wordly settlement or earthly satisfaction, than the rest to which Christ
invites our souls; therefore when tried they will depart from Christ, though
perhaps with some sorrow.
Commentary on Ruth 1:15-18
(Read Ruth 1:15-18)
See Ruth's resolution, and her good affection to Naomi. Orpah
was loth to part from her; yet she did not love her well enough to leave Moab
for her sake. Thus, many have a value and affection for Christ, yet come short
of salvation by him, because they will not forsake other things for him. They
love him, yet leave him, because they do not love him enough, but love other
things better. Ruth is an example of the grace of God, inclining the soul to
choose the better part. Naomi could desire no more than the solemn declaration
Ruth made. See the power of resolution; it silences temptation. Those that go
in religious ways without a stedfast mind, stand like a door half open, which
invites a thief; but resolution shuts and bolts the door, resists the devil and
forces him to flee.
Commentary on Ruth 1:19-22
(Read Ruth 1:19-22)
Naomi and Ruth came to Bethlehem. Afflictions will make
great and surprising changes in a little time. May God, by his grace, fit us
for all such changes, especially the great change!, Naomi signifies
"pleasant," or "amiable;" Mara, "bitter," or
"bitterness." She was now a woman of a sorrowful spirit. She had come
home empty, poor, a widow and childless. But there is a fulness for believers
of which they never can be emptied; a good part which shall not be taken from
those who have it. The cup of affliction is a "bitter" cup, but she
owns that the affliction came from God. It well becomes us to have our hearts
humbled under humbling providences. It is not affliction itself, but affliction
rightly borne, that does us good.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Ruth》
Ruth 1
Verse 1
[1] Now
it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in
the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of
Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
In the land — Of
Canaan. It must be early: for Boaz was born of Rahab. So Christ descended from
two Gentile mothers.
Verse 2
[2] And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and
the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehemjudah. And
they came into the country of Moab, and continued there.
Ephrathites —
Bethlehem was otherwise called Ephratha. Naomi signifies my amiable or pleasant
one: Mahlon and Chilon signify sickness and consumption. Probably they were
sickly children, and not likely to be long-lived. Such are the products of our
pleasant things, weak and infirm, fading and dying.
Verse 4
[4] And
they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and
the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years.
Took wives —
Either these were Proselytes when they married them, or they sinned in marrying
them, and therefore were punished with short life, and want of issue.
Verse 5
[5] And
Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two
sons and her husband.
Was left of her two sons, and her husband — Loss of children and widowhood are both come upon her. By whom shall she
be comforted? It is God alone that is able to comfort those who are thus cast
down.
Verse 6
[6] Then 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 that the LORD had
visited his people in giving them bread.
Bread —
That is, food; so she staid no longer there than necessity forced her.
Verse 8
[8] 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.
Mother's house —
Because daughters used to converse more frequently with their mothers, and to
dwell in the same apartments with them, which then were distinct from those
parts of the house where the men dwelt.
The dead —
With my sons, your husbands, while they lived.
Verse 11
[11] And
Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any
more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?
Your husbands —
According to the ancient custom, Genesis 38:8, and the express law of God, Deuteronomy 25:5, which doubtless she had
acquainted them with before, among other branches of the Jewish religion.
Verse 13
[13]
Would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from
having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that
the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.
It grieveth me —
That you are left without the comfort of husbands or children; that I must part
with such affectionate daughters; and that my circumstances are such, that I
cannot invite you to go alone with me. For her condition was so mean at this
time, that Ruth, when she came to her mother's city, was forced to glean for a
living. It is with me, that God has a controversy. This language becomes us,
when we are under affliction; tho' many others share in the trouble, yet we are
to hear the voice of the rod, as if it spake only to us. But did not she wish
to bring them to the worship of the God of Israel? Undoubtedly she did. But she
would have them first consider upon what terms, lest having set their hand to
the plow, they should look back.
Verse 14
[14] And
they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law;
but Ruth clave unto her.
Kissed —
Departed from her with a kiss. Bade her farewell for ever. She loved Naomi, but
she did not love her so well, as to quit her country for her sake. Thus many
have a value for Christ, and yet come short of salvation by him, because they
cannot find in their hearts, to forsake other things for him. They love him,
and yet leave him, because they do not love him enough, but love other things
better.
Verse 15
[15] And
she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her
gods: return thou after thy sister in law.
To her gods —
Those that forsake the communion of saints, will certainly break off their
communion with God. This she saith, to try Ruth's sincerity and constancy, and
that she might intimate to her, that if she went with her, she must embrace the
true religion.
Verse 17
[17]
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.
There will I be buried — Not desiring to have so much as her dead body carried back into the land
of Moab: but Naomi and she having joined souls, she desires they may mingle
dust, in hopes of rising together, and remaining together for ever.
Verse 18
[18] When
she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking
unto her.
Left speaking unto her — See the power of resolution! Those who are half-resolved, are like a
door a-jar, which invites a thief. But resolution shuts and bolts he door, and
then the devil flees from us.
Verse 19
[19] So
they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were
come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is
this Naomi?
Is this — Is
this she that formerly lived in so much plenty and honour? How marvelously is
her condition changed?
Verse 20
[20] And
she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath
dealt very bitterly with me.
Naomi —
Which signifies pleasant, and chearful.
Mara —
Which signifies bitter or sorrowful.
Verse 21
[21] I
went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye
me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath
afflicted me?
Full —
With my husband and sons, and a plentiful estate for our support.
Testified —
That is, hath borne witness, as it were, in judgment, and given sentence
against me.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Ruth》
Ruth's Noble Choice: "I Will Go" (1:1-22)
INTRODUCTION
1. The book of Ruth is a beautiful "interlude of love," set in... a. The period when judges ruled Israel - Ru 1:1 b. An era marked by immorality, idolatry, and war - cf. Judg 21:25 2. It tells a heartwarming story of devotion and faithfulness... a. Concerning a Moabite widow (Ruth) who leaves her homeland b. To live with her Jewish mother-in-law (Naomi) in the land of Israel 3. God honors Ruth's commitment... a. By guiding her to the field of Boaz (a near kinsman to Naomi) b. Where she gathers grain and finds a place in the genealogy of Christ! 4. It has been said the book serves two purposes... a. To illustrate how Jehovah rewards those who make wise spiritual choices and show steadfast filial loyalty b. To explain how Ruth, a Moabitess, came to be an ancestor of David, and ultimately, the Messiah - cf. Ru 4:21-22; Mt 1:5-6 [While the book's brevity and beauty makes it easy to read in onesitting, we will let it serve as the basis for four sermons, one foreach chapter. In chapter one, we learn of "Ruth's Noble Choice"...] I. A FATEFUL SOJOURN IN MOAB
A. FAMINE PROMPTS THE JOURNEY... 1. The setting - Ru 1:1 a. In the days of the judges (prior to the period of the kings of Israel) b. There is famine in the land of Judah c. A family of four leave Bethlehem to dwell in Moab 1) Bethlehem, city located 5 mi . S of Jerusalem; birthplace of David and Jesus 2) Moab, country located due E of the Dead Sea a) Descendants of Lot - Gen 19:36-37 b) Sometimes enemies, friends, of Israel - Jud 3:12-30; 1 Sam 22:3-4
2. The family - Ru 1:2 a. Elimelech the father, Naomi the mother b. Their two sons: Mahlon and Chilion c. Ephrathites - Bethlehem was also known as Ephrath - Gen 35:19; Mic 5:2
3. The move a. Prompted by the famine b. Perhaps indicating a lack of faith in God, who made provision for when His children became impoverished - cf. Lev 25:35 B. DEATH STRIKES THREE TIMES... 1. Elimelech dies - Ru 1:3 a. Leaving Naomi a widow with two sons b. Rabbinic tradition suggests his death was punishment for greed or having forsaken his homeland (Expositor's Bible Commentary) 2. Mahlon and Chilion marry women of Moab - Ru 1:4 a. Mahlon married Ruth, Chilion married Orpah - cf. Ru 4:10 b. Such marriages with women of Moab were strongly suspect, if not wrong - cf. Deu 23:3; 1 Ki 11:1-2; Neh 13:23-27 c. They live in Moab about ten years 3. Mahlon and Chilion die - Ru 1:5 a. Rabbinic tradition suggests it was because of leaving Judah, and their marriages b. Leaving Naomi a widow and childless, which she took as divine judgment against her - Ru 1:13,20-21 [Elimelech and his sons went to Moab to find bread, instead they foundgraves (Baxter). Bereaved of her husband and two sons, Naomi gives
thought to return to her homeland...] II. A FAITHFUL RETURN TO JUDAH
A. NAOMI CHOOSES TO RETURN HOME... 1. The famine in Judah had ended - Ru 1:6 a. The Lord's blessings had return to Judah b. The Lord had given them bread 2. Naomi encourages her daughters-in-law to remain in Moab - Ru 1:7-9
a. As they were on their way to leave b. Naomi encourages them to return to their mothers' house c. Naomi prays God's blessings upon them 1) To treat them kindly, because their kindness to her 2) To find rest in the homes of future husbands d. Prompting sorrowful displays a great affection B. RUTH CHOOSES TO RETURN WITH HER... 1. At first, both daughters-in-law desire to go with Naomi - Ru 1:10
a. Willing to return with her to her people b. Which speaks highly of their love for Naomi and duty as daughters-in-law 2. Naomi seeks to dissuade them - Ru 1:11-13 a. She has no sons to offer them b. She is too old to have a husband c. If she did marry and have sons, would they wait until they were old enough? d. It grieves her to see them suffer because of God's chastisement of her 3. Ruth cannot be dissuaded - Ru 1:14-18 a. Weeping, Orpah kisses her mother-in-law and leaves b. Ruth clings to her mother-in-law, and Naomi tries once again to persuade her to return c. Ruth's noble choice 1) To go wherever Naomi goes 2) To live wherever Naomi lives 3) To make the people of Naomi her people 4) To make the God of Naomi her God 5) To die and be buried where Naomi is buried 6) To let nothing but death come between them -- In making such a choice, Ruth has become a proselyte to Judaism d. Naomi realizes Ruth is determined to go with her C. NAOMI AND RUTH ARRIVE IN BETHLEHEM... 1. Their arrival sparks excitement in the city - Ru 1:19 2. Naomi believes she should be called Mara - Ru 1:20-21 a. No longer Naomi ("Pleasant"), but Mara ("Bitter") b. For she feels the Lord has dealt bitterly with her 1) She left Judah full, and has returned empty 2) She believes the Lord has testified against her, and has afflicted her c. This may be true - cf. Deu 28:15-19 1) Yet not all suffering is indicative of divine chastisement (cf. Job) 2) She may have been the innocent victim of others' sins 3. Naomi and Ruth settle in Bethlehem - Ru 1:22 a. Naomi, a woman without husband and sons b. Ruth, the Moabitess living in a strange land CONCLUSION
1. Their arrival was at the beginning of the barley harvest... a. Which sets the stage for the events in the next chapter b. Which portends a new beginning in the lives of Naomi and Ruth 2. This story certainly illustrates the importance of making choices... a. Choices come with consequences, sometimes good, sometimes bad b. Elimelech and his sons made choices... 1) Which may have appeared to be a good business decision 2) But ultimately left a wife and mother a widow and motherless in a strange land c. Ruth made a choice 1) To leave family and false religion, for the true God and His family 2) One that would have provide both temporal and eternal blessings - cf. Mk 10:29-30 Sometimes the choice is not between right and wrong, but between goodand better. Yet any choice we make will be the right one if made withthese words of Jesus in mind: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and allthese things shall be added to you." - Mt 6:33
"Ruth's Noble Choice" to follow Naomi and her God illustrates the truth
of Jesus' words!
－－《Executable Outlines》
01 Chapter 1
Verse 1
In the days when the judges ruled.
The transition from Judges to Ruth
Leaving the Book of Judges and opening the story of Ruth, we pass
from vehement out-door life, from tempest and trouble, into quiet domestic
scenes. After an exhibition of the greater movements of a people we are
brought, as it were, to a cottage interior in the soft light of an autumn
evening, to obscure lives passing through the cycles of loss and comfort,
affection and sorrow. We have seen the ebb and flow of a nation’s fidelity and
fortune; a few leaders appearing clearly on the stage, and behind them a
multitude indefinite, indiscriminate, the thousands who form the ranks of
battle and die on the field, who sway together from Jehovah to Baal, and back
to Jehovah again. What the Hebrews were at home, how they lived in the villages
of Judah or on the slopes of Tabor, the narrative has not paused to speak of with
detail. Now there is leisure after the strife, and the historian can describe
old customs and family events, can show us the toiling flockmaster, the busy
reapers, the women with their cares and uncertainties, the love and labour of
simple life. Thunderclouds of sin and judgment have rolled over the scene; but
they have cleared away, and we see human nature in examples that become
familiar to us, no longer in weird shadow or vivid lightning flash, but as we
commonly know it, homely, erring, enduring, imperfect, not unblest. (R. A.
Watson, M. A.)
There was a famine in the
land.
Famine, the consequence of sin
This might happen many ways: by the incursion of foreign enemies,
by civil wars among themselves, or by restraint of seasonable showers from
heaven. Howsoever it came, sin was the cause thereof: a toleration of idolaters
and public monuments of idolatry (Judges 1:21; Judges 1:27; Judges 1:29-30; Judges 3:5; Judges 2:2), contrary to God’s express
commandment by the hand of Moses. They fell themselves unto idolatry (Judges 2:11-13; Judges 2:17; Judges 8:27).
I. That sins,
Especially those aforenamed, deserve the judgments of God (Deuteronomy 28:1-68; 1 Kings 8:35-37). Therefore, to
escape plagues, let us take heed of sin (Ezekiel 18:31; Revelation 18:1-24).
II. That famine and
dearth is a punishment for sin, and that a great plague (Ezekiel 5:16; Deuteronomy 28:23-24; Leviticus 26:19; Leviticus 26:29; Amos 4:1-13). And when this hand of God
cometh upon us, let us search our ways and humble ourselves (2 Chronicles 7:14), that the Lord
may heal our land, for it is a terrible judgment (1 Samuel 24:14) and without mercy (2 Kings 6:10; 2 Kings 6:29; Ezekiel 4:10).
III. We may hereby
see how God made His word good upon them, and that He dallieth not with His
people, in denouncing judgments against them; for Moses had told them (Deuteronomy 28:1-68) that God would thus
afflict them if rebellious against Him: and here the story telleth us that in
the days of the judges this famine came. (R. Bernard.)
A famine in the land!
in the land of promise and in Bethlehem, the House of Bread! No
doubt the state of affairs in Bethlehem constituted a severe trial of faith to
Elimelech and his family and neighbours. It is very hard to see the meal
growing less and less in the barrel; it is even harder for those who have
enjoyed times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and seasons of
genuine delight in His service, to lose the experience of the Divine love and
care, to find prayer becoming a burden and the Word of God lifeless and
unhelpful; but can either the one condition of things or the other be any
excuse or justification for forsaking the land of promise? For, to begin with,
how can a change of front help us under the circumstances? If corn be scarce in
Canaan, where God has pledged Himself to feed us, is it likely that better
things will be found in a land upon which, as we shall see, His curse is
resting? If from any cause our sense of the presence and approval of Jesus
seems to have lost something of its distinctness, even in that circle of Church
life and Christian society with which we have been associated, is it probable
that we shall obtain truer solace and renewal in that “world” the friendship of
which is declared to be enmity to our Lord? And, after all, what is the
province of faith if it be of no service to us under such circumstances as
these? Christ, as we well know, changes not; if there be a change in our
experience of Him, the causes lie with us, and not with our Lord--the clouds
are earth-born; what we need is more sun, not less, and this we shall never
obtain by turning our back upon Him from whom every blessing of spiritual
experience, as well as of earthly enjoyment, flows. It is pretty certain that,
like Elimelech, those whose hearts are growing colder would protest almost with
indignation that they have no intention of any permanent abandonment of Christ.
They are suffering from famine--from a loss of spiritual enjoyment. To what may
this unhappy state of things be due? Some, perhaps, would frankly aver that
they never have found enjoyment in Christ and His service from the very
commencement; they have sought to serve Him purely as a matter of duty: for
their pleasure they have looked to the world. Some, again, would admit that
there are both food and enjoyment in the Divine life for those who desire to
follow Christ, and at one time they themselves hoped that it would prove
permanently satisfying; but they confess that they got tired of it after a
time, and it seemed rather hard to them that they should be required to limit
themselves to that which, however good in itself, appeared to be somewhat
restricted in character. Now, our Bread is Christ, and dissatisfaction with our
Bread is dissatisfaction with Him, and confessions such as those to which we
have been listening simply mean that the Lord Jesus has ceased to be, or more
probably has never been in any very real sense, everything to us; such persons
as those whose cases we have imagined have not actually given up serving and
loving the Lord, or at any rate do not think they have done so, but into a
heart which has never been completely surrendered to the Master they have
admitted other objects of regard, and these later affections, competing with
that earlier one, have dimmed its lustre and loosened its hold upon us. And are
there not others who, whilst desiring after a fashion to lead a Christian life,
deliberately place themselves beyond the reach, so to speak, of the nourishing
and fructifying grace of God by the very character of the circumstances by
which they elect to surround themselves? Their friends, their amusements, their
books (not to mention other matters) seem to be chosen almost with a view to
hindering instead of assisting their growth in Christ. But the Holy Spirit is
Sovereign; He is the Lord of life as well as the giver of it, and He feeds the
souls who seek Him in accordance with His own will, not in accordance with
theirs. And the famine in Bethlehem took place “in the days when the judges
ruled.” It is impossible to read the historian’s account of those days (Judges 2:11, etc.) without realising that
the times were very bad indeed, and just such as we should expect to be
characterised by famine and distress of all kinds. For, to begin with, they
were days of religion by fits and starts--days in which the Israelites served
God when they were in trouble and forgot Him as soon as their circumstances
improved. Is it likely that such a condition of things and such a fashion of
living can succeed? Will God bless those who, blind to His long-suffering, set
every law of gratitude and right behaviour at defiance in this hopeless kind of
way? But is not this precisely what some of us are constantly doing? No,
religion by fits and starts cannot possibly be a happy state of affairs: it
must involve us in that separation from God which results in famine. We
shall not improve our circumstances, however, by turning our backs upon God;
let us understand that our want is due to our own conduct, not to God’s
unfaithfulness, and let us seek so to amend our lives that He may yet be able
to make our land flow with milk and honey. Moreover, the days when the judges
ruled were obviously days of intermittent government: the arrangement was but a
makeshift at the best. In our own ease it is the absence of the autocratic rule
of the Lord Jesus, or rather our fretful murmuring against the rule, which lies
at the root of most of our spiritual sorrow. We acknowledge the Lord as our
Saviour, but do we sufficiently recognise Him to be Christ our King? It is
impossible for us to fear the Lord and serve our own gods, and be happy--try as
we may. That there are times in the experience of all Christian people when the pasture which once was
green fails somewhat of its peaceful restfulness no one who knows anything of
life will for a moment deny. But this is neither starvation nor a breaking of
faith on the part of our covenant God. Elimelech left Bethlehem in a moment of
panic, or a fit of despondency or of world-hunger, but others remained and
trusted the God of their fathers; and when ten years later Naomi, the solitary
survivor of the little band, returned, she found her friends alive and well and
in the enjoyment of barley harvest. They had been tried, indeed, but never
forsaken. It was sad enough that Elimelech should have left the land of promise
and the House of Bread: it was worse that he should have selected Moab as his
new home. It was not merely that the people of the country were heathen, and
that, as Elimelech must have known, if he and his family were to remain true to
God they would have to lead lives of trial and to face unpopularity and perhaps
persecution, but Moab had acted with extraordinary bitterness to his ancestors
in times past, and in consequence was under a very terrible curse. Are we in no
danger? Are there none of us who are beginning to turn our heads, and our
hearts too, in the direction of those old associations and those old
surroundings which did us so much injury in the past--the scars of whose
wounds, the fascination of whose attractions, have not yet passed away? Are we
wise in venturing where stronger men than we are have fallen, where we
ourselves fell not so long ago? God help us, and keep us true to Him and to
ourselves! (H. A. Hall, B. D.)
Bethlehem-judah.
The famine in Bethlehem
The home of Elimelech was in Bethlehem “Bethlehem-judah” as the
historian is careful to remark, in order to distinguish it from another
Bethlehem in the territory of the tribe of Zebulun. Its very name--Bethlehem, i.e.,
House of Bread--indicates its fertility. And therefore the famine which
drove Elimelech from Bethlehem must have been extraordinarily protracted and
severe; even the most wealthy and fertile parts of the land must have been
consumed by drought: there was no bread even in the very House of Bread.
Elimelech and his household were by no means likely to be the first to feel the
pinch of want, or to feel it most keenly; for he came of a good stock, of a
family that stood high in the tribe of Judah, and was a man of consideration
and wealth. The probability is that he was rich in flocks and herds, a
sheep-master such as Bethlehem has constantly produced, and that it was to find
pastures for his famishing flocks that he went to sojourn in Moab. (S. Cox,
D. D.)
He, and his wife, and his
two sons.--
Family names
The names are thoroughly Jewish, and are rich in meaning.
Elimelech was a grand name for a pious man; it means, “My God is King.” The
mother is called Naomi, “the gracious” or “sweetness.” Mahlon means “weakly,”
and Chilion, “pining” or “wasting,” referring probably to their bodily
condition; for as they both died young it is possible they were ailing from
their birth. But it is noteworthy that in those olden times parents were
accustomed to give their children names according to some peculiarity in their
circumstances, or in the fond hope that the special virtue implied in the name
might be developed in after-life. Isaac’s firstborn is Esau, because of the
redness of his skin. Moses in exile calls his son Gershom, “For,” he said, “I
have been a stranger in a strange land.” The custom is dying out in these
modern times. Parents give children names without inquiring the meaning; the
sound is more to them than the sense. But there may be more involved, for good
or evil, in the old custom than we suppose. Shakespeare asks, “What’s in a
name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” True, but as an American
writer points out, “The influence of names in the formation of character is
probably much greater than is usually imagined, and deserves the special
attention of parents in their bestowment. Children should be taught that the
circumstances of their bearing the names of good men or women who have lived
before them constitutes an obligation upon them to imitate or perpetuate their
virtues.” It does not follow that the desired result will be obtained, yet it
may be an influence; and at least the name, when contrasted with the life, will
be a constant rebuke. (Wm. Braden.)
They came into the country of Moab, and continued there.
Lessons from the conduct of Elimelech and Naomi
1. Learn from the change in the circumstances of Naomi’s husband not to
trust in the uncertain possessions of this world. You may now be wealthy and
respectable among your neighbours and acquaintances; a few years or months may
reduce you to a condition of discomfort, if not of poverty and indigence.
2. Learn from the consequences of the step taken by Elimelech, the
peril of discontentedness and impatience under adverse circumstances. Should
riches make themselves wings, and poverty threaten to be your lot, beware of
rashly changing your habits and connections.
3. Ye that are parents, surrounded with a family of children, learn
from this history to reflect how soon these children may be taken away. And oh!
strive and pray, above all things, that they may be the children of God by
faith in Jesus Christ.
4. Learn from Naomi’s trials the beneficial effects of affliction;
and from her resolution to return to her native land--the land of Jehovah’s
worship--that the only true refuge in affliction is pure and undefiled
religion. (H. Hughes, B.D.)
The wanderers
Thus the history of Ruth begins with a story of wanderers from
God. It is a sad, but not a strange commencement.
I. Why did they
wander, and thus leave the home of their fathers? The answer given is, “There
was famine in the land.” God had sent upon them a temporary trouble, and they
fled from it. But when God chastens us in His wisdom, our duty is to yield with
contentment and submission. We should bear the rod and Him who hath appointed
it. When we patiently yield to His merciful chastisements, they become our most
precious blessings. “There was a famine in the land,” and they fled from it.
Temporary sufferings made their home for a little while uncomfortable, and they
could not patiently endure the will of God. It was their own land. It was their
father’s land. It was the Lord’s land. Their family and friends were there. Why
should they fly? The next season might be better, and more than repay them for
the losses of the present. The famine might follow them to the land whither
they went, and make their sufferings greater there than at home. When Socrates
was urged by his friends to escape from the prison where he was condemned to
die, he answered them, “Tell me of a land where men do not die, and I will
escape to that.” How much better might this family have found a quiet
submission to the will of God! What an illustration this is of sinful, foolish
man! Adam had all the garden of Eden. One single restraint made him a voluntary
wanderer from God. How easily have all who have descended from him rebelled and
wandered since! But can we ever find happiness in running away from God? Is
there any happiness but in a cheerful, filial submission to God? See where this
wandering from God begins--in a spirit of rebellion and discontent. Oh, be ye
watchful there. Be ready to hear and to do the will of God. In the midst of
your trials remember His mercies.
II. But who were
these wanderers whose story we have before us? They were a family of
Israelites, of professed believers in the Word of God. Never does sin seem to
be more dreadful than when man’s ingratitude is contrasted with God’s mercies.
You are never straitened in God. You have all things and abound in Him. He is
rich in His mercy to you all. Why should you wander?
III. This wandering
was wholly unnecessary. These Israelites were not poor and perishing. They
“went out full.” Their wandering was therefore wilful, and this made it the more
rebellious and guilty. But is not all wandering from God unnecessary? Why need
we ever go astray from Him? It will be always a solemn charge against us, “they
went out full.” It is the wandering which makes us empty. If we go away from
God our own heedlessness or choice is the fountain of our guilt and sorrow. Why
need we wander?
IV. From whence did
these Israelites wander? It was from the Lord’s own land, Immanuel’s land. It
was from the whole company of His people. It was from the midst of the privileges
of Divine revelation. It was from Bethlehem, the House of Bread. It was a
hasty, foolish wandering from a happy home. We will not call every journey a
wandering. It depends upon whence we came and whither we go, and under whose
direction we move. Jonah wandered. When God sent him to Nineveh he fled to
Tarshish. And God arrested him in the deep and brought him back. Manasseh
wandered. And he was taken in the thorns and bound with fetters, till, in the
day of his affliction, he sought the Lord and was forgiven. Demas wandered.
From a love of this present world he forsook his Master and returned no more.
Judas wandered. And how fearful was his end when he went to his own place! This
is the wandering of which we have to speak. It is a wandering from God, from
His Spirit, from His Word, from His Church. Whosoever goes astray from God
voluntarily leaves the salvation which has been provided for him, and makes it
his condemnation that he has loved darkness rather than light, because his ways
are evil. But there are many wanderers from God in a very peculiar sense. They
go from the very midst of His family, from Bethlehem itself, where Jesus is.
They were born in His Church. They were early dedicated to Him in His holy
sacrament. They were taught His Word, and named and registered among the number
of His covenant people. They might have lived always at His feet and in His
favour. But they left Bethlehem in rebellious discontent.
V. Whither did
these Israelites wander? “To the country of Moab”; to a land of idolatry; a
land of open licentiousness and crime. What a change of condition to them! What
though bread was abundant there! “Fulness of bread like that in Sodom!” Man
does not live by bread alone. And who that truly loved God would not rather
live with a famine in Bethlehem than with sinful abundance in Moab? They went
to Moab, but only “to sojourn there.” Just as Lot went to sojourn in Sodom.
Just as every wanderer from God goes into the world. It is but for recreation.
It is only a harmless indulgence. It is but for a season of enjoyment. They
mean some time to return and never to go back to Moab again. To die in Moab,
without God and without hope! Nothing is further from their thoughts than this.
They will only dip in the lake, like the swallow, and they shall feel refreshed
for a longer flight. Ah, how little they know of the dangers they encounter!
VI. And what were
the results of their wandering? What could they be but wasting sorrow and
death? Ah, how sad are the results of a life of guilt! How mournful are the
consequences of a wandering from God! (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
Spiritual advantages sacrificed to worldly gain
Were they wise in taking this step? For some reasons they
were wise. There was an abundance in the land of Moab, and a scarcity in the
land of Judah. Worldly prudence, then, seemed to point out some other spot as
their dwelling-place. But one thing they did not sufficiently consider--they
were leaving behind them many of their religious advantages. Yes, there is no
doubt that Elimelech was wrong, very wrong, in leaving the land of Judah with
his family, and settling in the godless country of Moab. It is a fearful thing
to set little store by our religious advantages and blessings, when God has
given them to us. When, for instance, a person chooses a new home, how apt he
is to reckon how far he will be a gainer in a worldly point of view, putting
aside altogether his gain or loss in spiritual things! How sad, if he should
grow richer for this life, but poorer for eternity! Again, when a servant
chooses a fresh situation, is he not apt to measure the goodness of it by the
wages he is to receive, instead of thinking seriously how far his soul is
likely to prosper in his new home? (Bp. Oxeuden.)
Cowardly emigration
Emigration from one’s own land can only be justified when it
becomes an inevitable thing--where the population abounds more than the means
of maintenance, and the people require to be thinned by the emigration of some
for the comfort and advantage of all. But when people leave their country in the
day of its difficulties, and thus refuse their help, they play the part of
cowards who desert the army when the tide of battle rolls against its standards
they act undutifully before God, unworthily as patriots, and cruelly as human
beings. Our best exertions at such a crisis are always due; and instead of
flinching from a sphere in which any good is possible to us, we ought to show
that duty calls us wherever we can be of service. (J. Cumming, D. D.)
The godly oppressed, while the wicked have abundance
This may seem a strange thing, that the godly should be oppressed
with famine, when worldlings and heathen wallow in their wealth. Of these David
speaketh (Psalms 17:14; Psalms 36:15; Psalms 73:4; Psalms 73:12). The like you may hear in
Job (Job 21:7). But of the righteous it is
said that they often cry out of their afflictions, their sorrows and nakedness,
their hunger and misery; yea, our Saviour Christ pronounces Himself in His
members, poor, hungry, naked. Judge now between the outward estate of the godly
and the wicked; are they not contrary? That which of the world is condemned is
of the Lord commended. Yet be not terrified from godliness, but rather
strengthened in your profession. Then will you say, “Tell us the cause of this
inequality?” Our Saviour answers (John 15:19; John 16:20). He compares us to the
fruitful vine, which doth not only abide frost, snow, storm, and heat, but also
at the gathering time is broken off, that the grapes may be reached. The gold
must be tried in the furnace, the silver fined in the fire, the wheat purged in the
floor, and, before it be meat for man, must also he ground in the mill; so must
we be proved in affliction, fined in persecution, and crushed in pieces, under
the burden of our own miseries, that we may be made prepared bread for the
Lord’s own spending. Why, then, doth the Lord make such large promises to His
Church of plenty, seeing it endures continual poverty? I answer, the Church of
God must be considered after two sorts: the first, as it is cleansed in the blood
of Christ, and washed pure from all outward and notorious offences, unto which
estate pertain all these outward promises of liberality in the Scriptures. The
second is the declined estate, or corrupted condition of every one in the
Church, even unto the world’s end: unto this pertain all the punishments and
tribulations which the godly endure, which the Lord sends upon them that He may
by little and little scour us from our transgressions and weary us with the
miseries of this life, that we may the more earnestly desire the life to come,
for the Lord doth here scourge us that we should not be condemned with the
world. (E. Topsell.)
Moab doomed
Moab was a doomed country. More than a hundred years before Ruth’s
birth its sentence had been pronounced through the mouth of the prophet Balaam:
“There shall come a Star out of Jacob; and a Sceptre shall arise out of Israel,
and shall smite the corners of Moab.” “The earth also, and the works that are
therein, shall be burned up.” (C. F. Hall.)
Elimelech an exile
In the “Field of Moab,” that is the upland canton bounded by the
Amon on the north, the mountains on the east, and the Dead Sea precipices on
the west, people lived very much as they did about Bethlehem, only more safely
and in greater comfort. But the worship was of Chemosh, and Elimelech must soon
have discovered how great a difference that made in thought and social custom
and in the feeling of men toward himself and his family. The rites of the god
of Moab included festivals in which humanity was disgraced. Standing apart from
these he must have found his prosperity hindered, for Chemosh was lord in
everything. An alien who had come for his own advantage, yet refused the
national customs, would be scorned at least, if not persecuted. Life in Moab
became an exile, the Bethlehemites saw that hardship in their own land would
have been as easy to endure as the disdain of the heathen and constant
temptation to vile conformity. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
Elimelech, Naomi’s husband died.
The death of Elimelech
He went first from Israel, the land of the living, and led them
thence, and so he now goeth out of the world before them.
I. Death is the
end of all, and it spareth none (Joshua 23:14; Job 21:33; Ecclesiastes 6:6; Ecclesiastes 7:2; 1 Corinthians 15:51; Hebrews 9:27).
II. A full supply
of bodily wants cannot prevent death. The man must die in Moab, where was food
enough; the rich glutton must die also, and the rich man with his barn full.
III. Where men think
to preserve life, there they may lose it, as Elimelech doth here, fleeing from
the famine in Israel, yet died where plenty was, in Moab; for no place is free
from death, and when the time appointed is come, man cannot pass it (Job 14:5). (R. Bernard.)
Elimelech’s departure and death
I. The cause of
his departure. “There was a famine in the land.” Famine cometh from God. It was
threatened in the Mosaic law, as a punishment from Heaven for disobedience and
sin (Leviticus 26:18-20). See how many arrows
Jehovah hath in His quiver! In how many ways He can wither our comforts--blast
our enjoyments. See how dependent we are upon Him. If famine and its calamitous
consequences be occasioned by sin, let us be thankful to God that they are not
inflicted upon us. We cannot deny that our sins are great and numerous,
considering the precious advantages we enjoy. Still God loadeth us daily with
His benefits. “He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities.” Let us learn to be thankful. Let us flee to the
Redeemer’s Cross for pardon, on account of our past forgetfulness of God. If
famine and its accompanying horrors were experienced so frequently in the land
of promise, we may gather that we cannot be free from adversities in any
station or in any portion of the earth. When we are encompassed by
difficulties--when we are ready to wish that we were in the situation of some
of our neighbours, did we but know how bitter the ingredients which the hand of
Providence not unfrequently puts into their cups, we should murmur less at our
own crosses, and endure with a more satisfied mind our own tribulations. Let us
learn, then, to be satisfied with the station which Providence has assigned us,
and seek for relief under the trials which are inseparable from it, in the holy
Word of God. Religion is the only effectual soother of human woe. It does not,
indeed, remove miseries from those who are under its hallowing dominion, but it
mixes the sweet with the bitter, so as to render the burden supportable. By
directing the eye of the troubled Christian to that heavenly Benefactor who was
suspended for him on the Cross, and thereby opened for him a way to the realms
of unending blessedness, it deprives the trials of this temporary scene of much
of their bitterness, and imparts new energy to the sinking soul. Again, if the
sore effects of famine were felt in Canaan, while there was abundance in
Moab--if Israelites suffered want, when Egyptians, and Philistines, and
Moabites suffered it not--the possession of many earthly comforts is no
evidence of spiritual safety, no sure sign of Divine favour and love. The only
heaven which the despisers of the Saviour shall enjoy lies on this side the
tomb; therefore they often receive more of the blessings of Providence than the
heirs of glory.
II. Whither
Elimelech directed his course when he departed from Canaan. By this conduct
this man evinced too great a regard for terrestrial bliss, and too little for
that which is heavenly. He slighted Divine ordinances and the privileges of the
Lord’s sanctuary. The grace of God has, indeed, enabled His servants to keep
their garments clean in the midst of the greatest pollutions, as Joseph in
Egypt and Obadiah in the household of wicked Ahab; still it is oftener the
case, under such circumstances, that the Christian suffers more of evil than he
imparts of good. “The companion of fools shall be destroyed.” “Lead us not into
temptation.” If intercourse with the ungodly be so replete with danger, let us
carefully avoid it.
III. What became of
Elimelech in his new dwelling-place? “And Elimelech Naomi’s husband died, and
she was left, and her two sons.” We are not informed how soon he died; but that
he finished his life shortly after his settlement there is clear from his death
happening before that of his two sons, who lived only ten years after their
arrival in Moab. How short the period he escaped from the pressure of famine in
the land of his nativity! And if he had greater abundance of earthly comforts
in his new habitation, how quickly were they all taken from him! If he had
remained in the land of religious advantages, he would not have had to sustain
adversities and hardships there long. Rather than resort to unlawful, or even
questionable, measures, to get rid of our troubles, we ought to implore aid
from heaven, that we may “endure” the “chastening” of the Lord--that we may
bear the afflictions which His providence allots to us with patience and
humility--being fully persuaded that our heavenly Parent doeth all things
well--and likewise with earnest supplications for the accompanying influences
of the Divine Spirit, by which they become greatly instrumental in meetening
our souls for the habitations of the blessed. Learn:
1. That adversities and troubles should not be allowed to weigh too
heavily on our minds.
2. That we should be very moderate in our estimation of, and desire
for, earthly blessings. (John Hughes.)
Out of one sorrow into another.
The end of one sorrow is the beginning of another, like the drops
of rain distilling from the top of a house, when one is gone, another follows;
like a ship upon the sea, being on the top of one wave, is presently cast down
to the foot of another; like the seed which being spread by the sower is
haunted by the fowls, being green and past their reach is endangered by frost
and snow, being past the winter’s hurt, by beasts in summer, being ripe is cut
with the sickle, threshed with the flail, purged in the floor, ground in the
mill, baked in the oven, chewed in the teeth, and consumed in the stomach. This
made David say (Psalms 34:13). But be not discouraged,
for through many afflictions must we enter into the kingdom of heaven, and by
affliction we are made like the Son of God. (E. Topsell.)
She was left, and her two
sons.
Comfort in bereavement
I. That albeit
death is due to all, yet it seizeth not upon all at once; but one dieth now and
another hereafter. But God will have mankind upon earth till the last day; He
forbeareth some, and reprieveth them for their amendment; for the lengthening
of life is for our further repentance.
II. That the Lord,
in afflicting His children, sweeteneth the same with some comforts. He wholly
leaveth not them without some taste of His mercy and goodness, as we may see in
His dealing with Naomi. He took away her husband, and left her two sons, and
after took them away, but gave her an excellent daughter-in-law. If we look
upon the affliction, let us also consider what cause of comfort we have; mark
when, for what, how long or short, what it is allayed with, that we be not
wholly cast down. (R. Bernard.)
They took them wives of the women of Moab.
Sinful marriages
The sin of these young men in marrying strange women is not
expressly denounced as a sin in the story, although it is denounced in the
Targum, which commences Ruth 1:4 thus: “They transgressed the
commandment of the Lord, and took foreign wives from among the daughters of
Moab.” But no one can read the Old Testament without feeling that they sinned
against the law, for to the Hebrews marriage was a religious covenant; and St.
Paul does but utter an admitted and familiar truth when he asks, “What
fellowship has light with darkness, or Belial with God?” The reason of the law
is given in the passage just cited from Deuteronomy--“they will turn away thy
children from Me, and they will serve false gods.” The daughters of Moab were
specially obnoxious to the faithful Israelites. They appear to have been among
the most fascinating, and the most wanton and profligate, women of antiquity.
Their gods--Chemosh, Moloch, Baal-peor--were incarnations of lust and cruelty.
They demanded human sacrifices. Children were cast into their burning arms. In
their ritual sensuality was accounted piety. True, Mahlon and Chilion were
exceptionally fortunate in their wives. They were not turned to the service of
false gods, though there was grave reason to fear that they might be; but, on
the other hand, neither did they turn their wives to the service of the only
true God. It was not till after her husband’s death that Ruth learned to take
shelter under the wings of the Lord God of Israel (Ruth 2:12); and Orpah, as we are
expressly told (Ruth 1:15), “went back to her people and
her gods.”(S. Cox, D. D.)
In the country of Moab
It is wonderful how soon and how easily one gets used to a change
of circumstances when the change itself is brought about gradually. The country
of Moab, into which Elimelech and his family had journeyed, had of course its
own language, its own fashions, and its own religion too, and these were as
dissimilar as possible from those of the country which they had just now left.
Yet the new-comers were in no serious sense shocked by what they saw and
heard--had they so been they would have retraced their steps without delay; but
each day brought its own novelty, and they managed to accustom themselves to
the new things of to-day before it became necessary to face those of the
morrow. Looking calmly at our fashion of living and way of acting now, some of
us are compelled to admit how much we have changed in recent years; we never
guessed that the alteration was so great or so complete; we never meant to have
come so far. Worst of all, we never thought we should have felt the change so
little. We remember well the qualms of conscience by which we were troubled
when first we commenced to wander: we recollect now how the protests of our
heart became fainter and fainter day by day until they ceased to be anything
more than a hardly audible whisper. We went to sojourn in the country of Moab:
we came into the country of Moab, and continued there. To begin with, our
intentions were purely selfish, as selfish as were those of Lot when he elected
to pitch his tent toward Sodom. We were going to get what we could out of Moab;
they who lived there had something that we coveted, and we determined to make
them share it with us. And, moreover, we had no serious intention of giving
Moab anything in return. It is, indeed, just possible that at one time we may
have possessed the Quixotic idea of remodelling life in Moab to suit our own
ideas, but if so we soon abandoned the idea; for on the one hand we found that
Moab was not willing to be remodelled--indeed, when we faintly suggested
something of the kind, they said to us, as Sodom had said to Lot, and with not
a little point, “Stand back; this one came in to sojourn, and he will needs be
a judge”; and on the other hand, our own opinions were neither sufficiently
clear in our own minds nor dear to our own hearts to enable us to graft them
upon others. We were somewhat surprised, it may be, and a little pained, at the
way in which our new neighbours received our well-meant attempts, in the early
days of our life in Moab, to bring before them the advantages of a life of
obedience and surrender to God. “If Bethlehem was such a charming place, and
the life there so delightful, why did you exchange it for our country?” they
not unnaturally inquired; “if Bethlehem did not satisfy you, how can you
suppose that it will satisfy us?” Nor may we forget that in leaving the land of
promise the wanderer never intends to be absent for other than a short period.
If, on parting from our true home, any one had suggested that we should have
been found in Moab to-day, we should have denied the imputation with
indignation. Yet here we are still; and here in His great mercy the Good
Shepherd has found us, and hence He desires to carry us home again--to our home
and His. So they came into the country of Moab, and appear to have been
received there with courtesy and hospitality. The world is always glad when
those who have been making a somewhat definite profession of devotion to God
show signs of a desire to relax the strictness of their behaviour; it is always
willing to meet such persons more than half-way, and to do its best to enable
them to quiet the still struggling conscience with as little delay as possible.
If the world would only persecute us when it finds us on its own ground, there
would be some hope that our stay in Moab would prove short indeed. Not that the
world is any more prompted by unselfishness in its reception of us than were we
ourselves in our journey to Moab; our new friends rejoice that, by our change
of front, another protest against their way of life has died a natural death,
and they are only too glad to be present and assist at its obsequies; they are,
moreover, clear-sighted enough to see without being told that our surrender is
a tacit victory for the world and indifferentism, and pro tanto a defeat
for the gospel and a discredit to the life of faith in Christ. (H. A. Hall,
B. D.)
Alternation of shadow and sunshine in life
And thus the world moves on--deaths and marriages, marriages and
deaths. The household which to-day mourns as though all joy had taken flight
for ever to-morrow resounds with the laughter of many voices at a newborn
happiness. The faces all tear-stained yesterday are bright with smiles to-day.
The bell which slowly tolled the funeral knell an hour ago now rings out the
joyous wedding chime. So it must be, so it ought to be. Probably life would
lose half its beauty but for this alternation of shadow and sunshine; at least,
this we know, that human hearts need both the darkness and the light, or they
will not grow to that perfection of truth and purity which God has designed
they shall attain. Elimelech died, the sons married. It is a simple statement,
yet a whole world of change is involved in it for that small household. (W.
Braden.)
Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them.
Bereavement a blessing
What a melancholy collapse it all had been! For those so dear to
her, death; for herself, solitude--the woman was left of her two sons and her
husband. And yet what a marvellous blessing bereavement not only may be but
often is. Surrounded by those who make up to us our world, we are slow to raise
our eyes above or beyond them, or to realise that we have any need which they
are incapable of supplying; but when they are taken from us, these beloved ones
upon whom alone we have leaned and to whom alone we have been in the habit of looking
for strength and consolation and advice, then it sometimes is that the soul
looks up as she hears the Master calling her by name, and through her tears
recognises for the first time the patient Lord who has ever been her truest
friend. God would not have us love our dear ones one whit the less, but He
would have us learn to put Him first and to trust Him implicitly about them no
less than about ourselves. (H. A. Hall, B. D.)
Enormous trials
Observe--
1. That many afflictions do attend the most gracious souls (Psalms 34:19).
2. Crosses seldom come single upon God’s servants.
3. God did wonderfully support her in all these her great trials, and
left her upon Scripture record as a pattern of patience unto all succeeding
generations. (C. Ness.)
She arose . . . that she might return.
Homeward longings
Observe--
1. God’s house of worldly correction is to God’s people a school of
heavenly instruction. Naomi’s crosses and losses she met with in Moab made her
soul to sit loose from that cursed country, and to long for Canaan--that
blessed land of promise. God’s rod hath a voice (Micah 6:9), and now Naomi’s ear was open
to hear the instruction of it (Job 36:8-10; Micah 2:10). It is a rich mercy when
affliction brings us from worse to better, from Moab to Canaan, further off
from sin and nearer to God.
2. Godly souls should lead convincing lives. Such and so amiable was
the conversation of godly Naomi in the eyes of those two daughters of Moab that
it convinced them both--to love her and her people, and to go along with her
out of their own native country unto her land. Plato saith, “If moral virtue
could be beheld with mortal eyes, it would attract all hearts to be enamoured
with it.” How much more, then, would theological virtue or supernatural grace
do so?
3. Every heart should hanker heavenward, as Naomi did homeward from
Moab to Canaan. (C. Ness.)
A woman of character
I. She retained her
religion--her allegiance to the one true and living God--in the midst of
surrounding idolatry.
II. She Believed in
God even in the midst of adversity.
III. She exercised
an influence for good on others.
1. On those who had known her intimately--her own household.
2. On those who had known her long--long enough to find out her true
character.
3. On those who, according to all experience, are least easily
influenced by one in her position--on her daughters-in-law.
IV. She could deny
herself for the good of others.
1. It would have been an advantage to her to have these two strong,
active young women with her to work for her in her old age. But a settlement
would be easier for them in their own land than in Judah. So she bade them
return, and was willing to go home alone.
2. She rose, too, above that petty jealousy which might have been
excused in one so circumstanced, and wished them that provision which was the
best security for rest and honour for a woman: “rest each of them in the house
of her husband.” Naomi’s religion was no mere surface thing. It had become a
part of herself. It had informed her character. It saved her from the
corruptions of idolatry, from despair, and it enabled her to exercise a
beneficent power over those who knew her best. What imperfect religion could do
for her the sublime faith of Christ can do for all. (Joseph Ogle.)
The awakening
To trace the course of the wanderer away from God is sad and
painful. The result of misery and regret is always the same; whether he ever
return to God or not his sorrow over the remembrance of his wandering will be
equally sure. We must never hesitate, therefore, in proclaiming to all the
wanderers from God, “You will find no rest in Moab.” But I am not now to trace
this course of sin to its dreadful result. There is for some a day of awakening
in the present life. And, painful as this day may be, it is still a happy day.
It is the beginning of a new life, a happy life, a life of glory. It is the
dawning of a light which is prepared as the morning. It is the blessed
visitation of the grace and goodness of God to the lost and guilty. We must
never forget that this awakening of the soul is the work of God. Idolatry and
enmity to God reign throughout the land of Moab. There Naomi dwells. There, if
God permitted, Naomi would die. There, if God did not arrest and arouse him,
the sinner would perish. To leave him in prosperity in this condition is to
leave him to hopeless destruction. God speaks unto him in his prosperity, and
he says, “I will not hear.” This is his manner from his youth. Then God sends
awakening providences. Afflictions and losses are multiplied. The nest is
broken up. The soul is made sorrowful. Thus it was with Naomi. Her husband
died. Her two sons are taken away. How many of His children have been saved by
the bitter remedy of affliction, and have thus been taught to bless the
chastenings of the Lord! But why should you make affliction necessary to your
soul’s salvation? Let the goodness of the Lord lead you to repentance. Let His
love awaken your gratitude. But whether affliction or joy be made the
instrument to awaken the soul, it is equally a Divine instrument. Welcome it,
do not resist it, but cultivate it as a priceless gift. Now God means to bless
you indeed. Listen to His voice with gladness. In this day of awakening, Naomi
found that she had gained nothing by her wandering from God. There had been a
famine in Judah. But ah, she had found a far worse famine in Moab. There every
comfort had failed and every hope had departed. In no single point was her
condition improved by her flight from Israel. But was this peculiar to her? Can
you ever gain in such a course? Are you ever the happier for transgression, or
made the more contented by forgetting your Creator? Far enough from all this is
your actual experience. Your awakened mind looks back upon life, to say, with
distress, “I have sinned, and what hath it profited me?” There is not a single
real pleasure, or joy, or gain in life, of which any man can truly say, “This,
at least, is the reward of my sin.” Even if you never truly repent, your
retrospect of life will be just as unsatisfying and destitute of comfort to
your soul. You will despise all that you have gained. You will despise yourself
for pursuing vanities so madly. And nothing will remain to you as the result
but the most overwhelming despair. How much you have lost! You have thrown away
the favour of God. You have sacrificed your peace of conscience. You have lost
your early readiness to receive religious impressions. But good news from the
Lord’s land comes to this awakened wanderer. “Naomi heard in the country of
Moab how that the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread.” What
precious intelligence does the gospel bring to the guilty! It declares the
pardoning love of God. It proclaims complete atonement in the blood of Jesus.
It announces full salvation in His merits and death. It exhibits God reconciled
to those who have rebelled against Him. The message comes to you. Receive it.
Rejoice in it. It is a message from God to each of you. Then the awakened
wanderer sets out at once on a return. Naomi “arose, that she might return from
the country of Moab; wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was,
on the way to return into the land of Judah.” Yes--the very first thing, when
your mind is awakened, and you see and feel your guilt, is to go back. Many
think they must first feel much, and mourn much, and suffer much, before they
can hope to go back in peace to God. But why? Will your suffering save you?
Will your multiplied tears add anything to a Saviour’s worth? Is your dwelling
on fire? And must you wait until you are scorched with the flames before you
can escape in safety? Have you mistaken your road in journeying? And can you
recover your lost steps the better by delay or hesitation or fruitless grief?
Nay. You want all the time for actual pursuit. You have none to waste. Turn!
Turn! fly! Fly! ‘Tis madness to defer. Naomi goes to no other part of Moab, to
no other land of idolatry. She goes directly back to the land of Judah. This is
a blessed example. How many go from one broken cistern to another! But all
these efforts are vain. Edom or Babylon are no better than Moab. No. You must
fly to Bethlehem at once. Now is the accepted time. This is the day of your
salvation. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
How that the Lord had
visited His people in giving them bread.
God’s dealings with His people
I. God seeth His
people in adversity and want, and cometh in His due time to help them (Exodus 3:7-8), which is from His mere
mercy and the stability of His love and promise to His people.
II. God hath ever
had more specially a people of His own called “His people.” This should make us
to examine ourselves how we be God’s people, whether according to creation or
after the work of regeneration.
III. Corporal food
and the necessaries of this life are God’s gift (Leviticus 26:4-5; Deuteronomy 11:14-15; Hosea 2:8-9; Joel 2:19). (R. Bernard.)
Good news from the far country
I. God will
certainly revive His people with some good news from heaven when their hearts
are almost dead within them upon earth (Proverbs 25:25). This cheered up her
drooping spirit, that was almost dead within her by her manifold afflictions.
This is one of God’s methods, first to kill and then to make alive (1 Samuel 2:6; Psalms 16:10; Psalms 18:16; Psalms 90:3); the good news God sent
concerning the weal of Zion to His people as they sat weeping by the waters of
Babylon (Psalms 137:1-2) was a little reviving to
them in their bondage (Ezra 9:8); and when His people were
humbled He then granted them some deliverance (2 Chronicles 12:7). Heaven is called
a far country (Matthew 25:14); good news from thence
brought in by the Holy Spirit. Oh, how welcome should that be to us and how
unspeakably comfortable! (1 Peter 1:8).
II. God hath His
visiting times and seasons in relation to His own people.
1. Sometimes God visits their sins (Jeremiah 14:10), and then He fulfils His
word of threatening evil against them. This is called God’s visiting in His
anger (Job 35:15), but He retains not His anger
for ever (Psalms 57:11).
2. He sometimes also visits in mercy (2 Samuel 24:16). This is that visit
which David begs, “Oh visit me with Thy salvation” (Psalms 106:4).
III. Grace and
bounty follow want and penury through Divine goodness to His people. After a
long scarcity (of ten years) God visits them with plenty. This holds true both
in the temporal and spiritual famine (Amos 8:11). (C. Ness.)
Naomi’s undying faith and loyalty to Israel’s God
During all those ten years of absence, Naomi had maintained in
undiminished strength her attachment to the service and worship of the true
God.”Among innumerable incorrupt she stood,” like Abdiel in the midst of fallen
angels, or like Noah in the midst of a revolted world. There must have been
root and reality about her religion to make it thus evergreen and perennial. So
have we sometimes seen in the Arabian desert a solitary palm fed by a fountain,
and glassing its beauty and abundance in that from which it derived all its
verdure and life. How many persons are there whose religion could not endure
the test of an ordeal a hundred times less severe than this! It is a thing of
mere outward imitation and reflection. Withdraw them from the midst of
favouring external influences, and their superficial piety will speedily vanish
away like the morning dew. Like the vase that has been electrotyped so as to
resemble silver, a little tear and wear brings into view the inferior metal
which forms its real material. Carey used to complain bitterly, in his days,
that the Christianity of many who came out of England to India did not survive
a sea voyage. It was all gone before they had “doubled the Cape.” In like
manner, the Sabbath-keeping and the church-attendance of multitudes have
undergone sad decadence during a few months of residence in Berlin or Paris.
And yet the degree in which our secret devotion and our Christian habits can
live and flourish in the midst of unfriendly influences and when dependent on
inward support alone, is the true test of the reality and strength of our
religion. Naomi had nobly stood this test, and had thus proved herself to be
“an Israelite indeed.” (A. Thomson, D. D.)
Her two daughters-in-law with her.
The promising commencement
Here we have the most happy and promising commencement of a new
work. We see them all set out together upon the same road and apparently for
the same result. No one who saw them set out upon their journey could
anticipate that they would voluntarily separate, or imagine that one was more
likely than the other to reach the end proposed. We are obliged to wait until
succeeding trials shall bring their real characters individually to light
before we can discriminate between them. By a great variety of means God stirs
up sinful men to seek after Himself. Anxious, excited, apparently earnest and
sincere, they set out upon their journey back to the gracious Being whom they
have so long neglected. Yes; they really set out, and appear to set out
sincerely. I do not mean that such persons feel their need and danger: that
they meditate sincerely upon their return to God; that they resolve they will
go back. No. I mean that they actually begin their journey. The prodigal not
only says, “I will arise and go to my father”; he does arise and go. The wise
and foolish virgins both take their lamps and go forth to meet the bridegroom.
Thus all go together “on the way to return into the land of Judah.” As far as
this journey lies still within the limits of Moab, so far they may unite to go.
Up to a certain point they must take the same path and travel in the same
direction: Ah, how many of these young travellers have I seen! The Church
delighted over them. Christian friends were encouraged by them. The brightest
and most blessed hopes clustered around them. The Lord only, who knoweth the
hearts of the children of men, could have told us which were the Orpahs and
which were the Ruths of this hopeful company. His judgment at the last
separates the precious from the vile, divides the gold from the dross, and
assigns to each his own place. But we must follow our travellers in their
journey, and see why and where they separate. As we thus follow them we see
them meet with many trials of faith and patience on the road. Your former
habits of sin are to be renounced. But, in addition to these, new habits of
conduct and feeling are to be acquired. The habit of secret prayer in your
closet and chamber; the habit of constant, earnest study of the Word of God;
the habit of watchfulness over your easily-besetting sins; the habit of caution
in your allowed indulgences; the habit of consideration and discernment in your
relations and company; the habit of resistance to your inward propensities to
evil; and, above all, the habit of constant remembrance of God your Saviour,
and of simple, earnest faith in His presence, protection, and help; all these,
if I should mention no more, are to be acquired, cultivated, and maintained. If
all this could be done by single effort, it would be easy work. But that is
impossible. It is a journey of successive steps, of continued progress; and you
have to press forward in it with the utmost determination and the most sincere
desire. But above all these habits of outward life, you have to come with the
deep sense of sin, with a consciousness that you are condemned and destitute,
with an entire refusal to trust in any virtue or excellence of your own, and to
cast yourself in an affectionate and simple trust at your Saviour’s feet. When
you come to serve the Lord, you must prepare your soul for temptation. From the
day you set out on your heavenly journey discouragements and difficulties will
seem to multiply around you. The world will be arrayed against you. The habits,
opinions, and plans of worldly people are constant obstacles in your way. The
professed Christians around you are often fearful obstacles in the way. You see
those who profess to follow Christ in many instances living just as gaily, as
extravagantly, as indulgently, often as sinfully, as if they had made no such
profession. Your own inward heart and feelings will often be very discouraging
to you. There is such backwardness in prayer; such want of deep interest in the
Word and service of God; so little sensible enjoyment often in your new path;
such a necessity for constant warfare and constant watchfulness within
yourself. If you relax a moment, you fall. Ah, these are great discouragements,
great trials to your faith and patience. Nothing can endure through them but a
heart that really loves Jesus more than all the world, and a spirit that
willingly sacrifices itself for His service and glory. If this is your heart
and spirit, then all these discouragements are instruments of new strength.
Orpah may feel dispirited and weary. Ruth only loves the more, the more she is
tried. To Orpah the way grows more unattractive and tedious as she goes on. To
Ruth every step brings new determination and new desire to press on even to the
end. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
The Lord deal kindly with you.
Naomi’s prayer for her daughters-in-law
I. That it is a
duty to pray for those which do either us or ours good.
II. That at parting
friends are to pray one for another, as we may see the practice of it in Isaac
(Genesis 28:1; Genesis 28:3); Laban (Genesis 31:55); Jacob (Genesis 43:14); and in Paul (Acts 20:36).
III. That the godly
are persuaded that the Lord is a merciful rewarder of the duties of love which
one doth towards another (Colossians 3:24).
IV. That children
should so well deserve of parents, yea, though but parents-in-law, as they may
be moved heartily to pray for them, as Naomi doth in this place. A good
carriage is a duty towards all, then much more to parents; and the prayers of
parents is a means to put a blessing upon their children.
V. That God will
not only barely reward, but so deal with us as we deal with others. (R.
Bernard.)
The benedictions of life
The key-note of all I have to say is in that word “kindly.” The
argument is this. We can understand kindness in the sphere of the human, and
rise from that to a prayer for the Divine kindness. No society in any age can
be cemented together by force alone. Feudalism, for instance, in olden times,
was not all terror. The baron could command his dependents in time of war, as
he fed and housed and clothed them in times of peace; but, as the old
chroniclers tell us, there was often a rare hospitality, a hearty cheerfulness,
a chivalrous affection in the somewhat stern relationship.
I. The Lord knows
best what kindness is. The Lord deal kindly with you. Has He been kind? At
times we should have been tempted to answer, No! The vine is blighted, the
fig-tree withered, the locusts have spoiled the green of spring. Kindly? Yes,
we shall answer one time when we stand in our lot at the end of days. For
kindness is not indulgence. God’s kindness to us may take forms which surprise
us. At the heart of His severest judgments there is mercy, in the bitter spring
there is healing water. The kindest things God has ever done for us have been,
perhaps, the strangest and severest. So it was with Daniel and Jacob and Joseph
and Abraham, our father. All God’s ways are done in truth, and truth is always
kindness.
II. The Lord knows
best what others have been to us. “As you have dealt with the dead and me.” It
is a touching little sentence. The dead. So silent now. Never to come back, for
us to touch imperfectness into riper good. Gone! What a word of vacancy, and
silence, and subtle mystery! Is it strange we should wish well to those who
were kind to the dead? And Naomi links her own being with them still: “The dead
and me.” And with true hearts they never can be dissociated. Anniversaries of
remembrance make our separations no more distant. They soften them. They give
place for comforting remembrances: but the dead are near as ever. “The dead and
me!” Who shall separate? None. Christ died, yea, rather is risen again, and He
will raise us up together to the heavenly places.
III. The Lord alone
will be with us all through our future pilgrimage. Apart from Divine power,
which we have not to bless with, there is Divine presence which we all need.
Christ will be with us to the end. Never will come a battle, a temptation, a
solitude, a sorrow, a needful sacrifice, but the Lord will be at hand.
IV. The Lord has
given us guarantees of His kindness. We are not left to meditate on rain and
fruitful seasons only. Not the green of spring, nor the south wind of summer,
nor the gold of autumn alone proclaim His goodness.(W. M. Statham.)
As ye have dealt with the
dead, and with me.
Kindness to the departed
Let us inquire how many things a dying godly man leaves behind him
in this world. His soul is sent before him (Revelation 14:13). He leaveth behind
him--
I. His body, to
which we must be kind, by burial and lamentation.
II. His estate, to
which we must be kind, by careful and faithful administration.
III. His children,
friends, or kindred, to whom we must be kind, by love and affection.
IV. His faults and failings,
to which we must be kind, by silence and suppression.
V. His memory and
virtues, to which we must be kind, by congratulation, commemoration, and
imitation. (T. Fuller, B. D.)
Behaviour in the light of death
You know not, husbands and wives, how long you may dwell together.
Death may soon come, and will doubtless, sooner or later, come and tear away
the one of you from the other. When that event shall take place, how will you
wish to have behaved? Behave at present as you would then wish to have behaved,
for then you will not be able to bring back the present time. Many great
miracles have been wrought by the power of God, but it never did, nor ever
will, recall the time that is past. How comfortable was it to Orpah and Ruth to
hear Naomi say, “Ye have dealt kindly with the dead!” And how comfortable was
the reflection to them through life that she had reason to give them this
commendation! (G. Lawson.)
Showing kindness to the dead
It was much to be able to say this, when we consider how
difficult the discharge of the duties of law-relationship often is, and how apt
it is to be judged with suspicion and severity even when it is well done. The
fact has been noticed long ago in the pages of many a Greek and Roman satirist.
But Naomi was not aware, when she spoke this generous tribute, how very much
their conduct had been the result of her own. She had won the confidence and
veneration of their young hearts by her unselfishness, her forbearance, her
charitable judgments, her holy consistency, and her discretion. We often make
for ourselves the beds we are to lie upon, and we may be certain that there
would be more Ruths in the world if there were more Naomis. But how blessed
when it can thus be said of us, that we have dealt kindly with the dead”! We
should make it our habitual and earnest aim so to behave ourselves towards our
kindred that, should we be called to stand beside their open graves, this would
be the testimony of others and of our own consciences. But we must not forget
that there is an important sense in which we may prove our undying love for the
dead by our kindness to the living. Those two young widows expressed their
affection for their departed husbands by their thoughtful attentions to Naomi.
They loved her for her own sake, but they loved her doubly for their sakes.
Religion, indeed, warrants us to think of our friends beyond the grave as still
living, though absent. David’s nobly generous spirit rejoiced that he could
still reach his departed Jonathan in lavishing respect and kindness upon
Jonathan’s only surviving son, Mephibosheth. And this sentiment reaches its
highest possible point of sublimity, and becomes, as it were, transfigured,
when we show kindness to another because he belongs to Christ. In this way we
can still reach Him in His members, and anoint His blessed feet with our
precious ointment and wash them with our tears. That poor sufferer whom you
relieved by your benefactions and soothed by your sympathy was a disguised
Christ. Even the cup of cold water given to a disciple in the name of a
disciple is to be remembered by Him on another day. (A. Thomson, D. D.)
The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house
of her husband.
The rest of marriage
1. Man’s Maker is the chief maker of all men and women’s marriages in
the world. It is the work of God to provide an helpmeet for man, hence it is
called the covenant of God (Proverbs 2:17), and therefore honourable
to all (Hebrews 13:4). Religious Naomi looks up
here unto God, saying in effect, “The Lord grant you good husbands.”Grace should
be sought for, in the first place, in those seven qualifications of good
matches and marriages: grace, race, face, arts, parts, portion, proportion.
2. A married state is a state of rest. So it is called here and Ruth 3:1. Hence marriage is called the
port or haven of young people, whose affections while unmarried are continually
floating and tossed to and fro like a ship upon the waters, till they come into
this happy harbour. There is a natural propension in most persons towards
nuptial communion, as all created beings have a natural tendency to their
proper centre, and are restless out of it. (C. Ness.)
Rest in marriage
If it is to be wished that wives may find rest in the houses of
their husbands, it must be the duty of husbands to do what they can to procure
them rest, not only by endeavouring to provide for them what is necessary for
their subsistence and comfortable accommodation, but by such a kind behaviour
as will promote their satisfaction and comfort. Men and women may have
affluence without rest, and rest without affluence. But let women also
contribute to procure rest for themselves by frugality, by industry, by such
behaviour to their husbands as will merit constant returns of kindness. (G.
Lawson.)
Surely we will return with thee.
Promises and purposes
I. Promises of
speech and purposes of heart, whether to God, to His church, or to individuals,
ought to go hand in hand. If a man’s word does not express his meaning and bind
him, nothing can.
II. Promises and
purposes often proceed from passion instead of principle.
III. Promises and
purposes proceeding merely from passion soon fall to the ground. “I go, sir,”
one said in the Gospels, and “went not.” Some persons melting under the
ministry of the Word as a summer brook (Job 6:15-20). A changed heart necessary
to perseverance. Saul may have religious fits, and Jehu much zeal; for want of
a regenerated nature both come to nothing. (John Macgowan.)
Promise and purpose to be allied
1. Promises of speech and purposes of spirit should walk hand in hand
together. None ought to promise with their mouths what they do not purpose with
their hearts; this is to be fraudulent and deceitful, which is destructive to
human society. God’s children are all such as will not lie (Isaiah 63:8), to say and unsay, or to say
one thing and think another, to blow hot and cold with one blast. Ye that have
promised to give up yourselves to Christ, and to go with Him in ways of
holiness, it must be your purpose to depart from iniquity (2 Timothy 2:19; Revelation 14:4; Hosea 2:7).
2. Promises of the mouth,
yea, and purposes of the mind, do oft proceed from passion, and not from
principle. So did Orpah’s here; it was only a pang of passion which the
discreet matron prudently distrusts, and therefore tries them both with
powerful dissuasives. Thus Saul in a passion promised fairly to David (1 Samuel 24:16-17; 1 Samuel 26:21), and David
discovered all those fair promises to proceed more from sudden passion than
from fixed principles; therefore did he distrust both his talk and his tears.
Hereupon David gets him up into the hold, well knowing there was little hold to
be taken at such passionate promises and protestations (1 Samuel 24:22). Yea, and out of the
land too, as not daring to trust his reconciliation in passion and strong
conviction without any true conversion (1 Samuel 26:25; 1 Samuel 27:1-2; 1 Samuel 27:4), otherwise his malice
had been restless and he faithless.
3. Purposes and promises that proceed from passion, and not from
principle, do soon dwindle away into nothing. Thus did Orpah’s (Ruth 1:14), who said with that son in the
parable (Matthew 21:30), “I go, sir”; yea, but
when, sir? So here, it is certain we will return with thee, was enough
uncertain. It is a maxim, second thoughts are better than first, but Orpah’s
first were better than her second; her purposes and promises do dwindle away
and vanish into smoke. (C. Ness.)
The failure of good impulses
The bright morning does not always shine into the perfect day; the
sweetest spring-bud of promise does not always ripen into precious fruit. The
seed that was cast on stony ground grew rapidly up, but withered in a moment.
Orpah’s decision was the decision of impulsive feeling, of filial affection; it
was strong suddenly, it grew up in an instant, and in an instant it perished;
and she resolved to forsake Ruth and Naomi, and return to her gods, her people,
and her country. (J. Cumming.)
It grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is
gone out against me.
Naomi’s parting address
This is a great aggravation of the afflictions of many parents,
that their children are involved with themselves. They could bear poverty, they
could bear reproach, they could bear death itself, had they none who depended
on them for bread and for respectability in the world. God has the same right
to rule over the fruit of our bodies as over ourselves, and to allot to them
their share of the good or the bad things of this world. It is bitterest of
all, when we have reason to think that our sins have provoked God to punish us
in the persons of our friends, or to inflict those strokes which our friends
must feel as heavily as ourselves. Let us beware of ever exposing ourselves to
such heart-piercing reflections by conduct that may bring down God’s
displeasure upon our families. God’s people may sometimes, without good reason,
think that the hand of the Lord is gone forth against them, in the calamities
which befall their families or friends. Our afflictions are hard enough to be
borne by us, without the addition of groundless reflections against ourselves.
At the same time, the error is much more common of insensibility to the Divine
displeasure, when it has been really kindled by our sins, than of vexing
ourselves with unjust suspicions of God’s anger. There is one thing that still
remains to be considered concerning this parting speech of Naomi to her
daughters-in-law. Why did she dissuade them from going with her to the land of
Judah, where the true God was well known, and persuade them to return to a
country of abominable idolaters? We are not bound to justify all that Naomi
spake or did. But, in charity to that good woman, we ought to believe that, for
years past, she had been endeavouring, by her practice and her converse, to
recommend to her young friends the worship of the God of Israel. If they were
truly turned from the error of their ways, nothing that is here said was likely
to drive them back to their own country. They might have been disgusted even
with Naomi’s own conduct, if she had not fairly told them what inconveniences
they were to encounter in going to her land, and to her people. Our Lord very
plainly told His followers what they were to expect in His service. “The foxes
have holes,” etc. We may, however, observe, that Christ usually administered
proper antidotes against the fears which the doctrine of the Cross might excite
in the minds of His hearers. It may be doubted whether Naomi, in the dejection
of her spirits, did not overlook the powerful consolations which might have
encouraged her young friends to follow her into the land of Israel, and would
have more than compensated all the inconveniences to which they would have been
exposed in a strange land. Doubtless she had often spoken of those privileges
to them in former times; but as yet they had not learned their nature, and
perhaps Naomi now despaired of ever being able to give them a perfect idea of
it. (G. Lawson.)
Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her.
Orpah’s defection
I. Worldly
respects are great hindrances in the course of godliness. The world keepeth
from the entertaining of the truth (Matthew 22:5); it hindereth in the
receiving of it.
II. An unsound
heart may for a time make a fair show in the way to Canaan, but yet turn back
at the last, as Orpah doth here. And this is by reason, first, of certain
motions of religion, which maketh them in general to approve of the same;
holding this, that it is a good thing to be religious, and that none can find
fault with a man for that. Further, the working of the Word, moving the heart
in some sort to entertain it. And, lastly, the desire of praise and good esteem
with men: these will make hollow hearts to set on a while to heavenward, but
shall not be able to enter.
III. Such as want
soundness towards God for religion may yet have otherwise commendable parts in
them. For Orpah is commended for a kind wife, as well as Ruth by Naomi, and for
a kind daughter-in-law (verse 8); and she showed good humanity in going on the
way with her mother-in-law, yea, a good natural affection in weeping so at
parting. (R. Bernhard.)
Orpah; or, the mere professor
An onlooker not able to discover the difference between Orpah and
Ruth so far. The crisis has come. Both had made professions (verse 10). Here
the difference is made apparent.
I. We learn that
it is possible to go a long way towards Christianity and yet not to be a
Christian. To be born, educated, and dwell in Christian households, these are
great blessings, but do not constitute or make a Christian. It will not do to
be almost, we must be altogether, decided for Christ. The cup that is almost
sound will not hold water. The ship that is almost whole will not weather the
storm. Feelings, sentiment, profession are all good if they spring from a
living faith in Jesus Christ; without this they are worse than worthless.
II. We learn that
it is possible to deceive ourselves, and to think that all is right when in
truth all is wrong with our souls. Hardly possible that Orpah played the
conscious hypocrite. She meant what she did when she became a proselyte--did
not deliberately act a part. Feeling and sentiment (love for her husband)
blinded her eyes. Love to God, which she had thought supreme in her heart,
subordinate to the love of Moab. This often so with men; they are not
hypocrites, they are self-deceivers. Education, circumstances, the force of
influences around them, produce an emotional religion which they mistake for
vital godliness. They hear with joy like the “stony-ground hearers.”
III. We learn that
our religion will not profit us at all unless it be characterised by
perseverance to the end. Improvement: Is our profession a mere profession or
the fruit of a living faith? Brought by circumstances to the boundary-line
between life and death, have we stopped there? The Bible full of such
instances. Felix trembled; Balaam prophesied; Herod heard gladly; Judas sat at
the sacramental table with our Lord! Whatever we do, we must not stop short of
conversion; if we do, we perish. (Aubrey C. Price, B. A.)
A good word for Orpah
The others did not greatly blame her, and we, for our part, may
not reproach her. It is unnecessary to suppose that in returning to her
kinsfolk and settling down to the tasks that offered in her mother’s house she
was guilty of despising truth and love and renouncing the best. We may
reasonably imagine her henceforth bearing witness for a higher morality, and
affirming the goodness of the Hebrew religion among her friends and
acquaintances. Ruth goes where affection and duty lead her; but for Orpah too
it may be claimed that in love and duty she goes back. She is not one who says,
“Moab has done nothing for me; Moab has no claim upon me; I am free to leave my
country; I am under no debt to my people.” We shall not take her as a type of
selfishness, worldliness, or backsliding, this Moabite woman. Let us rather
believe that she knew of those at home who needed the help she could give, and
that with the thought of least hazard to herself mingled one of the duty she
owed to others. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
Thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods.
Backsliding
1. The backslidings of such as set out fair, and do begin well, is a
sore temptation to young converts and proselytes. It was no less to the very
disciples themselves (John 6:66-67). Thus it was also an occasion
of stumbling unto the primitive Christians to behold the backslidings of two
such forward professors as Hymenaeus and Philetus had been; insomuch that the
apostle saith to them, “Nevertheless the foundation” (of God’s election)
“standeth sure; the Lord knoweth them that are His,” etc. As the multitude of
sinners cannot give any patronage to the evil ways of sin, so neither can the
paucity of saints put any disgrace or disparagement upon the good ways of God.
2. Some forward followers of the only true and living God may
apostatise from thence to embrace the vanities of the Gentiles.
3. That love to the ways and worship of God is a sincere love which
doth undergo trials and temptations, yet bears up against all: godly Ruth rides
out the storm against wind and tide of both the sister’s pattern and the
mother’s precept. (C. Ness.)
The painful separation
Nothing can be more encouraging to the Christian heart than to see
the young setting out to seek the Lord. It is a beautiful exercise and
exhibition of youth. Never do the morning hours appear so bright or so
promising. We cannot suspect the sincerity of any, and therefore we encourage
them to press forward. We have seen these youthful travellers going with Naomi
out of the place where they dwelt, on the way to return unto the land of Judah.
For a time they travel together happily and affectionately. There is a line
which divides Moab from Judah. This is a painful but an inevitable crisis. The
two sisters must separate. There is just such a line in our soul’s history
where similar entire separation must take place. The awakened mind sees its own
sinfulness and need, acknowledges the darkness and emptiness of the Moab in
which it has dwelt, and truly feels the importance of those blessed offers
which the gospel proclaims. The Holy Spirit has taught the sinner the
guiltiness and wretchedness of his past life. He knows, he sees, he feels the
truth. But he does not love the truth. He does not embrace and choose it for
his own, his portion for ever. If he would really do this, all would be well.
His heart he cannot, will not, give to Christ. Anything else he will do. But
nothing else will avail him anything. Poor Orpah! How often have I seen young
travellers to eternity stopping just where you stop; hesitating just where you
hesitate. Nothing more can be done for you where you are. There is Moab. You
have tried that, and found it empty and unhappy. There is Judah. All its
provisions and offers are before you, and brought for your acceptance. Never
will you be sorry if you take your portion there. Here are Naomi and Ruth. They
are journeying to the land which the Lord hath promised them. Soon they will be
far from you, out of your sight. Then you will mourn over the separation which
you foolishly made. You may go back to Moab, and bury yourself in its sins and
follies. But you will find no peace or happiness there. Your conscience will
never again allow you to rest. Orpah goes “back to her people and her gods.”
This is a most important fact in her history. She does not, cannot remain where
they part. That is a place most unnatural and unattractive. No; she goes back,
while Ruth and Naomi go forward. The separation grows wider every hour. This is
a most affecting illustration. The awakened and convinced mind can never abide at
the line where a Saviour is refused. There is no permanency in such a state of
mind. There is no home for the soul there. You go back. It may be to
self-indulgence, dissipation, and sensual delights. It may be to giddiness,
frivolity, and empty, cheerless mirth. It may be to business, covetousness, and
unceasing occupation. It may be to infidelity and assumed unbelief and
argument. It may be to open hostility and persecution of the gospel, and those
who love it. It may be to absolute and dreadful hardness of heart. But to
whatever it shall be, you still go back. The worst opposers of the gospel we
ever meet are those who once were almost Christians. But you say you will
hereafter return to Christ. You cannot do this but by His own Spirit. And that
Spirit you have driven far from you. There is a spring that returneth in
creation when the winter has gone. But you have buried the sacred seed of your
soul’s welfare beneath a winter which knows no coming spring. You will mourn at
the last, when your flesh and your body are consumed. But it will be with a
worldly sorrow which worketh death, and not with a godly sorrow which worketh
repentance unto salvation. This is the fearful prospect in your return with
Orpah. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
Orpah
I. Orpah was a
Moabitish woman--had been married to one of the sons of Elimelech--and was now
a widow. She had been brought up amid the absurdities and impurities and
superstitions of idolatry. But her connection with an Israelitish family was a
great advantage to her, and ought to have been improved by her, to the benefit
of her soul, and deemed a peculiar privilege and blessing. Oh, then, let us
associate with those who live for another world whose spirit and words and
conduct diffuse the savour of heaven, and are calculated to keep God and
eternity in our minds.
II. Orpah possessed
many natural excellences, which made her lovely and amiable, though still
lacking that new heart and that devotedness to God without which no man can be
saved.
1. Orpah acted well in the character of a wife.
2. Orpah conducted herself with kindness and tenderness and affection
towards her mother-in-law, Naomi, also.
3. Another valuable feature, which we cannot view but with great
interest, in the character of Orpah, was her intention to accompany Naomi to
the land of Judah. It is well to see hopeful beginnings--to see the careless
aroused, the indifferent in some degree alarmed about their sins, and paying
more attention than before to the welfare of their souls. It is well to see the
profane putting on the decencies of morality, and renouncing their vile habits
and pursuits. It is well, we say, to see these hopeful signs. But, alas! they
often disappoint our fondest hopes.
III. Orpah’s fatal
deficiency, She only began her march to Canaan--her resolution failed--she
persevered not, but returned to her own land! Naomi wished not to prevent
either Ruth or Orpah from accompanying her to Canaan, but from doing so for her
sake. She had no earthly inducement to hold out to them. If they came, she
wished them to come from religious considerations alone. If we take up the
cause of God from any but spiritual motives--if we attach ourselves to the
cause and people of God from earthly views, our religion is hateful in heaven.
The “loaves and fishes” are to have nothing to do with our pursuit of Christ,
but the attractions of His grace--the privilege of serving Him, and a supreme
desire to be His--His alone--His for ever.
1. Orpah forsook the cause of God--she returned to her people. Their
maxims and their habits, after all, were more congenial with her mind. Woe
awaits those who are kept from “following the Lord fully” from regard to
earthly connections and associates.
2. Orpah forsook the cause of God with great reluctance.
Agrippa-like, she was almost persuaded to go with her to the land of Judah,
yet, though with many misgivings, she retraced her steps to her own country,
and saw her no more. Now, with the view of inducing these wavering characters,
who are thus daily withstanding the convictions of their own minds--who return
to Moab, but with many tears--to hasten out of their present condition, we beg
to say a few words concerning their danger. It is a great mercy to have our
minds in the smallest degree impressed with Divine things, and awakened to the
importance of the things which accompany salvation. It is a mercy to be made to
feel some measure of anxiety about our never-dying souls and their everlasting
welfare. It is the Holy Ghost striving with us, and bidding us to consider our
peril while yet it may be avoided. With the view of urging these characters to
a speedy determination to be altogether on the Lord’s side, we beg to add a few
remarks likewise concerning their present folly. When man neglects to follow
the admonitions of his conscience, he deprives himself of all comfort. He
cannot enjoy inward tranquillity in this state. There is something within him
constantly telling him that his end cannot be desirable if a radical spiritual
change does not take place in him. He cannot have real joy in this condition.
If your religion resembles that of Orpah, give God no rest till the weight of
your transgression drives you to the Saviour, and a believing view of His
matchless love constrains you to devote your persons and your talents to His
service and glory. (John Hughes.)
Orpah and Ruth
I. Family sorrows.
1. Want.
2. Separation.
3. Death.
II. Family errors.
1. Preference of worldly comfort before religious privileges.
2. Formation of worldly connections.
III. Family
attachments.
1. Their power. The amiableness of Naomi has so attached these
idolaters to her that they are willing to forsake even their own mother.
2. Their weakness. The case of Orpah may teach us that an attachment
to religious people is not religion; nor can it, of itself, produce religion in
the heart.
IV. Family mercies.
1. The return of moderate prosperity.
2. Converting grace bestowed upon an idolater. (Homilist.)
The danger of religious indifference
A family perished, not long ago, by a fire in their own house.
They were not consumed by the flames, but suffocated by the smoke. No blaze was
visible at all, nor could any alarming sign of fire be discovered from the
street, and yet death came as effectually upon them as if they had been burned
to ashes. Thus is sin fatal in its consequences, few being destroyed by
outrageous forms of it, flaming up with lurid glare, but multitudes perishing
by the stifling smoke of indifference and spiritual slumber. (J. H. Norton.)
Unto her people, and unto her gods
When Christian set out from the City of Destruction, he too, for a
short part of his journey, was attended by two companions: the first indeed,
Obstinate, only went with him in order to try and bring him back to what he
considered wiser courses, but the other, Pliable, was absolutely sincere in his
desire to reach the Celestial City.” I intend to go along with this good man,”
he said, “and to cast in my lot with him”; he might have availed himself of the
words of sincerely-meant devotion in which Orpah joined with Ruth, and have
declared, “Surely I will return with thee unto thy people.” Yet, as we know,
when the pilgrims, “being heedless,” fell into the Slough of Despondency, poor
Pliable, his virtuous intentions notwithstanding, “gave a desperate struggle or
two, and got out of the mire, on that side of the Slough which was next to his
own house. So away he went, and Christian saw him no more.” There are one or
two particulars in which the behaviour of Orpah was not unlike that of well
meaning Pliable. To begin with, there can be no question but that she had a
sincere affection and regard for Naomi, and would genuinely have liked to spend
the remainder of her days in her society; but the attachment was purely
personal, and in all such friendships there is a breaking point, a limit to the
extent to which others are prepared to follow us. For it is only us whom they
are following, and our path may lead us into circumstances more trying than
they are prepared to undergo whose hearts are not buoyed up by the hope which
animates our own. Another somewhat sad reflection respecting the history of
Orpah springs from the fact that she actually started for the better land, and
indeed went some considerable way on the journey. The thought of those
fellow-travellers of ours who set out so cheerily with us and yet failed after
all to persevere is one of the saddest that comes into our memory when we
review our pilgrimage. We call to mind their fervour, their enthusiasm, their
kindly interest; we shall never forget how our heart sank within us when they
announced their intention of turning back. And in the case of Orpah our
feelings are the more regretful because we bear in mind that she was full of
the best possible resolutions of going further still. “Surely,” she said, no
less earnestly than did Ruth herself, “Surely we will return with thee unto thy
people.” But, as we have already noticed, the desire in her mind was to be, as
she put it, “with thee “; it was the personal element in her relation to Naomi
which, however charming in itself, constituted the weakness of her position--it
was on this rock that her frail vessel was wrecked at last. Further, if Orpah’s
decision pains us, can we remain unmoved at Orpah’s tears? She is quite clear
in her own mind that she can go no further; she will leave no inconsiderable
portion of her heart behind her when she says farewell to Naomi; she lifted up
her voice and wept; she lifted up her voice and wept again. Alas for the
impotence of tears! The question for each to ask himself is not, What have I
felt? but, What have I done? Orpah loved Naomi dearly, and wept bitterly at the
prospect of parting from her, but returned to her people and her gods
nevertheless. And here we must pause to inquire how far Naomi was to blame for
the failure of Orpah. We recognise the honesty with which the older woman
points out to her companions the sacrifice which they will be called upon to
make if they elect to go further with her. She must have known, she evidently
did know, that by turning back Orpah was losing her reversionary interest in
the property of her deceased husband, yet we do not find Naomi telling her of
this. Warn people by all means that life in the kingdom of heaven is the life
of a servant and a soldier, but tell them too that their entry into the kingdom
has made them inheritors of a possession greater and more real than anything
than the world can offer, and which it would be the most fearful madness to
throw away. Love had brought Orpah a long way towards the land of Judah: might
not a little affectionate entreaty have brought her further still? It is
important that before passing away from the story of Orpah we should try to
realise what it was that she lost by turning back. And with the inheritance,
redeemed as it was by Boaz, Orpah had also lost the honour--Ruth’s chiefest
glory in the ages yet to come--of being the ancestress of David and of the
Messiah. Of all the promises to Abraham, that upon which in all probability the
patriarch set the greatest store was God’s pledge that in him all the nations
of the world should be blessed. To be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven is
in itself a marvel of grace, the true meaning of which we shall never fully
know here, but to have it in one’s power to bring redemption within the reach
of others, surely this is an infinitely greater marvel still. God offers us
salvation as the satisfaction of the needs of our own heart; but He also offers
it to us in order that we may be qualified as the possessors of it to work with
Him in plucking from the burning those who are the bondsmen of Satan and of sin.
What answer shall we give to Him that speaketh? (H. A. Hall, B. D.)
The parting-place
Where was it that Orpah parted from her companions? She went with
them some way, possibly a great way, but at last they reached a point in the
journey which was geographically, so to speak, one of decision, one beyond
which no one could pass without committing herself to new things and a new
life, and at this point Orpah made up her mind to return. What more likely than
that this point was the river itself, which if they adopted the southern route
would form the boundary between Moab and the land of Judah? The river flows
still, and each pilgrim has to make up his mind whether or not he shall cross
it. There, then, flows the river: shall we cross? Sometimes it seems to us to
be the river of surrender. Can I give myself wholly and unreservedly to God?
And can I give up, or consent to His taking from me, whatever is contrary to
His will and therefore to my happiness, love it as I may? Sometimes the river
is one of confession. We have travelled thus far without our life or our
relation to the world being appreciably affected or altered, and God, who is
infinitely tender in His dealing with the returning soul, often postpones the
necessity of or the occasion for a definite confession of our allegiance to Him
until we are strong enough to make it. Yet sooner or later the river has to be
crossed, and the more definitely the confession is made the better it always is
for the soul. And sometimes the river is that of a consistent life.” I would
not shrink from throwing in my lot with that of the people of God,” says many
an one, “if I could only hope to lead a consistent life: I will make no
profession unless I can carry it out, and I fail to see how under my
circumstances that can be possible.” Certainly God requires that those who
follow Him shall follow Him fully, as Caleb did, but God asks no one to lead
the life of faith in his own strength or trusting to his own resources. A new
life lies before you; but to enable you to live it, God offers you new
strength. (H. A. Hall, B. D.)
Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return.
Ruth and Naomi
I. Every person is
tested. Sooner or later, but certainly. The tests will vary in severity with
the cases. In every case they will be conclusive, determining the genuineness
of the life professed. They cannot be evaded. If one is for Christ, he will
continue with Him. The test of God cannot be too severe. The true follower
cannot be driven away. To the strongest appeals he replies: “Lord, to whom
shall I go?”
II. When tested, an
Orpah will go back. Why should she leave so much for so little? Naomi was only
her mother-in-law. There was her own mother standing and beckoning in the
doorway of the old
home. She was not only leaving home and country, she was leaving her God. With
much depth of feeling, there was not depth enough to bind her heart.
III. A ruth, when
tested, goes on. What is the difference between her and Orpah, leading to this
different conduct?
1. Her devotion to Naomi. She was less impulsive, perhaps, than her
sister, but hers was a love which bore testing. The Greeks and Latins, among
their fine discriminations, distinguished between the emotional love of feeling
and the intelligent love of choice. Orpah’s love was the former; that of Ruth
was the love of choice. It grew out of careful reflection. It was a deep,
undying attachment.
2. The religious foundation of her conduct. This is a trait, if not
wholly wanting in her sister, too weak for any mention--a trait beside which
Ruth’s exceeding love is wholly secondary. Ruth had chosen her mother’s God.
3. Her resolute exercise of will. She was moved by Naomi’s appeals.
She thought anew of what she was leaving. She heard tender voices calling her,
of the living, of the dead: “Come back, come back.” Her heart began to yield.
When Orpah returned, she could scarcely resist the impulse to go with her. Then
“she strengthened herself.” She summoned her soul. She put forth a supreme
exercise of will.
IV. Ruth received
her reward. She became an ancestress of the world’s Redeemer. (Sermons by
the Monday Club.)
Ruth’s choice
All the elements of a true choice of God are here described.
1. It involves the surrender of a false belief. This quiet scene may
be placed beside that on Carmel. Ruth’s decision is mightier in its gentleness
than Israel’s in its terror. In manner the two are as unlike as the dawn to the earthquake; in results
as the clear ray of a planet to the flash of a meteor. In essence they are the
same. Our false god has no repulsive name, such as Baal or Chemosh; its real
title is self, its worship sin, its wages death. It must be surrendered.
2. True choice of God involves sacrifice. To start out with Naomi
meant not pleasantness, but bitterness. Ruth followed, as she thought, to
loneliness, homelessness, perpetual widowhood; against the desire of those she
left, without the wish of those to whom she was going; ready to work, to beg, to
die if need be, for the one who stood to her as representing God. To-day,
Canaan in the Church welcomes even Moab to its circle. Earthly advantages are
largely on its side. But a cross seems to wait somewhere in the way, if only
that sore surrender of pride and pleasure and will which prompt the soul’s real
refusal.
3. God sends help to a right choice. Providences both of joy and of
sorrow; attractions and repulsions of heart; subtle influences of
companionship; favour and famine; marriage and mourning; our life is one long
plea for Him.
4. A decision is forced. Somewhere in the way comes a test. On either
side example, desire, promise; we must hold to the one and forsake the other.
5. Right decision has its great rewards. What Ruth feared proved only
unsuspected blessings. Losing her life, she found it. Bishop Hall exclaims:
“Oh, the sure and beautiful payment of the Almighty! Who ever forsook the Moab
of this world for the true Israel, and did not at length rejoice in the
change?” (Charles M. Southgate.)
Conduct of Orpah and Ruth contrasted
It is the difference between feeling and principle in religion,
between emotion and consecration, kissing and cleaving.
I. Emotion has its
large appointed place in life. It is the colour and fragrance of the soul’s
world. It gives both impulse and reward to action. Emotion has great play in
religion. God appeals to it. The character of God is so presented as to excite
our emotions. We tremble at His awfulness, adore His greatness. The story of
Christ’s life and death has power to move us beyond all else. The insensible
heart is usually a selfish heart. But--
II. Emotion will
not take the place of consecration. Here distinguish between sensuous and
spiritual impressions. There is a peace, a rapture, which the Spirit breathes
into the believing soul, the promised manifestation of Christ to him “that hath
My commandments and keepeth them.” This is the reward of obedience, not its
substitute; is not of nature, but of grace. No degree of feeling about
religious things is religion. Natural fondness toward God, as toward parents,
may be the mere delight of an emotional nature, a snare to the soul and an
affront to Him. What joy to Christ that eyes which overflow for a novel or a
play should moisten at the story of Calvary? There is need of searchings of
heart and stings of conscience in unsuspected places. Orpah and Ruth feel
alike, love alike, but part for ever at the test of following.
III. The true office
of emotion is to draw to consecration. Feeling is for the sake of following.
The Church has still no realm of mightier influence than a consecrated home.
The heaviest condemnation of many in the day of judgment will be that they
resisted the influences and withstood the prayers of a godly home.
IV. Choosing God is
proved by choosing, God’s people. The world estimates our relation to Christ by
our relation to His followers. Yet it often seems as if men must be twice
converted, first to Christ, and again to His Church. Do not let this woman’s
devotion shame us. She gave up, literally, all her world for God. True devotion
to Christ turns to His Church with Ruth’s matchless consecration. (Charles
M. Southgate.)
Ruth; or, decision for God
1. An impulsive religion is not always real religion; nay, is very
often the reverse. Better, far better, to be quiet and undemonstrative like
Ruth, and to have the root of the matter in us, than to be impulsive and
demonstrative like Orpah, and in the hour of trial to fail. A straw will show
in what direction the stream is flowing. Ask yourself, “How do I act in little
things? Is self habitually postponed to God? And this because the Lord is my
joy?”
2. The importance of (nay, the necessity for) an entire surrender of
ourselves to God, if we would be Christians indeed. Let us ask ourselves, “Is
it thus with me and the Saviour? Have I thus taken Christ to be mine? Do I thus
cleave to Him? Is He supreme in my affections?”
3. The choice which we have been considering must be made with the
full determination to abide by it, come weal or come woe, for ever. (Aubrey
C. Price, B. A.)
Ruth’s trial and decision
It must have been a severe trial to Ruth’s constancy when
she beheld her sister-in-law, who had probably been the companion of her youth
and the friend of her early widowhood, turning away back to Moab and its
idol-gods and leaving her alone with Naomi; for we are greatly influenced for
good or for evil by sympathy and numbers. And had her steadfastness now
depended on her human relations and affections alone, and had her heart not
stricken down and rooted itself in something that was Divine, she would in all
likelihood have returned after her sister-in-law. When one flower in a garden
is pulled up, it loosens the hold of all the other flowers near it, unless they
are much more deeply rooted. And Naomi’s words seemed to give a voice to this
temptation: “Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people, and unto
her gods: return thou after thy sister-in-law.” This was like giving an
increased momentum to the stroke, or feathering the arrow and driving it to its
mark. But let us not misunderstand the venerable woman in her yearning interest
and disguised love. There was a hidden harmony between her treatment of Ruth
and the rule to deal gently with young converts as you would do with the early
spring blossom or with the new-born child. But she dreaded a choice made from
mere temporary impulse or secondary motives. The cable that is to connect the
ship with the anchor needs to be tested in every strand or link. One weak point
makes all weak, and may be the occasion of death to thousands. Suppose Ruth to
go on to Bethlehem-judah, to be brought face to face with the stern realities
of penury, and then to regret her choice and to steal away back to Moab, would
not the most sacred interests suffer the most? Here, then, was her “valley of
decision.” Naomi had anticipated the maxim, “Try before you trust”; but she was
equally ready to obey the other part of it, “Trust after you have tried.” (A.
Thomson, D. D.)
Whither thou goest, I will
go; . . . thy people
shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Ruth: Mind, its purposes and powers
1. That private families are as much under the providence of God as the houses of kings.
2. That whilst religion does not secure from the ordinary trials of
life, it does secure their being overruled for good.
3. That a devout committal of our being to God in His providence will
never fail of its reward. In the text we have--
I. A deliberate
resolution for the true.
1. The true in society.
2. The true in worship.
II. A social
influence for the true.
1. Naomi represented her country, and her people, and her God, to
Ruth.
2. The representation which Naomi gave was most attractive.
III. An invincible
energy for the time.
1. This force triumphed over all old associations.
2. This force overcame all the pleadings of Naomi.
3. This force changed her social condition and her destiny.
Away with the dogma that man is the creature of circumstances! The
soul is a mariner that can so pilot her barque as to make the most hostile
winds waft her to the shores on which her heart is set. She is an eagle that
can rise above the darkest thundercloud of circumstances, and bask in sunlight,
whilst that cloud spends itself in wild tempests beneath her buoyant wing. (Homilist.)
Ruth’s decision
I. The
circumstances of her decision.
II. The extent of
her decision. It
comprehends the sum of all her actions, and reaches to the utmost limit of her
existence. Profession without principle is nothing.
III. The felicity of
her decision. There is no substantial happiness apart from real religion.
Application:
1. Are we Christians? Then we have each a soul to save--a God to
serve.
2. Are we yet undecided? Ruth is our pattern.
3. Are we indifferent? Then we resemble Orpah, Ruth’s sister-in-law.
(F. Ellaby, B. A.)
The faithful choice
1. It was an humble choice. She has nothing to offer but herself. She
affects not to bring anything which can make her of any worth. She pleads only
for permission to be to Naomi in her future life all that affection and
fidelity can make her. She has nothing else to offer. It matters not in what
condition of life the child of earth was born, when the Holy Spirit brings her
heart to Jesus she comes as a beggar. Parents and sisters may say she has been
always the light and comfort of the household. They are ready to think she has
never sinned. And yet she feels the burden of guilt, and weeps, and prays over
the remembrance of her foolish, wasted life. The preciousness of the faithful
saying, that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, is her only comfort.
The assurance that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was
lost is her single encouragement and support.
2. It was an affectionate choice. Her heart is with Naomi. Her
desires all reach forward to the land to which Naomi journeys, and thither, on
whatever terms, she must and she will go. It is just such a choice to which the
Saviour would lead you all.” My daughter, give Me thy heart,” is His tender
appeal to you. And our youthful, spiritual traveller freely and affectionately
responds, “I give my heart to Thee; Thy face will I seek; hide not Thy face
from me.” Her choice is of the Saviour, because she really loves Him. Infinite
attractions are gathered around Him. His service seems to her all that she can
desire.
3. Ruth’s choice was an entire one. There was no hesitation in her
mind about the decision she should make. She manifested no remaining love for
Moab, and no lingering desire to carry something of Moab with her. And it was
this entire choice which made the happiness of her future course. She made the
exchange, the transfer of herself, freely, completely, and without reserve. And
there was nothing left to turn her back to Moab in her possible experience
hereafter. When the choice of a Saviour is thus entire, how completely it opens
the way for future duty! How it settles all future discussions and difficulties
with a single decision! The secret of happiness in religion is just here.
Making it the entire, single choice of the heart. The troubles and difficulties
in the Saviour’s service habitually arise from the vain attempt to serve two
masters.
4. Ruth’s choice was a determined choice. Lovely and gentle as she
appears, and humbly and affectionately as she pleads, there was amazing dignity
and firmness in her stand. Some of the most triumphant and remarkable deaths in
the history of early martyrdom for Christ are of young and tender virgins who
calmly and boldly endured every conceivable torture without a moment’s
faltering. “I am a Christian,” was their gentle but firm reply to every
solicitation to recant, until, worn out with suffering, they departed to be
with Christ. You may never be called to the same sorrows. But you will be
always summoned to the same decision. Jesus will always require from you the
same unshrinking, determined choice.
5. Ruth’s choice was an instant choice. She asked no time for
consideration. Her mind was made up. Her decision was settled. She staggered
not in unbelief, nor wavered amidst conflicting motives. Why should we ever
hesitate a moment in our acceptance of the Saviour’s offers? Surely when the
Lord sets before us life and death, a blessing and a curse, and bids us choose
for ourselves which we will have, we require no time for consideration. It has
become a mere question of personal voluntary choice. This can never be settled
but by our own personal decision and act. If it is to be settled, it must be
finally, in a single moment of time. Why should that moment be delayed? Why
should that frank and affectionate choice be postponed? Make an instant choice.
Say, “When Thou sayest, Seek ye My face, my heart replies, Thy face, Lord, will
I seek.” Why should any of you hesitate? All the arguments of truth, of
interest, of duty, of happiness, are on one side. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
The noble choice
Five choices Ruth made, and five choices must we all make if we
ever want to get to heaven.
1. In the first place, if we want to become Christians, we must, like
Ruth in the text, choose the Christian’s God--a loving God; a sympathetic God;
a great hearted God; an all-encompassing God; a God who flings Himself on this
world in a very abandonment of everlasting affection.
2. Again, if we want to be Christians, like Ruth in the text we must
take the Christian’s path. “Where thou goest, I will go,” cried out the beautiful
Moabitess to Naomi. Dangerous promise that. There were deserts to be crossed.
There were jackals that came down through the wilderness. There were bandits.
There was the Dead Sea. Naomi says “Ruth, you must go back. You are too
delicate to take this journey. You will give out in the first five miles. You
have not the physical stamina, or the moral courage, to go with me.” Ruth
responds: “Mother, I am going, anyhow. If I stay in this land I will be
overborne of the idolaters; if I go along with you I shall serve God. Give me
that bundle. Let me carry it. I am going with you, mother, anyhow.”
3. Again, if we want to become Christians, like Ruth in the text we
must choose the Christian’s habitation. “Where thou lodgest, will I lodge,”
cried Ruth to Naomi. She knew that wherever Naomi stopped, whether it were
hovel or mansion, there would be a Christian home; and she wanted to be in it.
4. If we want to become Christians, like Ruth in the text we must
choose Christian associations. “Thy people shall be my people!” cried out Ruth
to Naomi. Oh, ye unconverted people, I know not how you can stand it down in
that moping, saturnine worldly association. Come up into the sunlight of
Christian society--those people for whom all things are working right now, and
will work right for ever. I tell you that the sweetest japonicas grow in the
Lord’s garden; that the largest grapes are from the vineyards of Canaan; that
the most sparkling floods break forth from the “Rock of Ages.” Do not too much
pity this Ruth of my text; for she is going to become joint-owner of the great
harvest-fields of Boaz.
5. Once more, if we want to become Christians, we must, like Ruth in
the text, choose the Christian’s death and burial. She exclaimed: “Where thou
diest will I die, and there will I be buried.” I think we all, when leaving
this world, would like to be surrounded by Christian influences. You would not
like to have your dying pillow surrounded by caricaturists, and punsters, and
wine-bibbers. How would you like to have John Leech come with his London
pictorials, and Christopher North with his loose fun, and Tom Hood with his
rhyming jokes, when you are dying? No, no! What we want is radiation in the
last moment. Yes; Christian people on either side the bed, and Christian people
at the foot of the bed, and Christian people to close my eyes, and Christian
people to carry me out, and Christian people to look after those whom I leave
behind, and Christian people to remember me a little while after I am gone. (T.
De Witt Talmage.)
Trueheartedness and the tests of true-heartedness
I. I observe that
the conduct of Ruth assures us that there is such a thing as true-heartedness,
and thus teaches a lesson of trust in humanity. It reveals certain elements in
humanity that are reliable. Much heartlessness, much frivolity and sin, will a
wise and good man find as he goes about in the world, much to dissipate the
rosy credulousness of his youth, and to sadden his philanthropy; but, on the
other hand, something of his faith will be justified, and he will learn that,
after all, there are elements in human nature worthy of our trust and our love.
As the chemist finds some admixture in what seemed to be a simple element, so,
doubtless, at the bottom of the purest heart lurks some particle of self, some
ingredient of our earthly composition. And if one is disposed to turn a
magnifying-glass upon this, it will appear enormous; if he beholds it through
the lens of a sad or a foul experience, it will look grimy or distorted; or, if
with nothing more than his naked eye he has a mind to notice only the evil that
exists among men, he can see plenty of it, and it will look badly enough. But
it is an equally correct theory of human nature, and a much more agreeable one,
which admits the conviction of some moral loyalty, extant even in the obscurest
places, and maintained under all trials.
II. But, having
thus vindicated human nature as to the fact of true-heartedness, let us proceed
to consider its tests. By what signs or expressions may we be assured of its
presence? I reply that the very words of the text, the very ideas to which Ruth
referred, afford a sufficient indication of these tests. For consider what
these ideas, expressed in the language of Ruth, really are. They are the ideas
of home, country, God, and the end of our mortal life. And are there any ideas
more vital than these? Surely, if one cherishes any sacred and true thoughts at
all, they must cluster around these things.
1. Home, that has sheltered and nourished you, that encloses your
most secret life, that claims the first flow of your affections and their last
throb.
2. Country, that organism which links your individual being to a
public interest, that gives you a share in history, a pride in great names, an
influence in world-wide issues, and, as a second home, inspires you with a more
comprehensive loyalty.
3. The grave, which bounds all earthly action, and limits every
earthly condition, that realm where distinctions of home and country melt away,
the bed where all must lie, “the relentless crucible” in which rags and
splendour alike dissolve, the gateway to a stupendous mystery.
4. And God, the Infinite Being to whom the instincts of our souls
respond, to whom in our highest consciousness we aspire, the Source and the
Interpretation of all existence, the Light that comprehends our darkness, the
Strength that sustains our weakness, the Presence to which in our guilt and our
adoration we lift our cry, the Nature in which we live and move and have our
being--these are great realities; and it appears to me that the words of Ruth
are so eloquent, and her devotion seems so great, because of the greatness of
the things she spoke of. Indeed, does not this ground of thought and action
constitute a grand distinction of our humanity? If in many points man is closely
linked to the brute, is he not largely separated by his thoughts concerning
these things, and by his action upon them? Ascribe to the animal such
affections, such faculties, such power of reasoning, as we may and as we must,
surely no one will claim for him such conceptions as man entertains concerning
home and country and God and the limitations of his earthly lot. These are
manifestations of human nature which project beyond the sphere of mere animal
life, and indicate a larger scope of being. They are marks of immortality.
Start with any one of these ideas, and see to what it leads. For instance, the
relationships of home--is there not an argument for immortality in these? Or
start from the idea of country, and is not the same conclusion unfolded? The duties,
the achievements, the historical problems, that pertain to nationality, do not
they suggest it? And he upon whose mind dawns some apprehension of the
Infinite, he who feels assured that he holds communion with the Eternal Spirit,
and presses forward towards that perfect excellence, never completely to
attain, but always capable of larger attainment--surely in essence he must be
imperishable. And the grave itself, dark and silent as it is, to such a
conscious soul cannot seem the final barrier of existence, but only the
suggestive portal of new achievements. If, then, these great realities, of
which Ruth spoke, are associated with all that is deepest and noblest in our
humanity, he who proves faithful to even one of these ideas, who holds it as a
sacred conviction, and cherishes it with a pure love, has in him the core of
true-heartedness, the ground of a principle, and a possibility in which we may
trust. And permit me to add that these tests are personal and practical, tests
by which we may try not so much the trueheartedness of others, for which we may
have very little function, but by which each may try his own. A man can hardly
ask himself a more practical question than this: “What are my thoughts, and
what is my conduct, respecting home, country, God, and the limitations of my
mortal life?”
III. I remark,
finally, that these four ideas are not only the tests of personal
true-heartedness--they also reveal the great bond of our common humanity. That
which is common to men abides in the hearts of men, is linked with the great
facts expressed in the text. They thus indicate the natural ground of human
unity. And upon these ideas it is the tendency of Christianity to develop a
still nobler unity. (E. H. Chapin, D. D.)
A good resolution
I. A resolution to
pursue the journey to heaven.
1. It is a narrow way.
2. It sometimes proves a way of affliction.
3. It is nevertheless a very pleasant way.
II. A resolution to
be satisfied with spiritual entertainments.
1. The Christian finds a sweet entertainment in communion with his
God--in praising Him, which is one of the most delightful exercises of the
mind; and in prayer, which is so necessary for the renewing of his spiritual
strength.
2. In the Word of God he finds a delightful repast. He is made wise
unto salvation.
3. In the conversation of his fellow Christians, the believer finds
delightful refreshing.
4. The believer finds also times of refreshing from the presence of
the Lord when he takes up his abode in the house of God. He experiences the
truth of the promise,” they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength.”
III. A resolution to
cast in the lot with the people of God. Before you make a resolution so to do,
count the cost, and consider the nature of the step which you propose to take.
1. The people of God have generally been a persecuted people.
2. The people of God are an afflicted people.
3. The people of God are a holy people.
4. We have said that the people of God are a persecuted and an
afflicted people, but they are nevertheless a people of the best prospects, so
that they are truly wise, and consult their own best interests, who cast in
their lot among them.
IV. A resolution to
choose the service of God. When a sinner is truly converted from his sin he
cleaves unto the Lord with purpose of heart. “Thy God shall be my God,” is the
resolution which he expresses to the Church of Christ; and in doing so--
1. He resolves to cast away his idols.
2. He who makes this resolution receives God in Christ as his
God--God in the person of the Mediator.
3. He who chooses God for his God resolves to devote himself to the
active service of God.
V. a resolution to
be faithful unto death. What is necessary to faithfulness unto death?
1. Begin aright.
2. Persevere as you begin, for Christ is not only the Door but the
Way.
Often repair to the fountain of His blood for peace; constantly
resort to His throne of grace for spiritual strength; often sit at the feet of
Jesus to learn the mysteries of the kingdom of God. To conclude--
1. We admire the constancy and perseverance of Ruth.
2. We learn from this passage of Scripture that we ought to be
faithful to those who are inquiring the way to Zion with their faces
thitherward.
3. The inquiring and anxious sinner should persevere whatever
difficulties may present themselves. If the difficulties and trials of the way
were tenfold, it would still be his interest as well as his duty to endure unto
the end. (Essex Remembrancer.)
Ruth the true-hearted
That strong and brave decision on the hills of her native Moab,
where she resolves to cling to her aged and sorrow-stricken mother-in-law,
reveals a character of no ordinary quality. There is in her what, for want of a
better phrase, I must call depth of nature. Her character is rooted in a deep,
rich soil of true humanity. A woman whose whole being is on the surface, who
has no hidden deeps of feeling and thought and aspiration and love--a tree
decked with showy blossoms, but never hung with golden fruit--is felt to be
false to her true nature and Heaven-appointed mission. Ruth reveals to us a
character nourished and strengthened from the unseen depths of an affluent
nature which we love to associate with woman. The shallow woman exhibits no
such heroism as that of Ruth. Here, too, we discover in her that most essential
characteristic of a true woman--heart. She thinks and speaks and acts like one
whose inspiring life-force is a heart aglow with the fires of feeling,
throbbing with the pulsations of love and beneficence; and her whole outward
life is but the spontaneous outflow of this full, fresh fountain within. A
nature thus endowed and animated is rich in its own resources, and bestows its
abundant benefactions upon all who come within its charmed sphere. The heart is
the true regulator and benefactor of life. Sometimes neither art nor intellect
predominates, but the throne which the heart should occupy is held by the
ungracious goddess of Stoicism--a stolid form, which no prayer can move to
sympathy, and from which no loving word ever proceeds. How desolate is the
nature over which either of these three false powers presides! How impoverished
is every life encompassed by the chilling atmosphere of such a nature! On the
other hand, how enriched are all they who breathe the genial air which
surrounds one with a nature like that of Ruth, in which the heart sits queen on
her rightful throne, and dispenses her regal gifts to all. Hence the importance
of true heart-culture in education. The neglect of this essential part of
genuine culture, and the giving of exclusive attention to the intellect is one
of the most perilous tendencies of this age. Such a process may produce a
Lucretia Borgia in one sphere, and a George Eliot in another; but a Madame
Guyon, a Mary Lyon, and an Elizabeth Fry will seldom or never come forth to
bless mankind under its false reign. It is Madame De Stael who wisely says that
“life is valuable only so far as it serves for the religious education of the
heart.” Let us note another feature in the character of Ruth. Devoted affection
like that of this young Moabitess to her aged mother-in-law deserves our
highest tribute. There is an utter unselfishness in this devotion that is
beautiful to con- template. A selfish, exacting, suspicious passion, misnamed
love, is the curse of its possessor; a love pure and unselfish is the perpetual
joy of the heart in which it glows, and of all who feel its Divine warmth.
Orpah can speak loving words; Ruth can do heroic deeds. A selfish person cannot
interpret unselfish love. Two hearts must be in happy accord to read the
meaning of each aright. Blessed are they who can discern and feel true
goodness. Blessed are those homes where true-hearted Ruths preside and Love
reigns, goddess of the happy home circle. Yes, it is heart-power, and not any
other force, that is most impressive and most enduring even in this
unappreciative world. Courage pays its devotion at the shrine of suffering
love; physical force surrenders to the higher power of the heart.” Alexander,
Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but upon what foundations did
we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded His
empire upon love, and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.” We must
rear monuments in human hearts, by true love and devotion to humanity, if we
would live through succeeding ages. The crowning grace of Ruth’s character, as
it is that of every other human being, is her piety. Love to man is crowned and
glorified by love to God. (C. H. Payne, D. D.)
True decision
We have just stood at the line which separates Moab from Judah.
Orpah has gone. We shall trace her course no longer. We would gladly never see
her example followed by others. We must now confine ourselves to the beautiful
decision and faithful choice of Ruth. She stands before us a sincere youthful
convert to the Lord’s service. She has decided the question for her soul by
gratefully accepting the offers of a Saviour’s love. She sets out upon an
untried journey alone. Naomi, indeed, is with her. And her heart is
affectionately bound to her mother-in-law. But Ruth has many cares, trials, and
remembrances of which Naomi is not conscious. To Naomi the journey is a
well-known return. To Ruth every step is untried and new. She was born in Moab.
She knows nothing of Judah. Thus is it with every youthful convert. The experienced
and aged Christian has much acquaintance with the way in which you go. The
new-born child of grace takes every step on ground unknown and untried. This is
the way in which all must go who would walk with God. “This people shall dwell
alone.” Each one, be the multitude ever so great, is a hidden one with God.
Multitudes may be travelling in the same direction, but the feelings and
experience of each are solitary. Ruth must make her decision in her own secret
heart, and make it for herself alone. Her earthly friends must all be left.
They are in Moab, from whence she takes now her final departure. This
separation is not to be made without a trial of her faith. The more
affectionate she is in her real choice, the more she will feel the separation
from those whom she leaves behind. Religion cannot destroy our earthly
affections, our interest in those who are dear to us in natural ties. Nay, it
much increases the warmth and power of our love. This decision may often meet
with much opposition from those with whom you dwell. Your dearest earthly
connections may oppose. They love you. But they do not love your religion. You
must follow the Lord fully though you follow Him alone among your earthly
connections; and He will make those who oppose at peace with you. Be faithful
to Him, and your fidelity shall be the source of increased confidence and
respect, even from the worldly who appear to reject and despise you. As we
trace the history of Ruth, we find her meeting with new trials of her faith and
decision after she sets out alone. Orpah has gone. But still Naomi proves the
spirit of Ruth. Your sister has gone back to her people and her gods. If you
mean ever to go back, now is your best time to go. Remember, I have nothing to
offer you. If you go with me it must be to be a partner of my griefs and wants.
Thus God often proves the young disciple with new trials. He sends His east
wind upon the young trees of His planting; not to weaken or destroy, but to
give greater strength and endurance for the time to come. Our real conversion
to Him is an hour of peace and blessedness; but it is not an end of trial. Nay,
it is the very beginning of new contests; and our fidelity in the decision we
have made is to be proved at once, and to be proved constantly, by new dispensations
of the will of God. Be really faithful and sincere, and God will prove your
faith, to strengthen, settle, and stablish you for ever. Be truly gold, and
then the refiner’s fire will only purify and make you bright. This faithful
decision Ruth was obliged to make in the face of backsliding in others. She
sees Orpah go back, yet she perseveres. When a child of the world comes out on
the side of Christ, and pursues, in the midst of the evil examples of many, a
course of simple, faithful devotion to the Saviour, how it honours His truth! How it
strengthens His cause! How it impresses even those who oppose! How such
faithfulness is owned and prospered by the Lord, to whom it is offered, in the
usefulness to others of the life which is adorned by it. (S.H.Tyng, D. D.)
Ruth deciding for God
I. Affection for
the godly should influence us to godliness. Many forces combine to effect this.
1. There is the influence of companionship.
2. The influence of admiration. Let us therefore copy the saints.
3. The influence of instruction. When we learn from a teacher we are
affected by him in many ways. Instruction is a kind of formation.
4. The influence of reverence. Those who are older, wiser, and better
than we are create in us a profound respect, and lead us to follow their
example.
5. The influence of desire to cheer them.
6. The influence of fear of separation. It will be an awful thing to
be eternally divided from the dear ones who seek our salvation.
II. Resolves to
godliness will be tested.
1. By the poverty of the godly and their other trials.
2. By counting the cost.
3. By the drawing back of others.
4. By the duties involved in religion. Ruth must work in the fields.
Some proud people will not submit to the rules of Christ’s house, nor to the
regulations which govern the daily lives of believers.
5. By the apparent coldness of believers. Naomi does not persuade her
to keep with her, but the reverse. She was a prudent woman, and did not wish
Ruth to come with her by persuasion, but by conviction.
6. By the silent sorrow of some Christians. Naomi said, “Call me not
Naomi, but call me Bitterness.” Persons of a sorrowful spirit there always will
be; but this must not hinder us from following the Lord.
III. Such Godliness
must mainly lie in the choice of God.
1. This is the believer’s distinguishing possession: “Thy God shall
be my God.”
2. His great article of belief: “I believe in God.”
3. His ruler and lawgiver: “Make me to go in the path of Thy
commandments” (Psalms 119:38).
4. His instructor: “Teach me Thy way, O Lord” (Psalms 28:2).
5. His trust and stay (see Ruth 2:12): “This God is our God for ever
and ever, He will be our guide even unto death” (Psalms 48:14).
IV. But it should
involve the choice of His people: “Thy people shall be my people.” They are ill
spoken of by the other kingdom. Not all we could wish them to be. Not a people
out of whom much is to be gained. But Jehovah is their God, and they are His
people. Our eternal inheritance is part and parcel of theirs. Let us make
deliberate, humble, firm, joyful, immediate choice for God and His saints;
accepting their lodging in this world, and going with them whither they are
going. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The influence of friends
It is not improbable that Ruth was in heart a Jewess, and that,
for reasons which looked beyond the mere temporalities of life, she desired to
cast in her lot with the descendants of Abraham. It may be that the religion
which her mother-in-law brought with her into Moab had become the daughter’s
hope; and, discerning in it those elements of truth which were wanting in the
faith of her own fathers, she naturally concluded that the people who were
guided by its promises and commands would have power and blessing from above.
When we add to this the fact that this woman was to be one in that line of
generation through which passed the seed of the Shiloh, that the child yet to
be born to her was to be the father of David’s sire, we may see how direct is
the conclusion that this heathen woman did, in her conduct, obey not merely the
impulses of nature, but the influences of grace. It does not appear probable
that God, having such a work for her to do, would leave her to herself; that He
would trust to her unguided will and emotion the part which He designed her to
act in His great scheme of love. The decision of Ruth, then, supplies us with
this proposition: those who are striving to serve the Lord should cling to
those who are the disciples of the same Master. The law of dependence, as it
acts upon this world of human beings, and resolves itself into the other laws
of influence and of sympathy, is found in all the relations of man. In itself
it is a beautiful thing, this leaning of one upon another, this clasping of
hand to hand in the great circle of human brotherhood, and feeling the electric
spark as the touch of a single finger sends a thrill through the multitude. Man
was born for this thing, even when he was born without sin; and that would be a
high life where this law of sympathy was at work, with no power but the power
of doing good. With us, however, the kindest laws of heaven have felt the
disturbing force of sin; and sin has so perverted them that they act against
their design, and in opposition to themselves. The influences, then, of one
upon another may be for evil, as well as for good; the best intentions may be
counteracted, and the best efforts frustrated, by those with whom we stand
connected under the laws of social life. If we desire to serve God and be the
sincere followers of our Lord we must break away from those who are serving
other gods, and seek the companionship of those who serve the God of Israel.
If, in times past, our associations have been with worldly persons, if we have
moved in that circle of life where there is no God save the passions, and no
law save the will, we must break out from this circle and enter another where
life takes a higher form. We must surround ourselves with those whose thoughts
and aims are upward, like our own, that thus our strivings may be aided, and
our efforts sustained, by those with whom we have to do. This counsel touches some of the most
delicate points in the social state. It enters into the family circle, and
draws its lines between those who have a common interest in the things which
concern the body. It sweeps through all our connections, from the highest to
the lowest, and demands that everywhere, and under every form, its authority be
acknowledged and its injunctions obeyed. Now, of these ties of nature, some are
voluntary, and others are not. Of the latter I will not now speak; while
concerning the former I have something more to say. The tie of marriage is a
voluntary tie, and I here confess my amazement at the readiness with which
Christians yoke themselves with unbelievers. I know of few greater hindrances
to a consistent walking with God than an irreligious husband or an irreligious
wife. We say, and the remark is applied to religious things, that the husband
can go his way, and the wife her way; but this proves, in the trial, to be
about as practicable as for the parts of the body to separate and move off in
opposite directions. The tie forbids this independence; and there is not a
Christian wife or husband in the world who can so overcome the law which holds
them as to act with entire freedom in the face of indifference or opposition.
It is time for some one to tell the people that marriage is an institution of
the Most High God, and that in its laws it touches the interests which are
eternal as well as those which are temporal. (S. Cooke, D. D.)
Ruth’s spiritual affinity with Naomi
This family feeling reigns among all the true sons of God under
every dispensation. It operates with all the steadiness of an instinct. Apart
altogether from Divine commands, believers exercise mutual attraction like
planets that move round the same central orb. They are conscious of “the unity
of the Spirit.” Under the Old Testament, “they that feared the Lord spake often
one to another”; under the New Testament, “they that believed were together.”
There is not an instance recorded in the whole inspired history of Christians
preferring to live in isolation from their brethren. If there were only two
believers in the same city, they would be irresistibly drawn to each other just
in the degree in which they were believers. And those who are thus mutually
attracted shed many mutual blessings, like flowers growing contiguous to each
other in a garden that drop the dew around each other’s roots. And now her
God-inspired resolution strengthening and glowing as she proceeds, culminates
in a solemn vow of undying constancy, in which she imprecates Heaven’s
righteous retribution upon herself should she fail to keep it: “The Lord do so
to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” (A. Thomson, D.
D.)
Influence
The Bible affirms that no man liveth to himself. Each life has an
influence. What is influence? It is that subtle something which resides in our
deeds, words, spirit, and character. It is a shadow of ourselves, our
impersonal self. It is to us relatively what the fragrance is to the flowers,
what light is to the star. We are all sensitive to influence: our hearts are
open to goodness, beauty, genius. There is never a day when perhaps
unconsciously we do not receive and reflect a thousand shadowy forms. Some are
more receptive of influences than others, just as there are certain soils that
drink in more greedily sunshine and shower; and as there are certain bodily
conditions more open to disease, so there are certain mental and moral
dispositions more open to good and evil, truth and error. There are men like
clay--you can mould them as you will; others are like rock--you must chisel
them as you can. Naomi was not perfect, but she exerted a great influence upon
her daughters-in-law.
I. Some of the
lines along which her influence was transmitted.
1. There was relation ship. Naomi was mother-in-law to Ruth. This
link was sanctified to the salvation of Ruth. Relationship is to-day one of the
most powerful aids to moral influence. See it in the Gospels: Andrew first
finds his own brother Simon; Philip findeth Nathanael. Most children are open
to maternal influences. Native missionaries are the best. Influence follows
love.
2. There was sorrow. These women had shared a common grief: they had
watched at the same bed of death; participated in the same hopes and fears.
Naomi would comfort Ruth with her Jewish hope and consolation. Sorrow fits for
influence. The heart is plastic. The wax is melted and receives the impress of
the seal. The mind is filled for the teaching. Such opportunities for
transmission of holy influence are constantly occurring.
3. There was humanity. Relationship and sorrow are accidental;
humanity is the essential fact, and binds the world together. Angelic influence
is impeded by difference in nature. Our hands fit into each other’s palm, our
faces reflect similar features. We have common wants and ways. Influence runs
along the lines of our human brotherhood.
II. Some of the
impediments that might have interrupted her influence. There were
considerations adverse to her influence.
1. Nationality. Ruth was a Moabitess. Israel and Moab were ancient
enemies. The Turk will not readily yield to the English influence. Yet so great
is the power of moral influence that it overcame this barrier.
2. Education. Ruth had grown up to womanhood before she came under
the influence of Naomi; her habits were formed. She was a devout idolatress. Here was a strong
impediment for moral influence to overcome. Virgin soil may be easily
cultivated as we wish; not so the land long covered with weeds. When the whole
man is overrun with noxious principles it is not easy to exterminate and
implant new ideas and habits. This the good life of Naomi accomplished in Ruth.
3. Adverse example. Orpah went back to Moab. The good influence may
fail even where its power has been felt strongly. Who can estimate the power of
adverse example to-day! How many are turned by it from the ways of religion!
Naomi may be counteracted by Orpah.
III. The success of
the good influence. The success was not absolute. Orpah returned, Ruth
continued. See her wisdom. She in her turn becomes influential and useful--a
help to Naomi. She becomes a permanent factor in the redemptive history. See
the wisdom of yielding to high moral influences. (E. Biscombe.)
The power of Christian character
shining through the life of a Christian man is strikingly
illustrated in the following incident: “An Afghan once spent an hour in the
company of Dr. William Marsh, of England. When he heard that Dr. Marsh was
dead, he said: ‘His religion shall now be my religion; his God shall be my God;
for I must go where he is and see his face again.’”
If ought but death part
thee and me.--
Religion a powerful bond
1. Such and so powerful is the bond of religion that it makes the
saints of God not only desirous, but even resolute also, both to live and die
together.
2. All persons and people should so live as those that do expect that
they and their relations may die. So Ruth did here expect it, both for her
mother and for herself. “Alas, I never thought of his death.” So there be
others that live so licentiously as if they should never die, never come to
judgment, as if
they were to have an eternity of pleasure of sin in this world (as Psalms 49:10-13).
3. As burial is one of the dues of the dead, so dear friends desire
to be buried together. Ruth desires to be buried with her godly mother. It is
very observable that the first purchase of possession mentioned in Scripture
history was a place to bury in, not to build in (Genesis 23:9).
4. Death is the final dissolution of all bonds of duty, whether
natural, civil, or religious. The wife is no longer bound to her husband (Romans 7:1-4), children to parents,
subjects to princes, and people to pastors. (C. Ness.)
When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then
she left speaking unto her.
Trust after testing
After proof and trial made of their fidelity we are to trust our
brethren, without any further suspicion. Not to try before we trust is want of
wisdom; not to trust after we have tried is want of charity. The goldsmith must
purify the dross and ore from the gold, but he must be wary lest he makes waste
of good metal if over-curious in too often refining. We may search and sound
the sincerity of our brethren, but after good experience made of their
uprightness we must take heed lest by continual sifting and proving them we
offend a weak Christian. (T. Fuller, B. D.)
Benefit of a thorough decision
Those who appear half-hearted in their self-consecration expose
themselves to a legion of tempters. Lingering on the border-land, they keep
within the arrow mark of Satan. Keeping in the suburbs of Sodom, they are in
danger of coming within the sweep of its consuming fires. The world hopes that it
shall get them back again to its ranks. They resemble persons walking in a
crowd with flowing robes, which afford those who wish them evil an easy means
of pulling them back and laying them in the dust. When it becomes clearly seen
that our heart is fixed, the world
gives us up in despair and “leaves off speaking unto us.” And how that choice
ennobled the young Moabitess! What pure human love! What high devotion! What
sublime self-renunciation! What true wisdom introducing among the elements that
should determine her choice eternity as well as time! Decision of character
gives full play to a man’s powers whatever they be, and makes them his own. (A.
Thomson, D. D.)
Decision a safeguard
If a man is seen to be decided in his stand for Christ,
antagonists will give over assailing him. There is nothing in the use of which
men are more discriminating than entreaty, argument, or influence. So long as
the object of their solicitude is wavering, they will bring all their batteries
to bear upon him, for there is still the hope that he will yield. But when he
comes openly and determinedly out for Christ, they will waste no more
ammunition on him. They leave him thenceforth alone, and attack some one else.
Thus decision, while it may require an effort to make it, is, after it is made,
a safeguard against assault, So long as a vessel has no flag at her mast-head,
the sea-robber may think it safe to attack her; but let her hoist the flag of
this nation, and that will make the assailant pause. In like manner, the hoisting
over us of the banner of the Cross, being a symbol of decision, is also an
assurance of protection. (W.M. Taylor, D. D.)
So they two went until they came to Bethlehem.
Constancy
I. That they are
to be admitted into our fellowship whom we find to be constant in a good
course, and true lovers of goodness, whatsoever they were before. Naomi thus
admits of Ruth, no doubt, with great comfort. Thus Paul alloweth of Mark (2 Timothy 4:11), though before he
had refused him (Acts 15:38), and willeth others to
entertain him (Colossians 4:10-11).
II. That God
leaveth not His in distress, or altogether comfortless. Naomi went out with
husband and children, and lost them; she returneth not alone, but God sent her
one to accompany her and to comfort her.
III. That a true
resolution will show itself in a full execution. She resolved to go with Naomi,
and so she did, till she came to Bethlehem. By this may we learn to know the
difference between solid resolutions and sudden flashes, raw and undigested
purposes, between true resolutions and such as be made in show, but in
substance prove nothing so, never seen in the effects.
IV. In this their
travel to Canaan, and therein to Bethlehem, note three things: their unity, fervency,
and constancy. They went together lovingly, they ceased not to go on, they did
not linger, they took no by-paths, neither forgat they whither they were going,
till they came unto Bethlehem in Canaan. As these thus went to Canaan, so
should we unto the spiritual Canaan and heavenly Bethlehem; we must go in unity
(1 Corinthians 1:10), and be of one
heart (Acts 1:14; Acts 2:1; Acts 2:46; Acts 4:24), in a godly fervency (Romans 12:11; Titus 2:14; Ezekiel 3:14), as Elijah, Nehemiah, the
angel of Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-2), and as our Saviour,
whom the zeal of God’s house had eaten up. And we must go in a constant spirit,
and not be weary of well-doing, for “he that continueth to the end shall be
saved.” (B. Bernard.)
True friendship
1. Such is the faithfulness of our heavenly Father to all His
children, that He never fails nor forsakes them; but when one comfort faileth
them, He findeth out another for them. The loss of one relation is made up out
of God’s fulness by raising up another.
2. There be but few friends that are true friends. Here be but two
together.
3. Such are fast and faithful friends indeed that accompany each
other to the worship of God--to Bethlehem. Many there be that do accompany each
other to Bethaven, or house of wickedness, to play-houses, and places of
revelling, etc. This is rather a betraying than a befriending one another. A
carnal friend is but a spiritual enemy, who advised the ruin of his soul for
the recovery of his body (2 Samuel 13:3). The truest
friendship is to save and deliver a friend from the greatest evil, which is
sin; but to tempt any to it, and to tolerate them in it, is not the part of a
true friend, but of a real enemy.
4. ‘Tis matter of astonishing admiration to hear of, and be
eye-witnesses of, the great afflictions that do befall some persons, both great
and good.
5. God works wonderful changes in persons, families, cities,
countries and kingdoms. (C. Ness.)
The backslider’s return
Naomi had wandered. But Naomi might return. God had not
cast her away. He will never cast away those who truly love Him. He calls them
back again to true repentance. He heals their backslidings and loves them
freely. Then, like Peter, they may strengthen their brethren. They have an
experience of human infirmity which they had not before. They know the dangers
and temptations which surround the Christian’s path. They can comfort others
with the consolations wherewith they are comforted of God. But the backslider
must return with total self-renunciation. Thus Naomi even renounces her right
to her former name. “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath
dealt very bitterly with me.” They said, “Is this Naomi?” “Yes, I was Naomi
when I was contented and happy in the house, and among the people of God. I was
Naomi when we took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in
company. How foolish was I thus to wander from His holy ways! Call me not Naomi
now. I have no right to that name. All was pleasant then. But the remembrance
is bitterness now. Call me Mara. Let me come back as the poorest of the poor,
sorrowful, and self-condemned.” The backslider feels no claim to a former
Christian character. He is compelled to say, “Call me not a Christian. I have
forfeited that blessed name. Call me a sinner, the chief of sinners. But as
such, suffer me to return again to God. ‘I am no more worthy to be called a
son; make me as one of Thy hired servants.’” The backslider must come back with
conscious emptiness. He has nothing to bring; nothing to offer. Naomi says, “I
went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.” How true is
this! What can you bring back from your wanderings in Moab but the bitter
remembrance of your folly? Nothing but sadness can come from a careless
backsliding from God. And so far as your own acts and conduct are concerned,
you must return to Him with perfect emptiness. If Divine grace and
long-suffering shall receive you--if the Holy Spirit shall consent to restore
you, and lead you back to the mercy-seat, once more accepted--it will be all as
a free gift to the chief of sinners. Yet how precious is the expression, “The
Lord hath brought me back”! Yes, though I am empty, and have nothing; though I
am vile in His sight, and “mine own clothes abhor me,” though I was worthy of
His rejection and His wrath, yet He did not leave me in my sin, nor suffer me,
unpardoned, to perish. But I come back empty. Everything has failed me except
the loving-kindness and mercy of my God. No condition can be more humbling than
this. Let this work of the Holy Spirit have free course in you. Do not attempt
the least justification of yourselves. Speak not, think not, of any temptation
that led you astray, or of the influence of any companions, or of the want of
watchfulness of any friends, or of the unfaithfulness of others in instructing
and warning you, or of the example and habits of others in the social circle in
which you live, as the least extenuation of your own guilt. Oh, no! You have no
one to blame but yourself. You have been tempted only because you were drawn
away by your own lust. Yet, while the backslider himself mourns, others rejoice
over him. “It came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city
was moved about them; and they said, Is this Naomi?” Her friends had not
forgotten her. They gather around her again with delight. All Bethlehem
rejoices; Naomi’s poverty and wanderings are forgotten. She has herself
returned, and this is enough. The poor prodigal had hardly time to say,
“Father, I have sinned,” before his father buries his voice in his own bosom,
and lifts up a sound of joy which completely drowns the accents of the
wanderer’s grief. Oh, what a song of praise does his restoration awaken! Heaven
and earth unite to say, over the returning wanderer, “Is this Naomi?” Is this
the wanderer? This the captive that we thought was lost? This the giddy child
that was bent to backsliding, and fled from all restraint? Sing, O heavens, for
the Lord hath done it. Shout, ye lower parts of the earth, for the Lord hath
blotted out as a thick cloud their transgressions, and as a cloud their sins! (S.
H. Tyng, D. D.)
All the city was moved
about them, and they said, Is this Naomi?--
The changes wrought by time
Ten years ago she left, but is not forgotten. The story of her
battle with poverty and consequent emigration are well remembered. But what a change!
This bent form and aspect of despair tell a pitiful tale. Time and sorrow have wrought
their cruel work. Ten years, and such troubles as hers leave terrible marks
behind at her time of life. Wrinkles, grey hairs, and feebleness of body soon
reveal themselves. Care makes men and women grow old very fast. We look
twice--thrice, at the acquaintance of former years, before we believe our eyes. “Is this Naomi?”
That means, where are the husband and the sons? It is no vulgar curiosity that
prompts the inquiry. Women who knew Naomi well, and attended her wedding, are
there; men, too, who were intimate friends of Elimelech; young men also, who as
boys often played with the dead lads Mahlon and Chillon, all eagerly repeat the question to each other
as they cluster round the two
poor, travel-stained, weeping women. It is a bitter hour. The wounds are opened
afresh. For no questions cut so keenly as those which remind us of beloved ones
who have passed into the shadow of death. (Wm. Braden.)
The changes of life
I. Here is a
returning pilgrim. Home has been but a tent life, and the curtains have been rent by sorrow and death.
She tells us the old, old story. Here have we no continuing city.
Bethlehem--home! Oh! that strange longing to live through the closing years in
the country places where we were born! It is a common instinct.
II. Here is a godly
pilgrim. Travel-worn and weary, with sandled feet, she is coming to a city
sanctified by the faith of her fathers. “Is this Naomi?” If there is not so
much of what the world calls beauty in her face, there is character there,
experience there. The young Christian starting on his pilgrimage is cheerful
enough. He goes forth full of enterprise and hope. Do not be surprised if in after-years you
ask, “Is this Naomi?” How careful, how anxious, how dependent on God alone!
III. Here is an
ancestral pilgrim. Ancestor of whom? Turn to Matthew 1:5, and you will find in the
genealogy of our Lord the name of Ruth. Do you see in the blue distance One
coming from the judgment hall? Do you hear the wild cry of the mob, “Away with
Him! away with Him! Crucify Him! crucify Him”? Come near and gaze. Behold the
Man! As the reapers asked, “Is this Naomi?” so we ask, “Is this Jesus?” Is this
He whose sweet face lay in the manger? Is this He who passed the angels at
heaven’s high gate, and came to earth, saying “Lo! I come to do Thy will, O
God”? Yes I Bowed, bruised, broken for us. The same Saviour, who now endures
the Cross, despising the shame. Well may we wonder and adore!
IV. Here is a
provided-for pilgrim. Back to Bethlehem, but how to live? how to find the
roof-tree that should shelter again? She knew the Eternal’s name,
“Jehovah-jireh,” the Lord will provide. So it ever is. Trust in the Lord and
you shall never want any good thing. Believe still in your Saviour, and
provided for you will be all weapons of fence, all means of consolation, all
prosperity that shall not harm your soul. As the snows hide flowers even in the
Alps, so beneath all our separations and sorrows there are still plants of the
Lord, peace and hope, and joy and rest, in Him. Blessed indeed shall we be if
we can rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. (W. M. Statham.)
Call me not Naomi, call me Mara.
Naomi
I. Incidents in
her life. This
world is to all, in some measure, “a vale of tears.” The pilgrimage of the true
Christian is not through verdant plains and flowery fields, but through a
“waste howling wilderness,” where much toil is exercised, many troubles
undergone, many perils encountered, and many severe privations endured. God is
a Sovereign in the distribution of sufferings and tribulations. His own people
have frequently the greatest share of troubles in this life--that their souls,
which are too full of earthly attachments, may be weaned from the world. We
should learn hence not to murmur nor charge God foolishly under our trials, for
if we compare them with those of many of God’s people who were more gracious in
their dispositions and tempers than we are they will appear “light” indeed. We
find this bereaved and distressed individual returning towards her native land.
She acted wisely, for she was more likely to fare well in her own
country--among her relatives and acquaintance, and where the knowledge and fear
of God prevailed, than among strangers and idolaters in a foreign land. It
would be well if we imitated Naomi in a spiritual point of view. At length we
find Naomi in Canaan. When she returned
her former acquaintance were greatly astonished at her appearance. Her
affluence was gone, her earthly glory had faded away, and her circumstances
were mean and narrow. God, however, in mercy, calmed the evening of her day.
The troubles of the Christian are not only to end, but to end blessedly--even
in bliss and honour!
II. Moral
excellences which stood prominently forth in the conduct of naomi under the weight of her
tribulations.
1. Her benevolence. Behold it delightfully displayed towards both her
daughters-in-law. See how ardently she wished their prosperity, how fervently
she prayed for it. Herein she, and all who are under the governance of the same
superhuman principle, resemble their Divine Master. He also felt intensely for
others--even when He was Himself involved in dangers.
2. Her acknowledgment of God in her troubles. See how piously she
develops this feeling (Ruth 1:13; Ruth 1:20-21). Nothing enables a man to
behave as he should in the day of adversity, nothing enables him to keep down
an envious and impatient spirit, but the viewing his troubles as the allotments
of Heaven, the all-wise appointments of his Father and of his God.
3. Her gratitude both to God and man.
The Almighty hath dealt
very bitterly with me.
Unfinished providences not to be rashly judged
How unfit are we to judge of an unfinished providence, and how
necessary it is, if we would understand aright the reasons of God’s ways, that
we should wait and see the web with its many colours woven out! Three short
months, during which those dark providences were suddenly to blossom into prosperity
and joy, would give to that sorrowful woman another interpretation of her long
exile in Moab. And one Gentile proselyte was thereby to be brought to the feet
of Israel’s God, who was not only to be the ancestress of Israel’s illustrious
line of kings, but of that Divine Seed in whom “all the nations of the earth
were to be Blessed.” When the night seems at the darkest we are often nearest
the dawn. Begin to tune thy harp, O weeping saint and weary pilgrim! “The night
is far spent, the day is at hand.” Learn to wait. When the great drama of our
earth’s history is ended; when Christ’s glorious redemption-work is seen in all
its wondrous issues and ripened fruits; when order has evolved itself out of
confusion, and light has come out of the bosom of darkness, and the evil
passions of wicked men and the malignant devices of evil spirits have been so
overruled as to work out the sovereign will of Heaven; when all the enemies of
Christ have been put in subjection under His feet, and death itself has died then
shall the words spoken at the creation be repeated at the consummation of the
higher work of a lost world’s redemption, and God will again pronounce all to
be “very good.” (A. Thomson, D.D.)
Naomi’s error
Naomi began to err when she ceased to believe in the wisdom and
benignity of all those dark events, when she looked upon them, not as
expressive of paternal discipline, but of Divine indifference and desertion,
when they appeared to her distressed soul as the arrows of judgment rather than
the strokes of love; like those affrighted disciples on the Galilean lake who
failed to recognize Jesus in Him who was walking in such calm majesty on the
tossing waves. She was also wrong in this morbid concentration of her thoughts upon
her trials, and in not realizing the many blessings and comforts that yet
remained to her. Elimelech and her two sons had been taken, but this lovely and
devoted Ruth had been raised up. She was now poor, but she had health; and God
had brought her back to those altars and courts of the Lord after which “her
soul had longed, yea, even fainted.” And then there were blessings which she
could not lose, and which were of more value to her than a thousand worlds.
Besides, how greatly did she err, as devout persons in a despondent mood are so
apt to do, in measuring God’s providence, as it were, by her human line, and
imagining that the cloud which had hung over her like a shadow of death could
not possibly be turned into the morning; just as we may imagine the people near
the pole, with their many months of unbroken night, beginning at length to
doubt whether the sun will ever rise again. An eloquent writer on astronomy
imagines the different aspect in which our earth would appear to us could we be
projected from its surface and permitted to look on it from one of the nearest
planets, or from the moon. And how different would the afflictions of God’s
people often look could they only be projected a few years into the future, and
permitted to regard them even in some of their earliest explanations and
consequences. Lift up thy head. O thou bruised reed, thou too desponding woman,
for lo, the winter of thine adversity is past! Cease to clothe everything in
sackcloth. Take down thy long silent harp from the willows, and tune it anew
for notes of loudest praise. Thou hast long exercised the duty of self-denial;
it is time for thee now to exhibit the duty of delight. (A. Thomson, D.D.)
No bitterness in God’s dealings
Naomi was not wrong in tracing all her changes in condition to
God, but she erred in ascribing any bitterness to God in His treatment of her.
The father loves the child as really when he administers the disagreeable
medicine which is to recover him from disease as when he is dandling him upon
his knees. The only difference is in the manner in which the love is shown, and
that is accounted for by the differences in the circumstances of the child. In
like manner adversity, how bitter soever it may be, is a manifestation of God’s
love to us, designed for our ultimate and highest welfare. Now this may well
reconcile us to trial. It will not make the trial less, but it will help us to
bear it, just as the wounded man is braced for the amputation of a limb when he
is told that it is indispensable if his life is to be preserved. (W. M.
Taylor, D. D.)
The different effects of affliction
How different are summer storms from winter ones! In winter they
rush over the earth with their violence; and if any poor remnants of foliage or
flowers have lingered behind, these are swept along at one gust. Nothing is
left but desolation; and long after the rain has ceased, pools of water and mud
bear tokens of what has been. But when the clouds have poured out their
torrents in summer, when the winds have spent their fury, and the sun breaks
forth again in glory, all things seem to rise with renewed loveliness from
their refreshing bath. The flowers, glistening with rainbows, smell sweeter
than before; the air, too, which may previously have been oppressive, is become
clear, and soft, and fresh. Such, too, is the difference, when the storms of
affliction fall on hearts unrenewed by Christian faith, and on those who abide
in Christ. In the former they bring out the dreariness and desolation which may
before have been unapparent. But in the true Christian soul, “though weeping
may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning,” and tribulation itself is
turned into the chief of blessings. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
So Naomi returned, and Ruth.
The young convert
Little was Naomi aware of the treasure she was bringing to Israel
or of the honour which was in store for Ruth. She says, “The Lord hath brought
me back empty.” And it was so, so far as she was herself concerned. But the
Lord had brought back with her one whom all generations should call blessed;
one who was to be a mother of the promised Messiah, the anointed Saviour of
Israel. We are now to contemplate her admission to Israel. The young convert’s
entrance among the people of God. We cannot enter upon such a view without
stopping for a moment to think of the happiness of Naomi in such a companion.
How great was the privilege to her to bring back with her own return so
precious a soul to the Lord of hosts! What an unspeakable joy it is to a
Christian parent to be attended by his children in the heavenly path! “So they
two went together until they came to Bethlehem.” I cannot conceive a greater
blessing in social life than when we can say this of father and son, of mother
and daughter. This is a bond which must long outlast every other one; and a
treasure of enjoyment which must remain when every other one has failed. How
such companionship in religion relieves the sorrows of the road! How it
multiplies the joys of the way ! The mother and the daughter take sweet counsel
together on their journey. Naomi has much to tell, Ruth has much to ask, in
reference to the new home to which they are returning together. Their mutual
prayers and encouragements are full of advantage. The blending of the varied
experience of the two becomes helpful to both. The despondency of age is
animated by the joyful anticipations of youth. The effervescence of youth is
moderated by the experience and soberness of age. “So they went together.”
Unity of feeling, unity of interest, unity of hope, bind them together. They
have fellowship one with another. But while Ruth took sweet counsel with Naomi
her thoughts and feelings were still in a great degree peculiar to herself and
completely her own. To her every prospect is hopeful, and her imagination loves
to stray through all the anticipations which are presented to her youthful
mind. The young Christian truly living and walking in Christ rejoices in the
hopes which a Saviour gives; is encouraged, ardent, and delighted in looking
forward over the way in which the great Captain of salvation is leading the
sons of God. “I see no trials or sorrows in it.” Thus would Ruth have said. She
could have no feeling but unmingled pleasure in the prospect of the journey she
had undertaken. Delightful encouragements arise in her mind which overwhelm all
possible regrets or fears. How many hopes and plans cluster around Bethlehem
and Judah! She knows not what the Lord has prepared for her. It has not entered
into her youthful heart to conceive the actual blessings which are laid up in
store for her there. But she knows that all must be well and happy for her
under the shadow of His wings in whom she has come to put her trust. Nothing is
in your way. You may do all things through Christ that strengtheneth you, and
be made more than conquerors in Him. She comes with a deep sense of her own
unworthiness. But this is silenced by her conscious desire and choice. The
young convert knows and feels his guilt. But he needs not, and does not, stop to
sit clown under the mere dominion of grief for the past. He has his new work to
do. He must press forward in it. And the cloud will pass away and leave him in
the sunshine of his Saviour’s love, to finish and perfect it. But the
perseverance of Ruth furnishes us with another most important example. “They
went together until they came to Bethlehem.” There is no fact which gives the
Church more peculiar joy in the coming of young converts to Christ than their
habitual perseverance. They are the ones who “hold fast the beginning of their
confidence steadfast unto the end.” The most fruitful, faithful Christians are
habitually those who begin the earliest. The time of Ruth’s arrival at
Bethlehem was most significant.” They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley
harvest.” The barley harvest of Palestine was in the early spring. The barley
was sown after the autumnal rains, in the month of October, and the harvest was
in the month of April. It was a time of special joy, the first spring-gathering
of their annual fruits. The harvest is always employed as an illustration of
satisfaction and joy. “They joy before Thee, according to the joy of harvest.”
And is it not always a scene of rejoicing when the sinner returns? The harvest
was a time of opening abundance. No wants or poverty were pressing now. There
is thus bread enough and to spare in the Saviour’s house. And when the sinner
finds a shelter there he finds all his needs supplied. His soul has abundance
of all things which it desireth. No more encouraging time could there have been
for Ruth’s first acquaintance with Israel. Every aspect of the land was
promising and prosperous. The sight of plenty crowned every prospect. And she
sees her new home clothed with every attraction. Is it not always so when we
first come to the feet of Jesus and find our peace and acceptance there? Now we
seem to live for the first time. There is reality, happiness, satisfaction
here. We have found Him whom our soul loveth, and we have found everything we
want in Him. The barley harvest was the time of the Passover. Thus this young
convert from the Gentiles comes as the first-fruits of a Gentile harvest to be
gathered, and is welcomed with Israel as a partaker of the paschal feast. Happy
are we in welcoming our youthful friends giving evidence of their new birth for
God and their living faith in Jesus to the table of the Lord. Happy is the
house the first-fruits of which are thus consecrated and sanctified to be the
Lord’s for ever. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》