“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay, your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me"(Ruth 1:16-17

Let your light Shine and be seen in the world!

Do you have a mother in law or daughter in law? How good is your relationship with her? Many such relationships are adversarial and full of hostility. Many daughters in law complain of interference and undue criticism by their mothers in law, while mothers in law complain of lack of respect and attention. It is therefore heartwarming to read the story of Ruth and Naomi, a story of great love and respect between a daughter and mother in law. Their story is an ideal model of in law relationships.

The great love between Ruth and Naomi shows that love is indeed the most precious gift. Even though the story is a tale of desperate grief, a story of survival in an unjust world where a widow without sons had no means of support since as a woman she had no rights of individual ownership, it is also one where God blesses her with friendship from her daughter in law who was instrumental to her survival and future happiness.

There are many stories of desperate widows and other women who for various reasons find themselves alone and vulnerable without a source of income. We know some of them and have read the stories of others in the papers. The difference is that in this story, all ends well because of the women’s faith, love for each other and God’s providence. It teaches us that no matter how bad the circumstances we find ourselves in, we should have faith in God, and never lose hope.

The story told in the Book of Ruth begins with an account of a man from Bethlehem in Judah called Elimelech who due to the famine in the land mortgaged his land and decided to go to Moab with his wife Naomi and his two sons Mahlon and Kilion. After some time, Elimelech died and Naomi became a widow. The two sons took Moabite wives called Orpah and Ruth.  After about 10 years, Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was bereft of her husband and sons.

When Naomi heard that the famine in Judah had ended, she decided to return home. Naomi told her daughters-in-law: “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband"

Naomi’s daughters-in-law obviously loved her and were reluctant to leave. But she had their best interests at heart and wanted them to marry again. She told them she could not provide husbands for them because she did not have more sons who would culturally have been obligated to marry and take care of them. This practice called Levirate marriage was similar to many African traditional customs where a wife was inherited by the husband’s brother or close male relative.

Naomi’s plea convinced Orpah who tearfully kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth pleaded with Naomi not to urge her to leave. Unlike Orpah, she did not want to return to her own people and gods, but chose Naomi’s people and their God. In one of the most moving passages of the Bible (often used in wedding ceremonies), Ruth pledged to Naomi:

"Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me" (Ruth 1: 16-17).

Ruth must have loved Naomi a lot. She must have become a great friend and she was willing to forgo everything to be joined with her. Maybe she also felt that Naomi could not make it on her own and was willing to make personal sacrifices to help her. We should strive to emulate her devotion, her loyalty, her total commitment to Naomi and God. We should also strive to be like Naomi who must have had a remarkable consistent living full of goodness that must have so impressed her daughter-in-law to cause her to abandon her homeland and her gods. We should similarly let our lights shine, through our faith in Jesus Christ and our good works, so that others may glorify God

When they went to Judah people did not recognize Naomi. She must have left looking beautiful and full of life, but she had suffered so much since the. She asked them to call her Mara (meaning “bitter” because God had brought misfortune on her. She had lost everything she had, except of course Naomi. The two widows had to depend on the peoples' good will, since they had no money or property. Ruth offered to pick up the leftover grains which the Jewish culture obligated harvesters to leave for the destitute. This must have been humiliating but they had no alternative.

Ruth and Naomi were lucky in that Ruth chose a field which turned out to belong to Boaz, a kind man who according to Jewish law was a kinsman redeemer, that is, he was entitled to redeem (buy back) their family land and “inherit” Ruth if he chose to. Naomi instructed Ruth on what she should do according to their culture in order to get Boaz to do this. She lay down on his feet on the threshing floor. All went well and Boaz redeemed their land and married Ruth so both Naomi and Ruth were well provided for. They were no longer destitute.

Boaz’s act as kinsman redeemer is likened to Christ’s act of redeeming our sins with his life.

With the happy turn of events, Naomi must have realized that despite the tragedies she had undergone, God had not abandoned her. She would yet experience great joy in her life and in her God. After the birth of her grandson Obed (Ruth and Boaz’s son  who was grandfather to David and from whom Jesus also descended), the women sang praises to Naomi and exclaimed, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a next of kin. May his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, Naomi! For Ruth, who loves you so, who is worth more to you than seven sons, has given him birth”

This article first appeared in the September-October 2009 issue of Woman of Faith magazine.

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