Ruth 1:1-5 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
The story of Ruth takes place “In the days when the judges judged” (v. 1). The last sentence of the book of Judges reads: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25).
The book of Ruth has only four chapters. It begins with a famine and three deaths, and it ends with a family line. This lesson reads the first five verses: a family leaves Bethlehem, goes to Moab, and in the end only one woman is left.
1In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons.
2The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab and lived there.
3Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.
4They took for themselves wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years.
5Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband.
A famine. The story begins with “a famine in the land” (v. 1). Elimelech took his wife and two sons from Bethlehem in Judah and “went to live in the country of Moab” (v. 1). The Chinese Bible calls this sojourning: living somewhere for a while.
They stayed. But the passage goes on: “They came into the country of Moab and lived there” (v. 2). The two sons married women of Moab, and “They lived there about ten years” (v. 4). What was meant to be for a while became ten years.
One death after another. “Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons” (v. 3). Then “Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband” (v. 5). The first time, three were left. The second time, only she was.
The passage does not explain. These five verses do not say whether Elimelech was right to go to Moab, nor why the two sons died. The passage records only what happened, and passes no verdict on this family. Readers do not need to supply a reason for it either.
Two Moabite daughters-in-law. In these five verses, Orpah and Ruth appear only once: “The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth” (v. 4). The passage has not yet told us anything they did. At this point Ruth is simply a woman of Moab who married into a family from another land, and became a widow.
Empty. By the end of verse 5, Naomi has nothing: no husband, no sons, living in someone else’s land. In the next lesson she goes back to Bethlehem. When she arrives she will say to the people of the town: “I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1:21).
The law has a rule about Moabites: “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly” (Deut 23:3). Yet the book of Ruth calls her “Ruth the Moabitess” again and again (Ruth 1:22; 2:2, 21; 4:5, 10).
This rule of the law speaks of entering “into the LORD’s assembly” (Deut 23:3); it does not comment on the two marriages in 1:4.
At the end of this book, Boaz marries Ruth and she bears a son (Ruth 4:13), who is named Obed (Ruth 4:17); the family line at the end reads: “Boaz became the father of Obed, and Obed became the father of Jesse, and Jesse became the father of David” (Ruth 4:21–22). The Moabite widow at the start of the story became David’s great-grandmother. This lesson simply sets these two things side by side; the lessons that follow will read on, step by step.
Loss often does not come all at once. Naomi first left her homeland, then lost her husband, then both her sons. Perhaps you too are walking a road like this, letting go of one thing after another.
This lesson does not explain the why for you. It only lets you see that the passage records Naomi’s emptiness word by word, without skipping over it and without hurrying to comfort her. The story is not over.
This week: Write down one thing you have lost over these years. Next to it, write one sentence you want to say to God — whether thanks, a question, or a complaint.
Scripture: World English Bible.