The book of Ruth opens with devastation. Nothing goes well for Naomi’s family. Nothing! The story begins with famine in the land (1:1), which is difficult for those of us living in the extravagant surplus of America to relate to. We are distant from famine. But not so in the ancient world (nor in many parts of our world today!). With famine came starvation, plague, even war. Famine meant the loss of property, as families scrambled to sell everything they had for food. A common response to famine was even to sell your children into slavery just to keep them and you alive. How do you decide which kid to sell? Every day was a fight to stay alive and find food. For Naomi’s family, they flee to Moab to escape famine and stay alive.
Biblical readers should have their ears burning when they hear about famine. The Bible expects one consistent response to famine for the Israelites: repentance (e.g., Deut 28; Amos 4:6). That’s why it is disconcerting when we read that Naomi’s family flees Beth-lehem, “the house of bread.” This Israelite family opts instead to live in a country of disdain. Pagan. It’s even more shocking to learn that the name of Naomi’s husband is Eli-melech, “My God is king.” Elimelech trades out the kingship of God and repentance for some tasty food in Moab. Then their sons take Moabite wives (see Deut 23:3)! But it doesn’t last long, does it? First Elimelech dies. Then Naomi’s one son. And then the other.
Naomi finds herself hopeless at the beginning of this book. She’s lost her home, her husband, and her two sons. Famine and death characterize her existence. In the eyes of her peers, she has the status of a cursed woman. Naomi’s entire world has fallen apart in Ruth 1:1–5.
How do you respond when circumstances turn ugly around you, either because of your own doings or by the happenstance of life? Do you remember how Naomi responds? We see glimpses of what is going on in her heart as chapter one unfolds. Facing devastation, Naomi returns to Bethlehem, and her two widowed daughters-in-law come with her. But Naomi responds, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me” (1:8, ESV). Before interpreting this as a gentle and kind moment, let’s consider a couple things:
First, it’s highly likely Naomi does not want to return to Bethlehem with two Moabite women. Can you image the town gossip? “What happened in Moab, Naomi? Who are these two Moabite women?” She might not be eager to admit that her two Judean boys married Moabite women.
Second, don’t read this as soft-spoken affection. This is sarcasm. “May the LORD deal kindly with you [he hasn’t with me!], as you have dealt with the dead [i.e., my husband, my two sons!] and with me.”
Now, important to the story here is the language, “deal kindly” (ESV). This is the same word in the Old Testament that is often translated “steadfast love” or “kindness,” like in the Psalms when it talks about the steadfast love of the LORD enduring forever. It might be better in Ruth to think of this term as “loyal love.” Naomi sarcastically utters, “May God be loyal in his love to you,” implying that God is not loyal in his love toward her. After all, she knows nothing but famine, sojourning, and death.
Her sarcasm gets worse in v. 9: “The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” (ESV). An awkward phrase appears in the original that is probably meant to signal that Naomi stutters to say anything else. It is better to render it, “May the LORD grant to you…oh never mind…go find rest, each of you in the house of a new husband.” All attempts at any hope are then lost completely in v.12–13: “Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me” (ESV). Her hopelessness, of course, is made even more clear when she returns to Bethlehem and announces her new name: Mara, that is, Bitter (1:20). Welcome home, Bitter.
What just happened in chapter 1? Naomi has effectively called into question the loyal love of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Her family turned their back on him, yet she declares that he has turned his back on her. Hope is lost. Only bitterness remains. The rest of the story unpacks Naomi’s assertion: is hope indeed lost? Has Yahweh, the God of Israel turned his back on her? The circumstances sure seem like it.
But then some curious things happen.
Orpah responds to Naomi’s plight as would be expected. When Naomi releases her from any obligations, she runs as fast as she can to her Moabite family. Before we criticize her, her return is expected. Her husband died and she is released from any obligations. Survival for her means to go back home to her family.
But Ruth – her response is far from expected: “But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you” (1:16–17, ESV).
This is the essence of loyal love.
Just when Naomi is declaring that God has no loyal love for her, Ruth exhibits loyal love by this stunning response. The Moabite woman declares she will follow the God of Israel and will remain loyal to this embittered, cursed woman. The outsider is more loyal than the insider. She looks at the circumstances and chooses to align herself with the God of Naomi whom Naomi declares has turned his back on her!
But Naomi is silent (1:18). Silence is rarely good in an ancient story. She can’t see here what’s happening. She is so focused on her circumstances swirling around her, that she can’t see. Naomi has no hope.
So, they go to Bethlehem. And the final verse in chapter 1 says that they come at the beginning of the barley harvest. This also is not good. The beginning of the barley harvest occurs when the society has its lowest stocks of food available. In walks Naomi and this Moabite woman—two more mouths to feed. No wonder the town was stirred up!
The rest of the story begins answering the question Naomi asks: Is there hope? Does God have loyal love toward his people, even when they turn their backs on him? So, we come to chapter 2. Naomi is sitting at home, presumably pitying her state.
But Ruth the Moabite again does the unexpected thing. She who could have gone home to Mommy Moabite and Daddy Moabite instead goes out into the field to sweat. And the town takes notice. They marvel. Who is this woman? She happens to come to the field of a man named Boaz. And the owner of this field himself marvels at how Ruth, a foreigner, responds to the situation. He exclaims “The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” (2:12, ESV). Boaz recognizes that Ruth has placed herself under the care of the God of Israel…in sharp contrast to Naomi’s response.
Then Boaz responds even more unexpectedly when speaking to his workers: “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her” (2:15-16, ESV).
Understand, this is not normal! This is an excessive amount of food for her to be able to gather. Verse 17 says she got about an ephah. We don’t really know exactly how much that is in this period, except for this: it’s far more than Naomi and Ruth need. The narrator is waving his flag up in the air and saying, Surprise! When Ruth goes home to Naomi, suddenly Naomi’s disposition begins to change. She responds in 2:20 that perhaps God has not abandoned his loyal love – “kindness” here in many translations is the same word.
Well, many of you know the rest of the story. In chapter 3, we have this strange encounter between Ruth and Boaz. Suffice it to say, Naomi hatches a plot to manipulate Boaz into marrying Ruth. Ruth goes along with it up until the last minute. She then once again surprises the reader and refuses to manipulate Boaz, showing him instead loyal love. He responds in turn with loyal love by declaring he will become her family’s redeemer and rescue them from the plight of poverty that they faced. He didn’t have to do this either – another surprising twist in the story.
Then in chapter four, Boaz takes care of the details to secure Ruth as his wife, which in turn is really about elevating Naomi out of her dire straits. The child born to Ruth and Boaz becomes a sign to Naomi, an answer to her bitter question in chapter one: Is God actually marked by loyal love despite the circumstances I dwell in? Look at the answer given at the end of Ruth:
So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’ Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.” (ESV)
This is stunning.
Don’t let your familiarity with this story rob you of the beauty and glory here. This woman—who has her whole life unravel at the beginning of the story, who doubts that God is showing her loyal love, who has lost all hope—this woman discovers that through these very broken trials God has in fact been showing loyal love. He has not abandoned her. In fact, he has not only worked in her life, but through her circumstances, he has brought about the Davidic line, the very line that the Messiah Jesus himself comes from. Did she always see and feel this loyal love? No. At times, it was horribly dark. But did God’s loyal love get turned away from her. No. Even when her family turned their backs on the God of Israel and fled to Moab, he did not stop showing loyal love.
Hope reborn.
What are your Hope levels at right now? Are you like Naomi in 1:12–13, feeling no hope? Many of you are enduring what seems like yet again another difficult, heavy year. You’ve lost again dear saints to death. You’ve seen losses in your lives relationally; you’ve seen stresses pile up in different closets of your lives – many of which you don’t want to open up in fear of what others may see.
The book of Ruth shows us something very important about Hope that we need to fix ourselves upon every day. Hope is not a feeling. Hope is not some passive feeling that just happens to you. You can’t sit around and wait for hope to suddenly come upon you, and then everything is ok. No.
Hope, instead, is a virtue. Hope is a virtue that is rooted in and flourishes in nothing else but the character of God, especially his character of loyal love. And in the book of Ruth, we see the character of God on display as he shows Naomi step by step that he is indeed overflowing with loyal love. God’s character is the soil that the virtue of hope grows in.
Here’s what Hope really is: Hope is the practice of believing God’s loyal love as true for my situation right now and the future.
Note that I wrote the practice. Viewed this way, we can see that hope is actually a spiritual discipline. We love to talk about the spiritual disciplines – reading your Bible, praying, journaling. But what about hope? I urge you to view Hope as a spiritual discipline, and seek ways to practice it. Discipline yourself to look at God’s character. Strengthen the muscle of hope. Don’t pray for God to give you reasons to hope – mere circumstances to hope in. This was Naomi’s mistake. Pray instead for hope itself. Pray that through the situations you face, that God would strengthen your muscle of hope.
Where there is no hope there is despair. Despair comes when we turn our eyes away from the steadfast, loyal love of God in the midst of our situation. We start trying to find reasons to hope – some piece of circumstance that will suddenly make it seem everything is going to be ok.
So, we obsess over the news cycles, or exhaust ourselves looking for a medical solution to something, or invest in the next scheme that will help us suddenly be financially sound, or search for the hidden advice that will make that relationship all better. Despair is dark. I’ve been there! Sometimes it’s so dark and so discouraging, it seems impossible to see what God is doing. Then we become like Naomi at the beginning of her story: we grow dark, embittered, and have no hope.
That’s when we must practice the spiritual discipline of hope.
We practice Hope by meditating on biblical books like Ruth and pondering God’s character. Hope is tied to the loyal love of God throughout the Bible, such as Lamentations 3:
My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, "My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD." Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love [i.e., the loyal love] of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. (3:17 – 25, ESV)
And like in Lamentations 3, the landscape of scripture is dotted with hope linked to God’s loyal, steadfast love. Christian hope does not merely believe that circumstances will get better. Christian Hope instead believes that God’s faithful, loyal love will shine more brightly through and because of this trial.
You may not believe that right now. You may not have hope—which is why we have to practice it. We have to strengthen that muscle in reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.
Here’s one way you can practice the spiritual discipline of Hope. Pick a text like Psalm 130:7: “O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.” Once again Hope and God’s loyal love are linked together. Each morning, meditate on this verse, namely on the steadfast love of God (which is loyal-love here). Write down what obstacles you feel like you face that day. Name them. Then write down ways that God’s loyal love might be at work in that obstacle. Ask God to show you that. And then pray for Hope – not that circumstances will change necessarily – but that your mindset will change, that you will begin pondering more the loyal love of God than that obstacle. That’s the spiritual discipline of Hope. For God’s steadfast, loyal love endures forever. And nothing, no circumstance that you face right now, is going to change that love for all those who are in Christ Jesus. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Rom 15:13, ESV).
Michael Lyons serves as Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Columbia International University. He received his PhD in Semitic Studies from Hebrew Union College and is a member of the St. Basil Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
