Ruth 1-4: A Jewish Mother-in-Law

Much is written about Ruth.  The title of this book of the Bible is after all "Ruth", not "Naomi", and Ruth is the central character, but what about Naomi?  She was a young wife when she went with her husband and two sons to Moab to escape the famine in their town of Bethlehem in Judah.  Although her husband died, she remained in Moab with her sons and eventually was blessed to witness the marriage of both of them, to wonderful local girls, Orpah and Ruth.

But times change, and although news eventually came from Judah that the famine was over, both of her sons died in Moab before they could journey back home.

"Oy vey, my life is over." she may have cried.  "What am I going to do without my sons.  I'm never going to be a grandmother.  And wouldn't you know it, there's food in Bethlehem, and I'm here.  I may as well lay down and die."

But Orpah and Ruth would not let her down.  They started out for the old country with their mother-in-law and had no sooner started their journey than Naomi changed her mind.  "What am I doing," she asks them, "schlepping you two shikses back to my country.  Stay here in your own country, where you belong."

That argument worked for Orpah, but for Ruth, it was a different story.  When she married Kilion, it was for better or worse.  This may have been the worst she could have imagined, but Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. 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 NIV

"Call me Mara,  because the Almighty has made my life very bitter."  Ruth told the women of her home town when they greeted her.  But for this typically pessimistic, Jewish woman, it was not the bitter end.  It was the beginning of a great dynasty, and later, as she held her new grandson on her lap, the women of the town said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!  He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."  - Ruth 4:14-15 NIV

The baby she held was Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, whose lineage produced "Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. - Matt. 1:16