This devotion is an excerpt from the book, The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules and was written by Carolyn Custis James. We hope you will be encouraged.
WHEN NAOMI AND RUTH COLLIDE
After Orpah’s departure an emotionally depleted Naomi gathers strength to deal with her remaining daughter-in-law. Orpah’s choice gives Naomi a new argument — a touch of peer pressure — that she levels at Ruth. Pointing down the road, she argues, “Look … your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her” (Ruth 1:15). When Naomi guides Ruth’s gaze to the disappearing form of her sister-in-law and describes Orpah’s actions in theological terms — a going back to her people and to her gods — something takes hold of Ruth that is bigger than both of them. It is as though, in an instant, the floodlights go on in the darkened stadium of Ruth’s soul, bringing the issues into razor-sharp focus. Despite Naomi’s urgings, at its core, this choice is not about geography, family loyalty, or the future. This decision is about God. With startling determination, Ruth embraces Naomi, resolutely digs in her heels, and insists that the arguments stop. “Do not pressure me to desert you, to give up following you” (Ruth 1:16, Hubbard translation).12 This is no halfhearted decision, but a commitment to the grave. “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” (Ruth 1:16 – 17). To squelch any further debate on the subject, Ruth goes over Naomi’s head by appealing to Naomi’s God — the God Naomi has just identified as the enemy — to judge her severely if she fails to keep her word. “Thus may Yahweh do to me and more so if even death itself separates me from you” (Ruth 1:17, Hubbard translation, emphasis added). Ruth accompanies this vow with a violent gesture — perhaps a slashing motion towards her own throat — as if to say, “May God do ‘thus’ to me if I break my vow to you.”13 The impact on Naomi is impossible to imagine. Could there be a stronger collision of words than Naomi’s despairing, “The LORD’s hand has gone out against me,” and Ruth’s resolutely opposite, “Your God will be my God”? What kind of logic is this? The explanation we usually settle on is that Ruth is so devoted and close to her mother-in-law that she simply cannot bear to leave her. Without a doubt, Ruth’s loyal love for Naomi is one of the strongest themes flowing through this story — a love that in the end will prove more extraordinary and selfless than anyone could guess. But it is difficult to argue from this text for a chummy relationship between the two women. Interaction between Naomi and Ruth following this exchange doesn’t even hint of closeness between them. Instead, Naomi withdraws in stony silence: “When Naomi saw that she was firmly determined to go on with her, she said nothing more to her” (Ruth 1:18, Hubbard translation). When they finally arrive in Bethlehem, Naomi laments (with Ruth standing right beside her), “I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:21). “Empty” is hardly what you’d expect to hear from a relieved mother-in-law safely back from the brink of nearly losing her precious Ruth. In silence, a bewildered Naomi collects her possessions and resumes the journey to Bethlehem with her unbending daughter-in-law at her side. This is the first time Ruth breaks the rules. It will not be the last.
Resources: