Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Take a breath, find your place, and read deeply. Discover the joy of reading God’s word with the Immerse New Living Translation (NLT) Bible.
This daily Bible podcast will take you through the Bible in a year following the Immerse Bible Reading Experience. So grab your family and small group and go through the Bible in a year together with Immerse. Each of the 6 volumes is available online or at your favorite Christian bookstore.
Ethan: Welcome to Immerse: the
daily bible reading experience.
Day 100 and 81
immersed in Ruth.
The book of Judges ends with a disturbing
depiction of how bad things had gotten.
And those days, Israel had no king.
All the people did whatever
seemed right in their own eyes.
But the Book of Ruth shows that
Israel wasn't universally corrupt.
Some Israelites actually did follow
God's merciful and compassionate ways
in the days when the judges ruled in
telling this remarkable story of Ruth.
The book reveals a crucial link
from the period of the judges to
the stories of Israel's kings that
follow in the Book of Samuel Kings.
It concludes with the surprising
connection to the future appearance
of Israel's famous King David.
The book of Ruth tells a single story and
is written like a short drama or play.
First, the narrative stage is set, and
then a series of brief dramatic scenes
appear because of a famine in the land.
An Israelite woman named Naomi moves
to the neighboring country of Moab
with her husband and sons to find food.
They settle there and her
sons marry Moabite women.
The stories conflict arises through the
multiple tragedies that Naomi endures
and her subsequent struggle to survive.
As the story unfolds, Naomi
decides to return home to Israel.
I went away full.
She sadly tells her friends, but
the Lord has brought me home empty.
Naomi now joined by her
Moab by daughter-in-law.
Ruth faces the considerable hardship
of being a single woman with no
male heir in an ancient patriarchal
culture, we discover that Naomi and
Ruth both have deep reservoirs of
inner strength and resourcefulness.
They face the significant challenges in
their lives together with courage, daring.
Hard work.
Along the way.
They encounter Boaz, a faithful
and compassionate Israelite who
proves to be a refuge to the women
by following the provisions in
Israel's law to help the poor.
We see that God is at work
throughout the story from the way
that people keep showing up in
the right place at the right time.
We can learn much from this brief, but
richly crafted story of Ruth and Naomi.
God is directly involved
in our own human dramas.
I.
Working in ways we cannot always see and
understand, so we must faithfully press
on and play our own parts in the story
well creatively using all the resources
and gifts he provides, including the help
of other people living in God's story.
This book also plays a part in the story
of God's covenant faithfulness simply
stated, like Judges, the Book of Ruth
supports the right of David's house to
rule in Israel, but there's a problem.
As the genealogy at the end of the
book reveals, David is the great
grandson of Ruth, the Moabite,
because the Moabites refused to
provide the Israelites with food and
water when they escaped from Egypt.
A declaration was made in the law of
Moses that none of their descendants
should be accepted into the Israelite
community for 10 generations.
David was a fourth generation
descendant of a Moabite, so how could
he legitimately be Israel's king?
The Book of Ruth shows that David's
Moabite ancestor was a woman of
true faith in the God of Israel.
Beyond this, she did provide a desperate
Israelite Naomi with the help she
needed, and in this way, Ruth effectively
redress the wrongs of her ancestors.
At the end of the book, the Women of
Bethlehem accept Ruth and pray that you
will be another great ancestor for the
community like Rachel and Leah, from
whom all the nation of Israel descended.
Those prayers are answered
when she becomes a mother
in the royal line of David.
Significantly, the genealogy at the end of
the book lists 10 generations leading up
to King David, showing the old prohibition
regarding the Moabites to be overcome
and the wider purposes of God to bring
blessing to all the nations of Earth.
The Book of Ruth.
In the days when the judges
ruled in Israel, a severe
famine came upon the land.
So a man from Bethlehem and Judah
left his home and went to live
in the country of Moab, taking
his wife and two sons with him.
The man's name was Ek,
and his wife was Naomi.
Their two sons were Maan and Killian.
They were Aite from Bethlehem in
the land of Judah, and when they
reached Moab, they settled there.
Then Aek died and Naomi
was left with her two sons.
The two sons married Moabite women.
One married a woman named Ora and
the other, a woman named Ruth.
But about 10 years later,
both Maan and Killian died.
This left Naomi alone.
Without her two sons or her husband.
Then Naomi heard in Moab that the
Lord had blessed his people in Judah
by giving them good crops again.
So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got
ready to leave Moab in return to her
homeland with her two daughters-in-law.
She set out from the place where she
had been living and they took the road
that would lead them back to Judah.
But on the way, Naomi said to her, two
daughters-in-law go back to your mother's
homes, and may the Lord reward you for
your kindness to your husbands and to me.
May the Lord bless you with the
security of another marriage.
Then she kissed them goodbye and
they all broke down and wept.
No, they said, we want to
go with you to your people.
But Naomi replied, why
should you go on with me?
Can I still give birth to other sons
who could grow up to be your husband's?
No, my daughters return to your parents'
homes for I am too old to marry again.
And even if it were possible and I were
to get married tonight and their sons,
then what would you wait for them to
grow up and refuse to marry someone else?
No, of course not.
My daughters things are far more bitter
for me than for you because the Lord
himself has raised his fist against
me, and again, they wept together and
orba kissed her mother-in-law goodbye.
But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi.
Look, Naomi said to her, your
sister-in-law has gone back
to her people and to her gods.
You should do the same.
But Ruth replied, don't ask me to leave
you and turn back wherever you go.
I will go wherever you live.
I will live.
Your people will be my people,
and your God will be my God.
Wherever you die.
I will die and there I will be buried.
May the Lord punish me severely if I
allow anything but death to separate us.
Naomi saw that Ruth was
determined to go with her.
She said nothing more.
So the two of them
continued on their journey.
When they came to Bethlehem, the entire
town was excited by their arrival.
Is it really Naomi?
The women asked.
Don't call me Naomi.
She responded.
Instead, call me Mera for the Almighty.
Has made life very bitter for me.
I went away full, but the Lord
has brought me home empty.
Why call me Naomi when the Lord has
caused me to suffer and the Almighty
has sent such tragedy upon me.
So Naomi returned from Moab,
accompanied by her daughter-in-law,
Ruth, the young Moabite woman.
They arrived in Bethlehem in late spring
at the beginning of the barley harvest.
This concludes today's
immerse reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.