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.