Ruth Chapter 1
The account of Ruth takes place during the dark days of the time of judges in Israel. The overriding attitude of the people was that “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Elimelech and his wife Ruth found themselves in a situation that no one wants to be in, and that is a famine. The city of Bethlehem was normally a place of very fertile land. The name Bethlehem literally means “House of Bread”. But the people had turned their back on God and the rain had stopped and so a conditional promise that had been made was broken by the sins of the people.
Deuteronomy 11:11-17 But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.”
Let's Reflect
1. Instead of trusting God to get them through a rough time Elimelech and Ruth took matters into their own hands and left the famine of Bethlehem to go to a foreign country to find food. What is the name of that country?
2. This couple had two sons named Mahlon and Chilion. After their father died what does the Bible say these two young men did that was against God’s law?
3. We do not know what happened to Naomi’s sons that caused their deaths, but suddenly Naomi was left with no family to care for her and her two daughters-in-law. What had Naomi heard about her hometown of Bethlehem?
4. We know that Naomi was a great mother-in-law to these two young ladies Ruth and Orpah because she thought of them first and told them they should stay in their own country and marry again of their own people. What did they do when she went to kiss them goodbye?
5. Naomi knew the law that if a man died leaving her as a widow, the brother of that deceased man was obligated to marry the woman to continue the family line. What did Naomi explain to her daughters-in-law about the impossibility of that solution?
6. There must have been evidence of the beautiful relationship Naomi had with God because Ruth said what when making her decision to go with Naomi back to Bethlehem?
7. When the townspeople recognized Naomi, she told them to call her Mara which means bitter. She was not bitter towards God, or she would not have returned to Him and the promised land. She was bitter because of her great loss of a husband and two sons. She understood that the decision that had been made years prior when she and her husband left Bethlehem and went to a land where idols were worshipped was not the right decision. She mentions a rhetorical question that shows that she understood that a just God does things that we don’t always like, but His ways are so because He is God. What question did she pose? See verse 21.
8. What event was happening in Bethlehem that Naomi had come home to?
