RUTH 1
We must all have noticed a striking contrast between the book of Judges and the one we have now before us. In Judges we see repeated departures of the people of God, and Jehovah’s gracious intervention in raising up deliverers to relieve the oppression of His afflicted people. But we do not see anywhere in the book of Judges recovery to the normal enjoyment of the inheritance. The judges were not wholly types of Christ, even Gideon led the people into a snare. There are incidents in their history which may be viewed as typical of certain things connected with Christ, but the judges were marked by defects, though God used them as instruments to deliver His people in their generation. Not one of them was great enough to reinstate the people in the enjoyment of the inheritance according to God. But in the book of Ruth there is recovery of the inheritance. One is found great enough to exercise the right of redemption, to redeem the inheritance and to secure a seed to enjoy it. And there is a peculiarly attractive charm about the book which appeals even to those who are not able to perceive its spiritual import.
In the book of Judges not only did no redeemer appear great enough to restore fully according to God that which had been departed from, but, on the other hand, moral conditions suitable to divine recovery were not present in the people. What marks Judges is the statement that every man did what was right in his own eyes. There could be no true recovery or reinstatement in such a condition; and, alas! it is a condition that very largely bars the way to recovery of the inheritance at the present time amongst the people of God.
Movement on the line of recovery is brought about by such dealings of God as are seen in Ruth 1. Brokenness of spirit — a broken and contrite heart under the dealings of God — is an absolute necessity, and it is the preparation for all recovery. If we belonged to a profession that had not failed, and if we ourselves had not failed, there would be no such history as we see pictured in this chapter. But if it be true that we belong to a profession that has grievously failed and departed from [p. 196] God and lost the enjoyment of the inheritance, and we ourselves have so failed as to have personally contributed to the general state of departure, there is surely a loud call to humble ourselves in self-judgment before God.
There is nothing more common today than for people to assert that the churches are moving on, and that, indeed, things have greatly developed in a favourable direction. The false church says, “I sit a queen, and I am not a widow”, Revelation 18:7. We are surrounded by the boastings of Laodicea. “I am rich, and am grown rich, and have need of nothing”. But the Lord says, “Thou art the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”, Revelation 3:17. If there is no sense of departure there will be no desire for recovery. But if under the dealings of God our true condition is brought home to us, and we are humble and contrite in heart, there is something that God can acknowledge and restore. We see this in Naomi.
Elimelech means, Whose God is King, and Naomi means, My pleasantness. They represent the original state of Israel as called of God into His favour. God acted in kingly power to bring to pass His own thought of blessing. Balaam said of Israel in his parable, “Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout of a king is in his midst”. All through their history we can see that their God is King. Whether in His actings for them in Egypt, or in the wilderness, or His setting them in the land, all is the exercise of His kingly power. Then Naomi — my pleasantness — speaks of the people as a delight to God. That was how they came into the inheritance. God acted in kingly power doing everything for them, and on their side as responsive to Him in the bond of the covenant they were pleasant in His sight. That was their original status.
But what a change in the chapter before us! We see here God the King acting governmentally according to the sorrowful conditions which existed among His people. There are two sides to the truth of the kingdom. As the “King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God” He acts to bring about the blessing of His people. But, on the other hand, His being King involves His government, and if conditions are present which are not pleasing to Him His governmental dealings in an adverse sense are inevitable. It was so in Israel; it is so in the assembly. Under the government of God there was famine even in Bethlehem — the house of bread — and Elimelech went [p. 197] out from the inheritance to sojourn in the fields of Moab. It is sad when there is famine in the place where we would most expect to find food. But the government of God acts inevitably and universally according to the conditions present in His people. How good it is to see, as in the history before us, that even the government of God eventually subserves the purposes of His grace.
Naomi found herself bereft both of her husband and her sons. Famine-stricken, an exile from the inheritance, widowed, empty of all but the sad memory of better and brighter days in the past! What a pathetic picture! “I am in much more bitterness than you; for the hand of Jehovah is gone out against me”. “Call me not Naomi — call me Mara (Bitterness) for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and Jehovah has brought me home again empty. Why do ye call me Naomi, seeing Jehovah has brought me low, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”
Under the dealings of God exercises were produced in the soul of Naomi — a deep sense of what had been lost, and of the hand of God upon her. Such exercises as these are necessary before restoration can come about. No doubt this book has reference to God’s dealings with Israel. Israel at the present moment is impoverished, scattered far and wide from the inheritance, bereft of all divine support and consolation, and in a future day they will have to pass through even more intense sorrow and tribulation, but God will eventually use these things to bring them into such true contrition that He will be free to reinstate them in full blessing through Christ.
But if this book refers in a typical way to Israel’s departure and restoration through Christ, the actings of grace which are brought out in such a sweet and touching way have their place also with saints who are of the assembly. The way of recovery is, in principle, the same for ourselves as for Israel. We cannot read the epistles without seeing how greatly the people of God in this period have departed from the truth, and lost the enjoyment of the inheritance that was freely given to them of God. The Lord’s words to the assemblies in Revelation 2 and 3 have a solemn bearing on this. An urgent call to repentance appears in five of them. If we have not some sense of departure we shall not fully appreciate the grace of recovery which shines so brightly in the book of Ruth. Alas! we are so often occupied in seeking our own things, and doing it in [p. 198] such an individual and isolated way that we hardly realise how the people of God have lost the enjoyment of their divinely allotted portion.
Naomi sets forth the deep exercises which will be found in those who listen to the Lord’s words to the assemblies, and who realise that they belong to a profession that has grievously failed, and that they are suffering the deprivation of much that was the enjoyed inheritance of saints at the beginning. The sad truth of the position was pressed home on the soul of Naomi; she was made to feel it deeply. Instead of the inheritance being abundantly fruitful in every good, it had ceased to yield its harvests. “There was a famine IN THE LAND”. Strange and sad contrast to the fertility which had been pledged to obedient and faithful lovers of Jehovah!
For a Bethlehemite to be sojourning in the fields of Moab was far from the thoughts of God for His people. It was in itself the evidence that His people had departed from Him, and His blessing had been withdrawn from them. The inheritance had not only failed of the blessing of God, but they had left it, to go to a land whose inhabitants were of such a character under the eye of God that they were forbidden to come into His congregation; “even their tenth generation shall not come into the congregation of Jehovah for ever”, Deuteronomy 23: 3.
But God’s governmental dealings continued in the land of Moab. Elimelech died and also his two sons; no seed remained capable of taking up the inheritance. On the line of God’s government all was lost, and there was no vestige of hope save in that pure sovereignty of goodness which caused God to act graciously for His people, not because of any deserving on their side, or any ability on their part to win back what had been departed from, but just because of what He was in Himself. It was wholly on this ground that Jehovah “visited his people to give them bread”. And who could appreciate the tidings of this more than one who had learned in bitterness what it was to be alienated from the land, to be bereft and empty? Though Naomi was exiled, and bereft of all hope on the natural line, she still cherished Jehovah and the inheritance of Israel in her heart, so that as soon as she heard of His gracious visitation of His people it set her in movement. She yearned for good that had been known in the past; Jehovah and His land were still precious and attractive [p. 199] to her heart; and He honoured her by making her and her hopes attractive to Ruth. What came out in Ruth was the precious fruit, through divine working, of what she had learned of Jehovah through those who cherished His Name amidst sorrowful circumstances.
Ruth came in as having no claim at all, for she was a Moabitess, but as one who had learned that it was blessed to trust under the wings of the God of Israel. If God’s own people had forfeited the inheritance through lack of love for Him there was encouragement to believe that even a Moabite who loved Him would be graciously received. He would welcome a lover whatever the past history of that lover might have been! She and Naomi were both widows; there was no seed to inherit; the succession had apparently hopelessly failed. Then what remained? The attraction of Jehovah, the link with His people, all that had been brought to her, and represented to her, by those who loved Jehovah, though in exile and bereavement under His hand.
Ruth was prepared to give up natural hopes in order to have part with the people of God even in sorrow and affliction. There were no outward prospects of any kind to attract her. Hers was a purely spiritual affection for that which in widowhood and sorrow had become more to her heart than the people and country and gods of Moab. Spiritual affections — awakened in a heart that had no claim of any kind — led her to breakaway from everything that was not of God, and to come to take refuge under His wings. In her father-in-law she had learned — may we not say? — how kingly was Israel’s God, how far above the degraded Chemosh of the Moabites, whose worship consisted in the grossest impurities. In her husband Mahlon (mild) she had learned to appreciate a character which became more attractive to her than the arrogance of Moab (Isaiah 16: 6.) She had dealt kindly with the dead — evidently as appreciating what was set forth in them — and this was a characteristic which only needed following up to bring her to full blessing. Then she had learned in Naomi how to value the God-given inheritance by seeing the deep exercises of one who had left it, and who was submitting in sorrow to the action of God’s government, feeling the loss of the inheritance, but cherishing in her heart the thought of redemption. All this was binding her heart to Jehovah and to His people; it was forming her in [p. 200] new affections and desires, so that in the appreciation of what was of God she had really become a stranger in Moab.
Ruth’s ardent affection knit her to what was of God, even when it was found in exercise and sorrow. Anything that is distinctively of God today will be found with those who are humble and contrite in heart, and who are marked by exercise and brokenness of spirit, for we are in a day of great departure and weakness and it is right to feel this. Have we kindly feelings towards what is of God? There is hope for love wherever it exists; a Moabite with love for Jehovah is infinitely better than an Israelite without it. Love gets wondrous things now. See John 14:15 - 23. The exercises of Naomi and the affections of Ruth were both found in the woman of Luke 7: 36 - 50 she “loved much”; she was not only a believer but a lover; it was love that brought her to the Pharisee’s house and to the feet of Jesus; and how truly did she find in Him the “mighty man of wealth”!
Orpah is a solemn warning, for she seemed to make as good a start as Ruth, but the love that never fails was not there, and she stopped short and went back to her people and her gods; she missed all that Ruth got. We may be affected and moved to a certain extent by being in contact with the people of God, and yet, when it comes to a final test, we may go back. Orpah drew back to perdition, but Ruth, speaking typically, got eternal life.
It is well to remember that Ruth was not attracted first to Boaz, but to Naomi. It was not the “mighty man of wealth” that allured her from Moab to Bethlehem, but what she had learned of God from a poor widow sorrowing under the dealings of God, but cherishing her place amongst His people even in her days of departure and mourning. “Ruth clave to her”. We have all been touched by the depth and sincerity of her declaration: “Do not intreat me to leave thee, to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part me and thee”, verses 16, 17. There was still “pleasantness” about Naomi to Ruth’s heart, for she was a lover of Jehovah, and her heart was in Bethlehem though her steps had been for years in the far-off fields of Moab. If Ruth had not seen and been attracted by what was [p. 201] of God in Naomi she would not have followed her from Moab to Bethlehem, and she would never have known Boaz, or been known by him. She reached Boaz as the result of being bound up in affection with what was of God as found in sorrow and weakness here. The things of God often come to us first in a very humble guise. Are those who love God attractive to us? Do we delight to go with them in their exercises, in their spiritual movements? If so we shall surely be brought to the true Boaz. Naomi represents that state of heart which takes account of all the departure from God’s thoughts, and feels the sorrow of it. Speaking assembly-wise we can look back to the time when we had first-love and did first works, and enjoyed the inheritance; but we have to feel how different it is now. But God has gracious thoughts of recovery and restoration. This is necessarily an individual matter, but individual recovery always has in view, from God’s side, recovery of assembly character. God does not despise anyone who feels things rightly before Him. He delights in recovery. The Christian profession, as a whole, will end its course in apostasy, but there are those who, like Naomi, feel the state of things, and in Ruth we see sensibilities that are awakened to appreciate what is of God by coming in contact with them. Ruth’s heart was open to the spiritual impressions that reached her. How suitable is all this in view of recovery to what is in God’s mind for His people!
Sorrowful exercises in Naomi and ardent affection in Ruth moved together from the fields of Moab and came to Bethlehem. But we must not forget that what started the movement was neither in Naomi nor in Ruth, but in Jehovah. “Jehovah had visited his people to give them bread”. It was the report of this that set them in motion. And there is a similar grace on His part today. The departure is manifest, and it is right to feel it, but the thoughts of God are unchanged, and the inheritance is as much in His heart for His people as it ever was. And in these last days God has, indeed, visited His people to give them bread. It is a time of extraordinary contrasts. On one side there is lack of spirituality, worldliness, self-seeking, every man doing what is right in his own eyes. But on another side wonderful and blessed divine movements. It would hardly be saying too much if we affirmed that there is more bread available for the people of God today than there has been at any time since the days of the apostles. The question [p. 202] for each one of us is, Are we interested? Is the inheritance, and the bread divinely given, attractive enough to draw us out of Moab, and to bring us to Bethlehem? If so, we shall find that it is “the beginning of the barley harvest”. The barley harvest is figurative of what is connected with Christ as the risen One. God is giving to His people what is precious and nourishing. As the Sheaf of first-fruits, Christ has been waved in resurrection, and what is secured in Him lies outside the region of either individual failure or assembly failure. It is all the product of divine grace and working. Christ is, indeed, the Mighty Man of wealth; He is the true Boaz — in Him is strength. We find afterwards that Ruth kept with the maidens of Boaz until the end of the wheat harvest; the wheat harvest has reference to the saints as after the order of Christ; it brings in, typically, the assembly.