Lives of Scripture

Naomi left Bethlehem with her husband Elimelech and two sons during a famine and settled in Moab, where her sons married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Within about ten years, Elimelech and both sons died, leaving Naomi without husband, sons, or security (Ruth 1:1-5). Hearing the famine had ended, she set out for home and urged her daughters-in-law to return to their own people and gods, releasing them from any obligation even in her own grief (Ruth 1:6-13). Orpah went back; Ruth refused and bound herself to Naomi permanently. Arriving in Bethlehem, Naomi told the women who recognized her not to call her Naomi ('pleasant') but Mara ('bitter'), because 'the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me' — Scripture records this raw complaint without softening it, an honest lament rather than a sin needing rebuke (Ruth 1:19-21). Her circumstances turned when Ruth, gleaning for them both, 'happened' upon the field of Boaz, a relative of Elimelech — providence, Naomi recognized: 'the LORD has not withdrawn His kindness' (Ruth 2:1-3, 20). Naomi devised the plan that sent Ruth to the threshing floor to invoke Boaz's role as kinsman-redeemer, guiding her through a custom Naomi understood and Ruth, as an outsider, would not have known alone (Ruth 3). When Boaz married Ruth and she bore a son, the women of Bethlehem told Naomi, 'a son has been born to Naomi,' and Naomi nursed him — the bitterness of chapter one answered by name in chapter four (Ruth 4:14-17).