I enjoy reading about the women in the Bible. One section is especially notable. That is the section that spans the Book of Ruth and the first chapter of 1Samuel. In that section we meet Naomi, Ruth, and Hannah.
I remember hearing a minister give a message on Naomi. He did not paint a very nice picture of her. He called her bitter (that is fair since she also refers to herself as bitter). But he also called her angry, full of self-pity, and unpleasant. By the time he finished, no one would want to have anything to do with Naomi.
That seemed harsh and a bit misguided to my way of looking at Naomi. Naomi had been taken by her husband away from her home in Bethlehem into the land of Moab along with their two sons. Her husband died in Moab, and she was left with her sons, who took foreign women as wives. Then after a bit her two sons died, which prompted Naomi to leave Moab and return to her hometown.
Initially her two daughters-in-law accompanied her. Along the way, Naomi released her daughters-in-law (Ruth and Orpah) to return to their native land. Orpah took Naomi up on the offer, but Ruth refused. Ruth insisted in one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture that “wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.” [1:16-17 HCSB]
When Naomi reached Bethlehem, the whole town met her. It was there she referred to herself as “Mara,” which means bitter. Naomi went away with a husband and sons and lost all of them to death. No wonder she thought of herself as “bitter.”
I think of her as grieving. She was consumed with the sadness that comes with loss. I also think that if Naomi was everything that minister said she was—bitter, angry, full of self-pity and unpleasant—her daughter-in-law would not have loved her the way she did.
Ruth’s love for Naomi proved Naomi was worth loving. (Tomorrow Ruth)
