Humble Ruth’s big influence

It is said that greatness lies in ordinary people doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way. There are perhaps more examples of  this truth among women than among men. Some Old Testament women role models are examples of this.

There was Moses’ mother, who saved the future great prophet by putting the baby in a basket, throwing the basket into the waters of the Nile trusting that God would save the baby from the wrath of Pharaoh. There was Hannah, who for a long time suffered the humiliation of being childless and then vowed to God that if he gave her a son she would dedicate him to the service of the Lord for all the days of his life. God gave her a son who became the Prophet Samuel. There was the great Queen Esther, who used her beauty to save the Jewish nation from extermination. And there was Ruth.

Ruth was not an Israelite. She was from Moab, a Semitic ethnic group who were neighbours but rivals of the Israelites.  The case of Ruth is a typical example of how doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way can create a great legend out of the lowest of human beings.

If there is a relationship that in all human cultures can cause unhappiness in families, it is the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. It can happen in any culture and in any social class, that when a son marries his mother can willy-nilly find herself competing with his wife. The wife will think he pays too much attention to his mother and neglects her, while the mother sees the daughter-in-law as something of an intruder who deprives her of the free relationship she once enjoyed with her son.

Ruth is an example of how the relationship between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law can be so loving that such a scenario has no place in their lives. Naomi — an Israelite from Bethlehem, Judah — left with her husband, Elimelech, and their two sons to go to live in Moab, because there was famine in Judah. The two sons got married to Moabite women called Orpah and Ruth respectively.

As fortune would have it, Elimelech died, and his two sons Mahlon and Kilion also died. Naomi, who had left Judah to find life in Moab found herself with nothing in a foreign land except her two daughters-in-law.

Meanwhile things got better in Judah and there was food. The humbled, embittered Naomi resolved to return to her country of origin.

Naomi, who had a loving relationship with both daughters-in-law, advised them to go back to their mothers’ homes as there was nothing she could do for them now. Ruth stubbornly refused to be separated from Naomi saying: “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1: 16). So the two women travelled together to Bethlehem.

In Bethlehem Ruth continued to care for her mother-in-law. Because they were destitute, Ruth realised that the only way she could feed Naomi and herself was to go and glean the leftovers of grain in fields where people were harvesting. As it turned out, she did so in a field belonging to a man of standing called Boaz who was a relative of Elimelech, Naomi’s late husband. Boaz was so impressed by Ruth’s character  that he publicly arranged to lawfully acquire Elimelech’s land and to marry Ruth.

Ruth conceived and gave Boaz a son called Obed. Now Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David, the great King of Israel whose story was featured in the Leadership column in March. We also know that Joseph, the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus, was a descendant of David.

So Ruth, the simple, humble, loving and lovable daughter-in-law, became a legend; for God chose this Gentile woman to play a pivotal role in the history of our redemption.