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heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain: for your
land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits"
(Leviticus 26: 18-20).
How well He knew their hearts, as indeed He knows ours.
During the period covered by the Book of Judges how many times the nation as a
whole, except for a faithful few, turned away from the God Who had so faithfully
watched over them and blessed them. So He punished them by allowing the heathen
tribes they had allowed to remain around them to over-run their land, and reduce them for
a time to become terror-stricken serfs. For a total period of 93 years God withdrew
Himself from His rebellious people, they became "lo-ammi", not my people, as indeed
they are today, and have been for nearly two thousand years.
Here, "a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the land of Moab, he and
his wife and his two sons" (Ruth 1: 1). Bethlehem, which signifies the "House of Bread"
had none! A fruitful land was turned into barrenness to correct and restrain the
materialism, wantonness, idolatry and unbelief among the nation God had made His own.
"And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi and the
name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah. And they
came into the country of Moab, and continued there" (1: 2).
Elimelech meaning "my God is King", was a splendid name to bear during the dark
days of the Book of Judges, when there was no king in Israel. It balances the end of the
Book of Ruth, where in the last verse we read of David, the first king of God's choice.
Naomi means sweetness, and from the record, as we shall see, that was exactly what
she must have been.
The two sons were most probably the reason for the move, for there must have been
many families similarly stricken by the famine, yet who remained in Bethlehem and
managed to live through it somehow. The names of both sons indicate that they were
very delicate, for Mahlon means "sickly", and Chilion "pining", one commentator says
"consumption". They were evidently physically ailing, and there could not have been
any dearth of famine in Moab. This temporary move could well have been done,
therefore, for the sake of the boys' health. Whether it was the right thing to do is another
question. Some would doubt this, especially as we find they stayed on for some
considerable time in this country. Then the husband Elimelech died.
"And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. And they
took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name
of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years" (1: 3, 4).
Who were the Moabites? They were the descendants of Moab, who was the son
of Lot and his elder daughter. Despite their sinful origin, the Lord did not forbid
inter-marriage with the Moabites as He did with the nations of Canaan. He does however
lay down instructions regarding children of such a marriage, where the father was a
Moabite and the mother a Jewess.