“Back in the days when the judges were judging, at a time when there was a famine in the land, a certain man from Beit-Lechem went to live in the territory of Mo’av — he, his wife and his two sons.”-Ruth 1:1
The first verse of Ruth is not only fuzzy about WHEN the famine mentioned occurred.
It’s also fuzzy about WHERE.
We’re told the famine occurred in “the land” or the ERETZ (הארץ) in Hebrew.
Not too mighty specific now, is it?
That’s like me telling an American who just asked where I’m from that I’m from the United States.
Of course, the question really on the guy’s mind is “Which State?”.
Again, we run into another difference between the Hebrew and Greek mindset here.
Obviously, it wasn’t of great importance to the author of Ruth to define the specific boundaries of the territory that suffered from the famine.
In this case, we have to determine which region of land by the context.
Generally speaking, “the land” refers to entire land of Canaan which would later be called ERETZ ISRAEL (the land of Israel).
Just to make sure there’s no misunderstanding, I’m specifically referring to the real estate on the west bank of the Jordan River.
Again, the land that Reuben, Gad and 1/2 of Manasseh inherited on the east bank of the Jordan was NOT Promised Land territory.
But having said that, does the writer of Ruth mean the famine affected the whole land of Israel from the Sinai Peninsula to the Lebanon border?
The answer was no…
Because again it wasn’t a big deal to the Hebrew writer.
It was all a matter of perspective.
The “land” was the place you were living at the time whether you were from the tribe of Judah, Issachar or whatever.
Again, the Transjordanian tribes (Reuben, Gad and 1/2 of Manasseh) were the exception.
We can see from the context that Bethlehem was part of the land affected by the famine.
And apparently the situation was so bad that several families decided to pick up and move out of the land to avoid starvation.
Also, notice the specificity of the statement “Beit-Lechem of Judah”.
The author had to go out of his way to point out this particular Beit-Lechem was in Judah was because there were many of many of them sprawled throughout the land.
The reason why is because BEIT-LECHEM simply means “house of food”.
What was a “house of food” back in those days?
It was basically a storehouse for threshed grain.
And several of them had to be placed in key locations throughout the land to feed the tribes wherever they were living.
Now what’s interesting about this particular BEIT-LECHEM is that being located in Judah, it was the same place where Messiah was born…
Which makes sense because later on we’ll discover that Ruth, a Moabite, will eventually be grafted into the line of Messiah and immortalized in the pages of Scripture.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“This is the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah
the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz,
whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed,
whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.”
-Matthew 1:1-6
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