R1-7: The Main Character In The Book Of Ruth Is NOT Ruth

“Elimelekh, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, she and her two sons.  They took wives for themselves from the women of Mo’av; the name of the one was ‘Orpah; and the name of the other was Rut. They lived there for about ten years. Then Machlon and Kilyon died, both of them; and the woman was left with neither her two sons nor her husband.“-Ruth 1:3-4

In verses 3 and 4 of Ruth Chapter 1 we’re told that Elimelech died while he was living in Moab.

And then afterwards his two sons married two Moabite girls named Ruth and Orpah.

But sometime during the 10-year period while the family was in Moab, the two sons also passed away.

We’re not told the cause of death but it had to have been by disease or some fatal accident…

If they had been murdered, the Scripture would have made that clear and said they were “killed” instead of that they “died”.

And let me also clarify that the 10-year period mentioned in verse 4 was NOT the length of time Elimelech’s sons were married to Ruth and Orpah.

Rather it was how long the family had lived in Moab.

Now at this point it’s important to remind ourselves this was a world that didn’t have any welfare system like what exists in modern countries today.

There was no such thing as monthly social security, medicare or disability checks…

Or government sponsored housing for the poverty stricken…

From Naomi’s perspective, to lose her husband and her two sons was a certain death sentence in ancient times.

Although an obvious point, I should also add this wasn’t a world with internet and all the wonderful technology platforms that we’re blessed with today like Google, Facebook, YouTube and so on.

In fact, I know this 98 year old YouTuber (yes, you read that right) who runs a YouTube channel called “Great Depression Cooking”.

She does videos teaching folks the kind of meals she made during the Great Depression that she lived through.

The meals look delicious, they’re economical and get this.

As of this writing (I just checked), she has 997,000 subscribers.

She’s almost at a million subscribers and on average her videos get between 3 million and 7 millions views each!

Which means she’s making a helluva lot more money from YouTube than any monthly government check she could ever hope to receive.

And she’s 98 years old!

I’m like YOU GO GRANDMA!

Alright, sorry for going off on a tangent there…got a little excited.

My point is since Naomi lived in a world WITHOUT a government welfare system and the technology we have today, she was in serious dire straits and she knew it.

In a male-dominated agricultural society, the death of all the males in her family meant the death of all avenues of income.

So the rest of this story is all about how the Lord would solve this serious problem for Naomi…

Naomi had always been faithful and kept her allegiance to Israel’s God EVEN WHILE living in a gentile land whose inhabitants worshipped CHEMOSH (the name of that regions’s chief pagan god)…

Which leads to a point you might find surprising.

The main character in the Book of Ruth is NOT Ruth.

The main character is Naomi.

That’s the lens through which you need to view this book.

That’s right folks.

Ruth lost her husband…as did her sister.

And as tragic as that was, these girls wouldn’t necessarily fall into dire economic straits because of what happened.

They were still relatively young and would be able to marry again.

In fact, that would have been the most likely outcome.

And not only that.

It was also the custom of those times for young widows to be taken back into their fathers’ homes to be cared for just like they were when they were virgins.

So the future prospects for Naomi’s daughters-in-law wasn’t bleak at all.

But as for Naomi herself, the writing on the wall was plain for all to see…

And it didn’t look good.  

She was way beyond child-bearing years…

So her chances of having children to look after her were zero.

And she was probably too frail to engage in hard work to support herself.

Bottomline, having no male protection in this era was a death sentence…

Or at worst it meant living out one’s final years in loneliness, poverty, fear and desperation.

So understand the book of Ruth is all about how the Lord in His grace rescued Naomi.

And he used a gentile named Ruth to accomplish this miracle.

A gentile who would also be grafted into the line of Messiah by the way.

If you take this perspective when reading Ruth, you’ll get the most out of this incredible book.