What’s So Special About Naomi?
For many, the Book of Ruth is about Ruth. This is a bit nearsighted.
This is my fourth installment on this magnificent story, and last time I ended with a cliffhanger. Well actually not that much of a white-knuckle hang from some dangerous elevation but more of a puzzle, a mystery. It began with what I think is an obvious observation that it is unusual for two daughters-in-law to accompany their mother-in-law to permanently settle in what will be to the two young ladies a foreign land.
My partial and incomplete answer to this yesterday was that there was something about Naomi the two young ladies saw as unique, might we even say special and attractive?
What was it?
Here’s my answer.
It was her faith in Yahweh. [Note: Whenever you see LORD written in all capitals - this has been placed there to represent Yahweh — but there is more to it than that. See the video below].
When a broken person walks into a twelve-step program or a church, whether or not they reveal this (because usually they do not), they are looking for something they know-not-what to help them with a life consuming problem they cannot fix. All they really know is that they do not have whatever it is they are looking for.
Now think about this. Their recovery and spiritual growth will come as a result of their connecting with God. Not just any god or spirit. They have encountered plenty of those and each one they met for a season and trusted with their lives has disappointed them at best and sought to destroy them at worst.
So they walk into a room and sit down in what essentially to them is a strange land. What do they encounter? People just like themselves in general (perhaps not in fashion taste or behavior) but hopefully quite different in their levels of happiness and contentment. Here is the church’s and recovery program’s challenge when it comes to strangers in their midst, to be Naomis, people who attract and do not repel.
Jewish mothers have a stereotypical persona. They are loud, pushy, and demanding. In a word, they are confident, not confused, about how life should be lived. Effective humor is based on truth and a good God-fearing mom, whether Jewish or not, believes to the core of her being that she is here on earth for the purpose of raising children and young people in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
We don’t know how Orpah and Ruth were raised but we do know this, their mothers were probably not Israelites. Naomi did not hide who she was. Perhaps she couldn’t. Perhaps the clothing, the accent, and the strange customs would have easily given it away. And also, perhaps her sons, Mahlon and Chilion, respected their mother and father as their nation’s law required. I am guessing this rubbed off on how they treated their wives. We can’t know for sure, of course, except for Naomi’s words to both of them in verse 8 of chapter 1: “Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.”
Now we might think today, because there is much in our culture and politics about racism, that Naomi would have mostly looked down on the two women from Moab but this is ignorance in understanding anything about the formation of Israel as Yahweh’s treasured possession.
Israel at Mount Sinai
On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God.
The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
Exodus 19:1-6 (ESV)
Their assignment from God was to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
And what does this mean?
They were to serve the world in the same way priests serve congregations. They stand before God on behalf of the people. They offer prayers and sacrifices for them and ask God to forgive them their sins. Israel’s role was to somehow connect all nations, not just themselves, with God.
How did this work out?
That’s the story of the Bible. However, let me say this. Your understanding of who God is, whether through our culture steeped in Western Civilization built in great part from the teachings of the Bible, or what you have learned directly from your own studies, owes a debt of gratitude to the Jewish people. Much of what we know and believe about God came through them.
Yahweh is a great communicator.
What God placed within his laws (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) given to the newly formed nation of Israel he also revealed through the story of some poor helpless widows. The Book of Ruth reveals what God’s law looks like and does when people so seemingly small and insignificant decide to live their lives in accordance with its instructions.
Finally, a few more passages from the laws of Israel Naomi would have been taught and took to heart as seen in the response of the two young ladies she grew to love and who grew to love her back.
When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (ESV)
Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock,
or the sojourner who is within your gates,
that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (ESV)
Tomorrow we will consider why Orpah went home.