Redeemed Day 2 Once Upon A Time: Digging Deeper
Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
Yesterday’s Journey Study connects with today’s!
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The Questions
1) What time period is “the judges” and why does that detail matter? (verse 1)
2) Why would we care about the detail of this family being “Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah”? (verse 2)
3) Why would the Lord allow such hardship for Naomi if He truly loved her? (verses 4-5)
Ruth 1:1-5
During the time of the judges, there was a famine in the land. A man left Bethlehem in Judah with his wife and two sons to stay in the territory of Moab for a while. 2 The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife’s name was Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They entered the fields of Moab and settled there. 3 Naomi’s husband, Elimelech, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 Her sons took Moabite women as their wives: one was named Orpah and the second was named Ruth. After they lived in Moab about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and the woman was left without her two children and without her husband.
Original Intent
1) What time period is “the judges” and why does that detail matter? (verse 1)
Historical dates feel cumbersome to many, but they play an important role when studying Scripture as they help provide context and cultural norms based on the timing. For this book, we don’t get a specific date, but a general time period. The time of the Judges lasted 400 years and was post Joshua (who succeeded Moses who led Israel across the wilderness and out of Egypt), and pre king. The prophet Samuel was the transitionary figure between judges and the kings, so Ruth’s story happened before him. We also have another clue to determine the timing. Boaz! Boaz was the grandson of Rahab the prostitute who married the Israelite, Salmon, after Joshua led Israel to victory against Jericho and the city walls collapsed. (Joshua 6) When we read the book of Judges (which is extremely fascinating! We even wrote a Journey Theme for it!), Othniel is the first judge who dies after 40 years as judge, so we are getting close to the approximate age of Boaz. The best guesses for Ruth’s timeline fit within the period when King Eglon ruled Moab, which is after Othniel’s death. (Ah! Moab is Ruth’s native homeland and the location Naomi and Elimelech moved during the famine in Israel. (Verse 1)) In reading Judges 3:12-14, we discover how the Lord handed Israel over to King Eglon of Moab for eighteen long years as a result of their rebellion against God. It’s somewhere in these nearly two decades, we find our characters living out their “Once Upon A Time”.
2) Why would we care about the detail of this family being “Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah”? (verse 2)
When God freed Israel from slavery in Egypt, He promised to lead them into a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of great abundance and prosperity. As long as they walked in the ways of the Lord, Yahweh promised to bless them; if they rebelled against Him, He would remove their prosperity and bring consequences upon them as a reminder to return to the Lord who loved them. (Joshua 1:8, Deuteronomy 31:29) The Promised Land was inhabited by the Canaanites, but when Israel finally arrived, the Lord handed over Canaanite cities one by one as Israel followed the Lord into battle. (Deuteronomy 7:22) Often, but not always, Israel would rename Canaanite cities as they overtook them. During this time period, names carried weighty significance. For example, Naomi means “good and pleasant”, but when Naomi returned empty-handed to Bethlehem, she told everyone to call her Mara, which means “bitter”. (Ruth 1:20) Scholars believe a renaming of cities is what happened with Bethlehem. In Scripture, every time Ephrath, the Canaanite name, is mentioned, it is in conjunction with Bethlehem, the Israeli renaming. By calling out Naomi and Elimelech as Ephrathites, which means “fruitful”, and Bethlehem, which means “house of bread”, it was a blatant reminder of judgement from the Lord. The Promised Land, meant to flow with milk and honey, even in Bethlehem, the city of “bread” and “fruitfulness”, was now barren without food because of willful disobedience by its inhabitants.
3) Why would the Lord allow such hardship for Naomi if He truly loved her? (verses 4-5)
No one would blame Naomi for how she felt towards God. Later in chapter 1, she voices, “I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” When troubles wash over our lives, leaving us feeling swamped and broken, it’s easy to blame God, but we do have two heart responses available to our choosing. Naomi chose to cut herself off, resigning her heart to being empty and broken the rest of her days. Job, on the other hand, chose to bless the Lord, even after he lost his children, his livelihood, his wealth, his friends, and his health. (Job 1:20-22) When extreme suffering hit them, both Job and Naomi did share one similarity between them, they both gave themselves permission to grieve. Worshipping the Lord in the midst of tragedy does not negate our need to process our grief, but it does the critically important work of shifting our hearts off ourselves and onto the Author of life. This shift made all the difference between Job and Naomi. Naomi’s grief grew steadily into cold bitterness. Because he responded first, and over again, with worship, Job’s grief, though deep, eventually gave way for Job to lift his head, and realize how God’s character was vastly wiser than his own. In response to this humble act of worship, the Lord graciously ushered in a sweet, intangible peace. (Job 42:4-3) We may never know the answers to all of our “whys”, but we can always grow deeper in knowing the God who does indeed love us!
Everyday Application
1) What time period is “the judges” and why does that detail matter? (verse 1)
The historic timeline paints a fuller picture as to why Naomi and Elimelech fled their hometown of Bethlehem nestled in their homeland of Judah. They lived in a period of great moral decay. Their culture, though only two generations removed from Moses and the giving of the Ten Commandments, had become exceedingly stubborn in their rebellion against the Lord. The author of judges describes their rebellious heart attitude like this, “everyone did whatever seemed right to him.” (Judges 17:6) How closely does this seem to fit our own culture today?! In a world where right and wrong are only relative to the person making a moral decision, we have an entire culture acting in whatever way seems best to them. Israel experienced many consequences from the Lord as a result of their rebellion because He loved them and wanted them to live with abundance and fullness. However, they continued to consume the lie that their ways would bring better happiness over dwelling within the loving boundaries of the Lord in sweet relationship with Him. Any deviation from how the Lord calls us to live detracts from a truly full life of increasingly deep joy and satisfaction. Where might you be pushing away from His ways to choose your own?
2) Why would we care about the detail of this family being “Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah”? (verse 2)
When Elimelech decided to move his family out of the region of famine, he could have chosen another Israelite city that was not experiencing such severity. Perhaps a region closer to the Jordan river was more fertile than Bethlehem. Instead, he chose Moab, a city clearly outside of the land God had given Israel as an inheritance. It was as if Elimilech had decided God could no longer provide for him. God administered the consequence of famine to direct Israel’s attention back to God’s heart as the Giver of all good things and remind them of Who He was and His heart for the people He had rescued from slavery. Recognizing this, however, necessitated one to self-reflect, then repent of rebellion, then return in humility to God. Elimelech, however, took his family and left the entire land God had given as an inheritance. Going further, he allowed his sons to marry Moabite women, which was also strictly forbidden. (Deuteronomy 7:3) Elimelech decided God was not good enough for him. He would rather depend on himself than face sin and repent. Perhaps, as a further consequence of his rebellion, this is the reason for Elimelech’s death and those of his sons. Choosing to keep ourselves as the final judge of God’s character based on our circumstance, instead of the truth of Scripture, is always a dangerous position to take. Consider your own beliefs about God and His heart-attitude towards you. Do your beliefs match up with what the Bible says is true of Him? Are you tender to the Lord’s rebuke in your life, ready to return to Him in humility?
3) Why would the Lord allow such hardship for Naomi if He truly loved her? (verses 4-5)
It’s an age-old question each of us have likely wrestled with from time to time. “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Or, said a different way, “Why does a good God allow suffering?” Few answers to these questions give us peace in our hearts. In the end, it’s much about our willingness to acknowledge God’s supremacy, linked inextricably with His wisdom, goodness, tenderheartedness, and His love, over our own shortsighted understanding. (Isaiah 55:8-9) Only the Lord knows all things. (Psalm 147:5) Only the Lord has the power to work beautiful things out of our smoldering ashes. (Isaiah 61:1-4) Only the Lord loves us deep enough to use His power for good, even when we can’t see through the smoky haze of our brokenness. (Romans 8:28) If we trust His heart, over ours, if we choose to worship Him with thanksgiving for Who He is, then He will safeguard our hearts and our minds with His peace which passes all understanding. (Philippians 4:6-7) Where can you begin to choose worship over worry, trust over fear, and humility over the need to control or understand?
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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