A GENTLE HEROINE, A GENTILE CONVERT
‘And Ruth said, Intreat me not to
leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest,
I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God: 17. Where thou diest, will I die, and there
will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death
part thee and me. 18. When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go
with her, then she left speaking unto her. 19. So they two went until they
came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Beth-lehem,
that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? 20.
And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mare: for the Almighty
hath dealt very bitterly with me. 21. I went out full, and the Lord hath
brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord
hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me! 22. So
Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her,
which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in
the beginning of barley harvest.’ —
Ruth 1:16-22
THE lovely idyl of Ruth is in sharp
contrast with the bloody and turbulent annals of Judges. It completes, but
does not contradict, these, and happily reminds us of what we are apt to
forget in reading such pages, that no times are so wild but that in them
are quiet corners, green oases, all the greener for their surroundings,
where life glides on in peaceful isolation from the tumult. Men and women
love and work and weep and laugh, the gossips of Bethlehem talk over
Naomi’s return (‘they said,’ in verse 19, is feminine), Boaz stands among
his corn, and no sounds of war disturb them. Thank God! the blackest times
were not so dismal in reality as they look in history. There are clefts in
the grim rock, and flowers blooming, sheltered in the clefts. The peaceful
pictures of this little book, multiplied many thousand times, have to be
set as a background to the lurid pictures of the Book of Judges.
The text begins in the middle of
Naomi’s remonstrance with her two daughters-in-law. We need not deal with
the former part of the conversation, nor follow Orpah as she goes back to
her home and her gods. She is the first in the sad series of those, ‘not
far from the kingdom of God,’ who needed but a little more resolution at
the critical moment, and, for want of it, shut themselves out from the
covenant, and sank back to a world which they had half renounced.
So these two lonely widows are left, each seeking to sacrifice herself for
the other. Who shall decide which was the more noble and truly womanly in
her self-forgetfulness, — the elder, sadder heart, which strove to secure
for the other some joy and fellowship at the price of its own deepened
solitude; or the younger, which steeled itself against entreaties, and
cast away friends and country for love’s sweet sake? We rightly praise
Ruth’s vow, but we should not forget Naomi’s unselfish pleading to be left
to tread her weary path alone.
Ruth’s passionate burst of
tenderness is immortal. It has put into fitting words for all generations
the deepest thoughts of loving hearts, and comes to us over all the
centuries between, as warm and living as when it welled up from that
gentle, heroic soul. The two strongest emotions of our nature are blended
in it, and each gives a portion of its fervour — love and religion. So
closely are they interwoven that it is difficult to allot to each its
share in the united stream; but, without trying to determine to which of
them the greater part of its volume and force is due, and while conscious
of the danger of spoiling such words by comments weaker than themselves,
we may seek to put into distinct form the impressions which they make.
We see in them the heroism of
gentleness. Put the sweet figure of the Moabitess beside the heroes of the
Book of Judges, and we feel the contrast. But is there anything in its
pages more truly heroic than her deed, as she turned her back on the blue
hills of Moab, and chose the joyless lot of the widowed companion of a
widow aged and poor, in a land of strangers, the enemies of her country
and its gods? It is easier far to rush on the spears of the foe, amid the
whirl and excitement of battle, than to choose with open eyes so dreary a
lifelong path. The gentleness of a true woman covers a courage of the
patient, silent sort, which, in its meek steadfastness, is nobler than the
contempt of personal danger, which is vulgarly called bravery. It is
harder to endure than to strike. The supreme type of heroic, as of all,
virtue is Jesus Christ, whose gentleness was the velvet glove on the iron
hand of an inflexible will. Of that best kind of heroes there are few
brighter examples, even in the annals of the Church which numbers its
virgin martyrs by the score, than this sweet figure of Ruth, as the eager
vow comes from her young lips, which had already tasted sorrow, and were
ready to drink its bitterest cup at the call of duty. She may well teach
us to rectify our judgments, and to recognise the quiet heroism of many a
modest life of uncomplaining suffering. Her example has a special message
to women, and exhorts them to see to it that, in the cultivation of the
so-called womanly excellence of gentleness, they do not let it run into
weakness, nor, on the other hand, aim at strength, to the loss of
meekness. The yielding birch-tree, the ‘lady of the woods,’ bends in all
its elastic branches and tossing ringlets of foliage to the wind; but it
stands upright after storms that level oaks and pines. God’s strength is
gentle strength, and ours is likest His when it is meek and lowly, like
that of the ‘strong Son of God.’
Ruth’s great words may suggest, too,
the surrender which is the natural language of true love. Her story comes
in among all these records of bloodshed and hate, like a bit of calm blue
sky among piles of ragged thunder-clouds, or a breath of fresh air in the
oppressive atmosphere of a slaughter-house. Even in these wild times there
was still a quiet corner where love could spread his wings. The question
has often been asked, what the purpose of the Book of Ruth is, and various
answers have been given. The genealogical table at the end, showing
David’s descent from her, the example which it supplies of the reception
of a Gentile into Israel, and other reasons for its presence in Scripture,
have been alleged, and, no doubt, correctly. But the Bible is a very human
book, just because it is a divine one; and surely it would be no unworthy
object to enshrine in its pages a picture of the noble working of that
human love which makes so much of human life. The hallowing of the family
is a distinct purpose of the Old Testament, and the beautiful example
which this narrative gives of the elevating influence of domestic
affection entities it to a place in the canon. How many hearts, since Ruth
spoke her vow, have found in it the words that fitted their love best! How
often they have been repeated by quivering lips, and heard as music by
loving ears! How solemn, and even awful, is that perennial freshness of
words which came hot and broken by tears, from lips that have long ago
mouldered into dust! What has made them thus ‘enduring for ever,’ is that
they express most purely the self-sacrifice which is essential to all
noble love. The very inmost longing of love is to give itself away to the
object beloved. It is not so much a desire to acquire as to bestow, or,
rather, the antithesis of giving and receiving melts into one action which
has a twofold motion, — one outwards, to give; one inwards, to receive. To
love is to give one’s self away, therefore all lesser givings are its food
and delight; and, when Ruth threw herself on Naomi’s withered breast, and
sobbed out her passionate resolve, she was speaking the eternal language
of love, and claiming Naomi for her own, in the very act of giving herself
to Naomi. Human love should be the parent of all self-sacrificing as of
all heroic virtues; and in our homes we do not live in love, as we ought,
unless it leads us to the daily exercise of self-suppression and
surrender, which is not felt to be loss but the natural expression of our
love, which it would be a crime against it, and a pain to ourselves, to
withhold. If Ruth’s temper lived in our families, they would be true
‘houses of God’ and ‘gates of heaven.’
We hear in Ruth’s words also that
forsaking of all things which is an essential of all true religion. We
have said that it was difficult to separate, in the words, the effects of
love to Naomi from those of adoption of Naomi’s faith. Apparently Ruth’s
adhesion to the worship of Jehovah was originally due to her love for her
mother-in-law. It is in order to be one with her in all things that she
says, ‘Thy God shall be my God.’ And it was because Jehovah was Naomi’s
God that Ruth chose Him for hers. But whatever the origin of her faith, it
was genuine and robust enough to bear the strain of casting Chemosh and
the gods of Moab behind her, and setting herself with full purpose of
heart to seek the Lord. Abandoning them was digging an impassable gulf
between herself and all her past, with its friendships, loves, and habits.
She is one of the first, and not the least noble, of the long series of
those who ‘suffer the loss of all things, and count them but dung, that
they may win’ God for their dearest treasure. We have seen how, in her,
human love wrought self-sacrifice. But it was not human love alone that
did it. The cord that drew her was twisted of two strands, and her love to
Naomi melted into her love of Naomi’s God. Blessed they who are drawn to
the knowledge and love of the fountain of all love in heaven by the
sweetness of the characters of His representatives in their homes, and who
feel that they have learned to know God by seeing Him in dear ones, whose
tenderness has revealed His, and whose gracious words have spoken of His
grace! If Ruth teaches us that we must give up all, in order truly to
follow the Lord, the way by which she came to her religion may teach us
how great are the possibilities, and consequently the duties, of
Christians to the members of their own families. If we had more elder
women like Naomi, we should have more younger women like Ruth.
The self-sacrifice which is possible
and blessed, even to inferior natures, at the bidding of love, is too
precious to be squandered on earthly objects. Men’s capacities for it, at
the call of dear ones here, should be the rebuke of their grudging
surrender to God. He gave the capacity that it might find its true field
of operation in our relation to Him. But how much more ready we all are to
give up everything for the sake of our Naomis than for His sake: and how
we may be our own accusers, if the measure of our devotion to them be
contrasted with the measure of our devotion to God!
Finally, we may see, in Ruth’s
entrance into the religion of Israel, a picture of what was intended to be
the effect of Israel’s relation with the Gentile world.
The household of Elimelech emigrated
to Moab in a famine, and, whether that were right or wrong, they were
there among heathens as Jehovah worshippers. They were meant to be
missionaries, and, in Ruth’s case, the purpose was fulfilled. She became
the ‘first-fruits of the Gentiles’; and one aim of the book, no doubt, is
to show how the believing Gentile was to be incorporated into Israel. Boaz
rejoices over her, and especially over her conversion, and prays, ‘A full
reward be given thee of Jehovah, the God of Israel, under whose wings thou
art come to trust.’ She is married to him, and becomes the ancestress of
David, and, through him, of the Messiah. All this is a beautiful
completion to the other side of the picture which the fierce fighting in
Judges makes prominent, and teaches that Israel’s relation to the nations
around was not to be one of mere antagonism, but that they had another
mission than destruction, and were set in their land, as the candlestick
in the Tabernacle, that light might stream out into the darkness of the
desert. The story of the Moabitess, whose blood flowed in David’s veins,
was a standing protest against the later narrow exclusiveness which called
Gentiles ‘dogs,’ and prided itself on outward connection with the nation,
in the exact degree in which it lost real union with the nation’s God, and
real understanding of the nation’s mission.
We have left ourselves no space to
speak of the remainder of this passage, which is of less importance. It
gives us a lively picture of the stir in the little town of Bethlehem, as
the two way-worn women came into it, in their strange attire, and
attracting notice by travelling alone. As we have observed, ‘they said,’
in verse 19, is feminine. The women of the village buzzed round the
strangers, as they sat in silence, perhaps by that well at the gate, of
which, long after, David longed to drink. Wonder, curiosity, and possibly
a spice of malice, mingle in the question, ‘Is this Naomi?’ It is
heartless, at any rate; it had been better to have found them food and
shelter than to have let them sit, the mark for sharp tongues. Naomi’s
bitter words seem to be moved partly by a sense of the coldness of the
reception. She realises that she has indeed come back to a changed world,
where there will be little sympathy except such as Ruth can give. It is
with almost passion that she abjures her name ‘Pleasant,’ as a satire on
her woful lot, and bids them call her ‘Bitter,’ as truer to fact now. The
burst of sorrow is natural, as she finds herself again where she had been
a wife and mother, and ‘remembers happier things.’ Her faith wavers, and
her words almost reproach God. The exaggerations in which memory is apt to
indulge colour them. ‘I went out full.’ She has forgotten that they ‘went
out’ to seek for bread. She only remembers that four went away, and three
sleep in Moab. Possibly she thinks of their emigration as a sin, and
traces her dear ones deaths to God’s displeasure on its account. His
‘testifying’ against her probably means that His providence in bereaving
her witnessed to His disapprobation. But, whether that be so or not, her
wild words are not those of a patient sufferer, who bows to His will. But
true faith may sometimes break down, and Ruth’s ‘trusting under the wings
of Jehovah’ is proof enough that, in the long years of lonely sorrow,
Naomi’s example had shown how peaceful and safe was the shelter there.
