Two strange women draw near to the village of Bethlehem. One is an Israelite, the other a shy Moabitess. The whisper rises, ‘Is it? Can it be? Yes it is! Naomi’! Hardly a rapturous welcome after ten years. The younger girl is ignored! Tearfully the older woman asks for a name change, ‘Call me not Naomi (‘pleasant’), call me Mara (‘bitter’)’. With bitterness of spirit she explains, ‘the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me’!
Her bitterness is a natural reaction. Taken by her husband Elimelech ten years before into Moab because of famine in Judah she had known deep sorrow. Her husband had died in that alien land. Her two boys had married women of Moab and then had died too. In that land of Moab, which in Scripture always speaks of the indulgence of the flesh, she had learned that to leave God’s people and land, whatever the circumstances and however plausible the reasons, invites divine discipline. With Elimelech she had sown; now she was reaping. Yet that very experience had brought a restored Naomi into a new appreciation of God whom she now refers to as ‘the Almighty’, a title that was used by Abraham, Gen. 17. 1, Isaac, Gen. 28. 3, and Joseph, Gen. 49. 3, of the God they had come to know. How often believers have to endure years of bitter pain under divine discipline before they do what Naomi did, and recognize that God is dealing with them with a view to recovery. Naomi has come back, surrounded by an aura of sadness.
Her blessing illustrates the grace of God in view of her repentance and return. The closing picture of Naomi with the child Obed, the son of Ruth and Boaz, in her arms draws from the village women the cry, ‘Blessed be the Lord’. What blessing indeed! Her testimony in an alien land has borne fruit in a Moabitess come to know God; her knowledge of Scripture prepared the way for Ruth to be brought into the nation; her wisdom as she instructs Ruth in her behaviour in the field (ch. 2), on the threshing floor (ch. 3) and at the gate (ch. 4) prepared the way for Boaz to act as the kinsman-redeemer – to buy the inheritance otherwise lost. Naomi moves from bitterness to blessing through divine grace.
