This book that bears the name of a young Moabite woman tells us that ‘in the days when the judges ruled’, 1. 1, despite prevalent immorality and idolatry, there were still families where the Lord was owned and where love and loyalty to Him were still seen. It tells us, too, that despite much failure God was still in control and was working for the blessing of His people.
Ruth’s protest to her mother-in-law, by the roadside, marks a personal crisis, apart from which her name would be unknown. While Orpah returns home Ruth makes one of the most moving statements ever recorded, and rhetoricians have been unable to improve on its simple sublimity; ‘whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried’. Ruth’s heart had been won by the conduct and character of Naomi under circumstances of heart-break and suffering and now she turns to Naomi’s God, the God of Israel. Idolatry is abandoned; Chemosh, the cruel god of her people, is forsaken; Jehovah is owned.
What this confession cost Ruth in terms of family relationships and natural friendships it is impossible to count. These human factors weighed with Orpah and she is on her way back to Moab. For her the cost is too high! A weeping Ruth may fear what the future holds but her choice is made. Boaz will summarize her conversion in the words, ‘the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou are come to trust’, 2. 12. Her decision was irrevocable. Ruth patterns a later believer who can sing:-
My heart is fixed, eternal God, fixed on Thee:
And my immortal choice is made,
Christ for me.
God honoured the faith of Ruth. A stranger, a widow, homeless and penniless and yet God so overruled that she found ample provision in gleaning in the harvest field. She met Boaz the kinsman-redeemer and by his action and love she becomes an heiress and the mother of a son that would place her in the direct line of the Messiah, Matt. 1. 5. What matchless grace!
