THE STORY OF RUTH,WHICH SHOWS US THE SIMPLE CHARM OF THE EARLY LIFE IN PALESTINE
In the last Chapter,which told the story of the Hebrew tribes when the land of Israel was being ruled by the Judges,there was much talk of battle and bloodshed,and we have been forced to describe many cruel and horrible incidents.There was,on the other hand,a different side to Jewish life which was very charming.
Of that we shall now tell you.
There lived a man in the town of Bethlehem who was called Elimelech.The name of his wife was Naomi and they had two sons,Chilion and Mahlon.Elimelech was well-to-do,but when a famine came to the region around Bethlehem,he lost everything he possessed.
He had a rich cousin whose name was Boaz.But Elimelech was too proud to beg.Rather than ask for assistance,he took his wife and his boys and moved into the land of Moab to make a new start.
Soon he was hard at work.But he died quite suddenly and his widow was left with the care of her two sons.
They were decent young fellows.They helped their mother on the farm and when they were old enough,they married girls from a nearby Moabite village and they all expected to end their days among the kindly strangers of their adopted country.
But Chilion and Mahlon,who seemed to have inherited their father's weak constitution,were both stricken with illness and one died within a short time after the other.Their mother,bowed down with grief,decided to go back to the old country,that she might spend the last years of her life among people whom she had known from childhood and who spoke the language with which she was familiar.
She was very fond of her daughters-in-law,but in all fairness she could not ask the girls to follow her.She told them so,and Orpah,the widow of Chilion,agreed that it would not be wise for her to leave her village.She bade Naomi an affectionate farewell and remained in the land of Moab.
Ruth,however,the widow of Mahlon,refused to leave the old woman,who was now all alone in the world.She had married into the family of Elimelech.She had forsaken her own people for those of her husband.She decided to stay with Naomi.For that,she felt,was her duty.She declared that nothing could ever separate her from the mother of her dead husband and embraced her tenderly.
Together the two women travelled to Bethlehem.
Of course,they were dreadfully poor and they had no money with which to buy bread.But years before,Moses,the wise law-giver who understood the plight of those who sometimes go hungry,had ordained that the gleanings which were left after the harvest must be given to the destitute.The farmer was entitled to all the grain,but the little bits that fell by the way when the reaping was being done belonged by divine right to those who owned no land of their own.
When Naomi and Ruth reached Bethlehem,it was harvest time.
Boaz,the cousin of Elimelech,and his men were out in the fields.And Ruth followed the gleaners that she might get bread for Naomi.
This she did for several days.
As she was a stranger among the Jewish women of Bethlehem,people asked questions about her.Soon every one knew her story and finally it reached the ears of Boaz.He was curious to see what sort of girl this might be and under the pretext of inspecting his fields,he had a talk with her.
When it was time for the noon meal,he invited her to sit down with him and the workmen and he gave her all the bread she needed.
Ruth ate only a little.The rest she took home to Naomi,who was too old to work.
Early the next morning,she was back in the fields.Boaz did not wish to hurt her feelings and yet he wanted to lighten her task.He therefore gave orders to his reapers that they must not be too careful in their labours,but must allow a plentiful supply of grain to remain in the fields.
All day long Ruth worked.At night,when she made ready to carry her load home,she discovered that she had gleaned so much that she could hardly lift it.
She told Naomi of what had happened,how she had met Boaz and how she had garnered more grain in a single morning than formerly in a week.
This made Naomi very happy.She felt that she could not live much longer and she now hoped that Boaz might make Ruth his wife.Then she knew that the girl would have a good home for the rest of her days.Yes,it was true that Ruth was a foreigner.But her marriage to a distant cousin of Boaz had almost made her a member of the great Jewish family,and every one liked her.
And so it happened.First Boaz (as was his good right,according to another law of Moses which had been made to protect the farmer against the usurer)bought back the land which had belonged to Elimelech,his cousin.Then he asked Ruth to take him as her husband.
She accepted him and Naomi went to live with her until the day of her death.
But ere she closed her eyes,she had seen the eldest child of Ruth,which was called Obed.
Obed grew to manhood and he had a son called Jesse and a grandson called David.David became king of the Jewish people and he was a direct ancestor of Mary,the wife of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth.
And in this way did Jesus descend from the gentle Ruth,who had left her people that she might follow the kindly impulse of her heart and tend the woman who had been a good mother to her.
