Her name means: "My Joy" or "Pleasant"
Her character: Suffering a threefold tragedy, Naomi refused
to hide Her Sorrow or bitterness. Believing in God's sovereignty, she attributed
her suffering to his will. But her fixation on circumstances, both past and
present, led to hopelessness. A kind and loving mother-in-law, she inspired
unusual love and loyalty in her daughters-in-law.
Her
sorrow: To have lost a husband and two sons in a foreign land, far from
family and friends.
Her joy: To have returned safely to
Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth, who would eventually rekindle her
happiness and hope.
Key Scriptures: Ruth 1; 4:13-17
Her Story
She stood like an old tree twisted against the sky. Though Naomi could see
for miles from her vantage point high on the road that led from Moab to Judah,
she could glimpse nothing at all of her future. She thought about robbers,
rumored on the road ahead. What more, she wondered, could possibly be taken from
her? Her thoughts strayed to the past.
Moses, she knew, had been buried somewhere in these mountains. But his people
and hers had moved west into Canaan centuries earlier. Would she, too, be left
behind, prevented from ever seeing her kinsfolk again? Was God so displeased
with her?
Ten years ago, she and her husband, Elimelech, had lived happily in
Bethlehem. But the city whose name meant "house of bread" suddenly had none, so
they had migrated to the highlands of Moab to escape the famine. Then Elimelech
had died and her sons had married Moabite women, whose race had descended from
Abraham's nephew, Lot. Plenty of women lost their husbands. Like them, she would
find a way to survive. But then she had suffered the worst grief a mother
could—outliving her own children.
Now Ruth and Orpah, her daughters-in-law, were the only kin she had in Moab.
Loving them tenderly, she felt their widowhood as a double grief. Together they
had cried and comforted each other. The three women finally decided to leave
Moab for Bethlehem. But once on the road, Naomi's misgivings outran her craving
for companionship. It wasn't right for young women to forsake their families and
friends for so uncertain a future. What chance would they, widows and strangers,
have in Bethlehem, even now that the famine had run its course?
"Go back, each of you, to your mother's home," she told them. "May the Lord
show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord
grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband."
But Orpah and Ruth insisted, "We will go back with you to your people."
"Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could
become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another
husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband
tonight and then gave birth to sons—would you wait until they grew up?"
The three women embraced, tears streaking their cheeks. Then Orpah kissed her
mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clutched Naomi and whispered fiercely, "Where
you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people
and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May
the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates
you and me."
The old woman's stubbornness was no match for the younger woman's love. And
so Naomi and Ruth continued on to Bethlehem. After so long an absence, Naomi's
return created a great commotion in the town, and all the women welcomed her,
saying, "Can this be Naomi?"
"Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara [meaning 'bitter'],
because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the
Lord has brought me back empty. The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has
brought misfortune upon me."
Naomi could not see past her suffering. Like many of us, she may have felt as
though her tragedies were punishment for her sins. Yet had she known the
blessings in store, she might not have felt so hopeless. Instead, she may have
compared herself to the tree that Job so graciously describes:
At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout
again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the
ground
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will
bud
and put forth shoots like a plant. - Job 14:7-9
Though she didn't know it, the scent of water was in the air. Naomi's life
was beginning again, her story still unfolding.
Her Promise
God's faithfulness to restore to fullness an empty life is revealed more in
this story of Naomi than in any other biblical account. The famine and hunger
that drove Naomi and her husband and sons away from Bethlehem are finally
replaced with full harvests and bread baked from grain gleaned in the fields.
The anguish of losing her husband and sons is replaced with the loving care and
concern of her daughter-in-law Ruth, who is "better to [Naomi] than seven sons"
(Ruth 4:15). And
Naomi's empty mother-arms are filled with the son of Boaz and Ruth. She is no
absent grandmother; the Scriptures say Naomi took Obed and "laid him in her lap
and cared for him" (Ruth 4:16).
(We'll hear more about this grandson in the next chapter.)
Like Naomi, we may have trouble recognizing God's goodness and his
faithfulness at times. But he is still with us no matter the circumstances.