Woman of Courage: Ruth; Chapter 1, Verses 1-5

Ruth 1:1-5 - ESV

Verse 1: ...and a man of Bethleham in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.
Verse 2: ...They went into the country of Moab and remained there.

Sojourn as listed below, means a brief travel, so what on earth was so attractive to them that they would 'remain there'? The scriptures do not say, but one can assume that there was a draw to the earthly aspects that this family found in this pagan country.

Main Entry: sojourn  [n. soh-jurn; v. soh-jurn, soh-jurn]

Part of Speech: noun
Definintion: brief travel; visit
Synonyms: layoveer, residence, rest, stay, stop, stopover, tarriance, vacation

Verse 3: But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons...

Verse 4: These took Moabite wifes... they lived there about ten years...

Verse 5: And both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and husband.

How horrific! A couple weeks ago, my husband was at a music recital for his siblings, and I was supposed to meet him there. We'd been having starter problems with our jeep, and after getting off work about half an hour after the Recital started, I found that the car wouldn't start no matter what I did. Eventually, a kind stranger helped by climbing under the car and banging on our old starter, but in the moment, I was panicked! After not being able to reach my husband, it hit me that I was alone in this crisis! I had to find out how to solve the problem on my own. 

I wonder if that is how Naomi felt. She and her husband had decided to go on a trip until the famine in their home country was over. Together, they could do anything! So, she agrees. They reach Moab and life is good. So her husband decides that their family should stay put. What a hard pill to swallow. I imagine she thought something along the lines of 'Okay, life without my family, my mom, my friends? Well... we're together, so we can get through anything!'

And then her world shatters. Her husband is gone. Not only is she in a foreign country alone, but she's in a foreign country alone with her two boys. The scripture doesn't say how old they were only that they married and lived there 10 years, so I'm imagining that they're little boys... say 11 and 9. Old enough that within that time frame they could marry, and yet young enough for it to be a daunting task for a widow to carry on alone. 

My link to BibleStudyTools.com finds in the definition of a widow: Weeping, mourning, and desolation describe her personal experience after the loss of her spouse. Poverty, and indebtedness were all too often descriptive of her financial situation, when the main source of her economic support, her husband, had perished. Indeed, she was frequently placed alongside the orphan and the landless immigrant as a representative of the poorest of the poor.

So here is Naomi, a widowed immigrant caring for two half-orphaned sons. Very much so the "poorest of the poorest of the poor". And then her sons grow up. They find wives. No doubt these women came with dowries, so perhaps the sons had enough to truly care for their mother for the first time in their lives. Until they too, like their father die.

I can imagine the budding hope in Naomi's heart, and I can here the thud of her heart dropping when not one, but both, of her sons die. All she has left of the family she loves are two girls from the country that brought the death of all three of her men.