Ruth the Gentile Bride

A Story of Israel & The Church

The story of Ruth the Moabitess is a story of one woman's commitment and dedication to her aged, weary mother in law, and to her God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also, I believe, a picture of God's will for the church with relation to the Jewish people.

The story begins with a man named Elimelech who, along with his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, left their home in Bethlehem during a famine and journeyed to the land of Moab.

We are then presented, in a few brief sentences, with a history of the family's sojourn in Moab over the next ten years. The brevity of the sentences make it easy to quickly skip over the pain and anguish that Naomi experienced as she was bereft not only of her husband, but her two sons as well. She was left completely alone with her two Moabite daughters in law.

Hidden in these five short verses are some truths concerning the Jewish people and their relationship to the land of Israel and their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God had promised the children of Israel blessing and peace if they remained in the land and obeyed Him. The land of Israel will always be the place where God will bless and meet with His people as He has joined them to it in covenant relationship.

(Genesis 12:3; 13:14-17; 15; 17:7&8; 28:13-14; Ps 105:6-11 etc)

The name Bethlehem means "House of Bread" and Elimelech and Naomi chose to leave the place of God's provision for them and their family because things got difficult. They chose to move out from the Lord's protection into a Gentile land.

Their sons' names mean "sickly" and "pining" and they serve as a reminder of what the Lord said would befall His people should they disobey Him. (Deuteronomy 28)

A Picture of the Jewish People Naomi is surely a picture of the Jewish people and all that they experienced during 2000 years of living in Gentile lands. They sought peace and prosperity and instead found persecution and suffering.

Many Jewish women knew the loss of husbands and children in tragic circumstances.

The Holocaust was the final and greatest tragedy in which so many European Jewish families, believing themselves safe in the lands of the Gentiles, found only loss, destruction and grief.

Naomi's words to her friends on her return to Bethlehem, "Call me not Naomi (pleasant), call me Mara (bitter) for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty; why call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?" must surely echo the feelings of many Jewish hearts down through the ages.

In these days in which we live there are still many Jewish people who have known suffering and loss in the land of the Gentiles who are making their way wearily home to Israel from the four corners of the earth.

Bringing the people back to the land of Israel in these days is a central part of what God is doing in the earth. To miss His heartbeat on this is to have missed one of the most remarkable events of the ages.

Throughout scripture restoration to the Lord is always preceded by restoration to the Land. (Ezekial 36 & 37; Jeremiah 31, 32 & 33; Isaiah 61:49; Psalm 102:13-16)

In the bible the Jewish people are often referred to as an olive tree.

A tree cannot bear fruit if it is continually uprooted. It is only as it is allowed to put its roots deep down into good soil that it produces fruit.

So it is with the Jewish people. They will produce their greatest spiritual fruit as they return to the land and put their roots down deep both spiritually and physically.

The Fruitful Land

It is also true that the land is becoming fruitful again as the people return.

It has been in mourning while they have been in exile (Zechariah 7:14) but now that they are returning, it is blossoming like a rose (Isaiah 35:1-2) and Israel is sending produce and flowers all over the world (Isaiah 27:6).

It is also the only place in the world where the desert is actually diminishing (Isaiah 49:18-19).

Left alone with her two daughters in law in Moab, Naomi hears that the Lord has visited His people once again. The famine is over so she decides to return to Bethlehem.

She encourages her daughters in law to return to their own land to make new lives.

Orpah decides to return to her people and her god. Jewish oral tradition says that she became the grandmother of Goliath, the giant Philistine who was an enemy of Israel. Her name means "back of one's neck" and she is a picture of those Christians who have been content to take all the blessings that come with being grafted into Israel (Romans 11:17) - the scriptures, the prophets, the apostles, Jesus, the Jewish Messiah - but choose to turn their back on those who have given them their richest blessings, Jesus' relatives, the Jewish people.

Just as Orpah went back to her people and her god, so a church that believes it has replaced Israel has absorbed much that is unscriptural and pagan. The only guard against this is an understanding of the biblical Hebrew roots of our faith, our spiritual family heritage.

Ruth, whose name means "friend," chooses instead to continue on with Naomi towards the promised Land, uttering those wonderful words of commitment which continue to be a challenge to those of us who have chosen to walk with the Jewish people,

'Urge me not to leave you, or to return from following you;
for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God, my God.'

She becomes one of the first to be counted amongst the ten men from every nation who will take hold of the robe of a Jew and say, 'Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.' (Zechariah 8:23).

Two women, walking together towards the Promised Land, one born into covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the other entering that relationship through marriage … Jew and Gentile together… the wall of hostility being broken down to produce one new man worshipping the God of Israel (Ephesians 2:14-16).

As they walk towards Israel, Ruth helping her weary mother in law who has suffered so much, we see a beautiful picture of that which was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah (49:22)

'Behold, I will lift up My hand to the Gentile nations,
and set up My standard and raise high My banner to the peoples;
and they shall bring your sons in the bosom of their garments,
and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.'

This scripture is being fulfilled as Christians from many nations working for such organizations as the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, are working to bring the Jewish people home from the lands of the north.

They are able to do this because of finance given by Christians worldwide.

(Isaiah 49:12; Jeremiah 3:18; 23:8; 16:15-16)

Once back in the land, Ruth goes into the fields to glean for food for herself and Naomi in accordance with the provision made for the poor in Leviticus (Leviticus 23:22).

Believers in the Jewish God through His Son Jesus have been gleaning for spiritual food in fields prepared for us by Jewish prophets for millennia, usually without offering thanks to those from whom our spiritual heritage springs.

While working in the heat of the day caring for Naomi Ruth is noticed by her future bridegroom, Boaz. He says to her,

'I have been made fully aware of all you have done for your mother in law
since the death of your husband;
and how you have left your father and mother,
and the land of your birth
and have come to a people unknown to you before.

The Lord recompense you for what you have done
and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel,
under whose wings you have come to take refuge.'

Jesus, our bridegroom, in speaking about how we should care for His brothers, the Jewish people, says,

'In as much as you have done it to the least of My brethren,
you have done it unto Me.' (Matthew 25:31-46)

Isaiah 40:1-2 tells us to offer comfort and support to the Jewish people.

In doing this we are preparing the way of the Lord, removing stumbling blocks of mistrust and fear which have been built up between Jew and Christian over centuries when the church acted more like Orpah, the one who turned her back, than Ruth, the friend (Isaiah 40:3-4).

The result, will be that, 'The glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh (both Jew and Gentile) will see it.' [vs 5] God's Grace and Mercy Ruth, the humble little Moabitess, who by her very origins was forbidden to enter the congregation of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:3), went on to become the grandmother of David, Israel's greatest king, and his descendant Jesus, the Messiah, the Greater David.

She is a beautiful picture of God's grace and mercy offered to the Gentiles through His Son Jesus, but she is also a prophetic word to the church in our day, that we are to say to the Jewish people,

'Urge me not to leave you, or to return from following you;
for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.'

That kind of unconditional love and commitment, one which says, "Let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you," is what God is requiring of us in this day and hour when He is bringing the Jewish people back to the land and back to Himself.

We should also note that Ruth gave her son to Naomi to care for him. The village women said to her,

'May he be to you a restorer of life,
and a nourisher and support of your old age.'

What a beautiful picture of the ministry of the Messiah and what He longs to do for the Jewish people.

How very sad that much of the church, unlike Ruth, chose not to give the Messiah back to the Jewish people, but turned Him into a Gentile, totally unrecognizable to His own people.

Then, having changed Him into a Gentile, they persecuted His brothers in His Name.

It is time for Christians to allow Naomi, in the form of the Jewish people, to have the joy of rediscovering that Jesus is Jewish, that he is family!

The book of Ruth is read in synagogues during the Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost, when two loaves of bread are offered, signifying the bringing together of two peoples, both Jew and Gentile, to become one people worshipping the Lord.

How perfect are God's ways … how wonderfully He reveals Himself to those who search His hidden truths.

As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 11,

'O, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable His judgements, and His paths without tracing out!'