Ruth 1:6-14

Longing for the old home.

Brings to view

I. NAOMI 'S RESOLUTION . No wonder that she formed it; for—

1. The ties that bound her to the land of Moab had been snapped by the hand of death. In the death of her husband there was the disruption of the house-band . In the deaths of her two sons who had become husbands , the only other bands or bonds that could keep together for Naomi a home in Moab were burst. Matthew Henry says, "The land of Moab was now become a melancholy place to her. It is with little pleasure that she can breathe in that air in which her husband and sons had expired; or go on that ground in which they lay buried out of her sight, but not out of her thoughts."

2. Her heart had got sick for the home of her youth, that home which was now to her imagination and recollection "home, sweet home." "Heaven," she remembered, "lay around her" in her childhood. And such feelings as then thrilled within her are the stuff out of which, as years roll on, patriotism is woven.

3. She was reduced to absolute poverty. Diseases and death are costly, especially in a strange land, among strangers. And pitiable is the condition of those who, in a strange land and among strangers, are unable to "pay their way."

4. She would shrink, moreover, from the possibility of being burdensome to her daughters-in-law, who might, in consequence of their own widowhood, have difficulty in lending efficient assistance. However much she was pulled down in her circumstances, in her spirit her fine womanly independence stood erect.

5. She had learned that brighter days bad dawned on the land of her early love. "The Lord had visited his people to give them bread." And "bread," as Dr. Thomas Fuller remarks, "is a dish in every course. Without it can be no feast; with it can be no famine." The Lord gave it.

The miracle of the loaves was a sudden putting forth of God's bountiful hand from behind the veil of his ordinary providence; the miracle of the harvest is the working of the same bountiful hand, only unseen, giving power to the living grains to drink the dew and imbibe the sunshine, and appropriate the nourishment of the soil during the long bright days of summer. I understand the one miracle in the light of the other".

II. SCENE AT NAOMI 'S DEPARTURE .

1. Her daughters-in-law, who had "dealt kindly" with their husbands, had likewise dealt kindly with her. What was to become of them?

2. They convoyed Naomi for some distance, and then, as they all halted, she reminded them that every step in advance took them further from their mothers' homes, and she insisted on their returning. Not for her own sake, however, but for theirs. In their own land their prospects would be brighter than in Judaea. Their mothers were still living, and would no doubt be motherly. Their other relatives would be at hand. They themselves might each be the means of brightening some solitary home. She prayed that they might have "rest." This word, so sweet to the weary and the distracted, reveals one element that is essential to the comfort of a home, whether that home be a cottage or a castle.

3. Naomi's words overwhelm the hearts of her daughters-in-law. They passionately express their desire to accompany her to her old home. But she persists firmly, though tenderly and meltingly, in her dissuasives. It is a scene of weeping—a valley of Baca. At length Orpah yields, and tears herself away. But Ruth would not yield. She "clave to her mother-in-law." The character of both the young widows is beautiful, but that of Ruth is heroic. This world is a constantly checkered scene of arrivals and departures. Looming in the near or more remote future, there is one departure which must be made "in solemn loneliness." Whither? With what convoy?

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON