Coming Home
She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?” Ruth 1:20-21
Mara – We all know about Naomi. She is Ruth’s mother-in-law, the one who comes back to Bethlehem without a husband or her sons. The one Ruth insists on accompanying. The one who tells the women of the village not to call her by her given name, meaning “pleasant,” but by the name of her own self-perception, Mara, “bitter.” We think we know about this woman. We think she is returning to her native village because the famine is over. But we haven’t read the clues. Yael Ziegler’s commentary on Ruth contains the startling conclusion. “The total absence of any expectations, hope, or ambitions leads me to conclude that Naomi has returned to Bethlehem not to live, but to die.”[1]
Does Ziegler’s insight change your view about this story? I should think so. No longer do we see the interplay between Ruth and Naomi as a commitment of a younger outsider to the family and religion of an older relative. What Ruth is really doing is acting as life support for her mother-in-law. She is literally willing her mother-in-law to live and she is willing to do whatever it takes to provide her with life. Naomi sees nothing in her reality except extinction. Her family name is gone. Her prospects are depleted. As far as she is concerned, God has judged her. Her life is over. Even God isn’t on her side anymore.
It is important to note that Naomi uses two names for God in her statement. The first is shaddai, commonly translated as “Almighty.” But the translation obscures the connection between shaddai and fertility and compassion (cf. Genesis 17:1). Importantly, the same thoughts occur in Job. Compare Naomi’s statement with Job’s (Job 27:2). God Himself is the inexplicable source of this distress. El Shaddai afflicts. No one understands. The second name, YHVH, only emphasizes the distress. This is the personal name of the God of the covenant promise. And yet, He “has brought me back empty.” Why? It is a question rarely ever answered.
What about us? Are we more like Ruth or Naomi? Are we depleted, empty, struggling to find the will to go on, ready to go home to die because we can’t understand why God is doing this to us? Or are we Ruth, outsiders to the personal covenant God but committed to keeping another alive if even it costs us all we have? Are we focused on ourselves, demanding answers for God’s actions? Or are we willing to give up ourselves in order to keep others from giving up on themselves?
What name are you asking others to call you?
Topical Index: Mara, shaddai, Ruth 1:20-21
[1] Yael Ziegler, Ruth, p. 181.
Ziegler’s insight does open my eyes to something I hadn’t thought of before. Now I see why she was so insistent Ruth and Orpah return to Moab even return to the gods of Moab, she just wanted to be left alone to die. Gives new meaning to Ruth words to her in verse 16-17. Maybe Ruth’s commitment to her give her a slight glimmer of hope to not give up and she finally relented to let her stay.
Skip,
Thanks for not only telling us about the Hebrew word “davak” (The End of the Individual, July 7, 2016), but then following up and showing us Biblical examples! Please continue!
The difference in perspective is not just theological. Naomi is old. Ruth is young.
Ruth can start over. She is still young. Her life still lies ahead of her.
She can have hope for a new life, one that still gets her a husband and children. Naomi is older. Her desire will not be fulfilled and she knows it. She knows she will not likely be asked to marry again and will not have more sons. Her status in the community is sealed. She will die a childless widow.
Sometimes we can get lost seeking theology and miss the reality of the humans.
Have you known a woman who in her later years realizes she will never marry and certainly never give birth? I have. The women I have known who deal with this are often heartbroken and deal with mara. It doesn’t mean they have abandoned God. It means they are dealing with very real grief.
Yes, this is also part of the story. And notice that at the end of Ruth it is Naomi who receives the child.
The question is asked today: “Are we focused on ourselves,
demanding answers for God’s actions?”
Today, Oswald Chambers offers an answer. He writes in part:
“We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy
a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ,
for the purpose of building His body.” He adds: “To fulfill God’s perfect design for me
requires my total surrender — complete abandonment of myself to Him.”
I’ve heard it suggested that Naomi and Elimelich’s decision to move to Moab was not pleasing to God and that perhaps the death of Naomi’s husband and 2 sons was a consequence of their choice. Perhaps deep down in her heart, Naomi knew they had made a poor choice to live among pagans and that drove her bitterness…it was easier to blame God than her husband or herself.
But, in spite of Naomi and Elimelech’s choices, God used them to fulfill His plans.
It’s exciting to know that, while Naomi returned to Bethlehem to die, God had other plans/purposes to restore not only her, but Ruth as well. He can turn our bitterness into joy.
BTW…I’ve also read that, while considered a gentile, Ruth was actually genetically linked to Israel through Lot (Abraham’s nephew.) The Moabites descended from Moab, who was one of Lot’s sons.
Right on both counts. Ziegler’s books details the first, from rabbinic sources. The second is also true, except, of course, that Abraham wasn’t an Israelite.
Dear Skip,
Very interesting viewpoint in keeping with where our focus is, on ourselves and our own betterment, or on those around us. Tying this in with Ruth’s heritage as a descendent of Lot, Ruth could only gain back her inheritance, by helping Naiomi regain hers.
Blessings
So it may be something like to find my Godly purpose I need to first help someone confirm theirs…
Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, was ready to end his own life at 65 because he felt like such a failure. But then he decided that he hadn’t done one more thing he could, that was cook. Having only $108 left , he borrowed another $88, he started frying chicken at 65 and selling them to his neighbors in Kentucky. He finally built an empire at 88.
I’d like to draw a parallel between Harland’s life and Naomi’s. Life must have really been hard for them both while they were able. And when nothing much was left for them to hang on to, God sends a silver-lining, and redeems every failure, every bitterness, and turns it into exceedingly great joy!
For Naomi, she became the ancestor of the great King and Messiah forever. What an incredible heritage! So when life gets hard, it’s ok to keep going by the only thing we know how to do, that is to keep doing the one thing that is left to do. Naomi used her wisdom and knowledge of her own tribe for Ruth to get around their livelihoods. God and religion was never mentioned in that entire book of Ruth, but God was undeniably very present in orchestrating every event. We never know when times get really hard but we can keep focus on the grace that remains, make way for the grace of God to come through.
Loh Poh Lin
I think you are getting the book of Esther mixed up with the book of Ruth.
In the Book of Ruth there certainly is much prayer and thanksgiving to God with the use of His personal name Yahweh. There is also “religion” or ritual. One of its key elements is the function of an Israelite law, namely the kinsman redeemer.
(Note also, The ancestor of Messiah is through Ruth and Naomi’s kinsman, not Naomi.)
Esther, by contrast, never uses the title God, let alone His personal name. Neither does it mention other significant facets of daily Jewish ritual life. There is fasting and the days of Purim are appointed but there is no thanksgiving to God for their salvation. It is, therefore, curious.
The personal name of YHVH only appears a few times in Ruth, once in the mouth of Naomi, twice in the statements of greetings between Boaz and his workers, once in the mouth of Boaz about gleaning and once as a statement of sovereignty over pregnancy. Except for the last of these, the rest are more or less customary greetings. I’m not sure I would characterize Ruth as a book of prayer and thanksgiving, although those two things do happen, especially at the end to the story (which, by the way, is about Naomi, not Ruth). Esther, as you pointed out, is even more terse when it comes to God’s name, hinted at only once. Curiously, although Leverite law is employed in Ruth, the a actual circumstances do no warrant its application. And, yes, the line of Elimelech disappears. Both of these books contain considerable anomalies but they also show that God is actively at work WITHOUT being recognized as such. And both of these women act is ways that are not socially appropriate yet God is still using them.
Once again, it is all about life’s journeys, individual and corporate.
Every decision, choice, words spoken, deeds, will have their consequences.
Through every step we take, either we go forward, or, backwards, or worse, we remain stagnant in our progress spiritually.
Either HOT, or, COLD, no sitting on the fence, if no fruit bearing/ transformation of character, in spite of much knowledge, that tree/person will be cut off, as an unclean person, from the camp.
Thankfully, Naomi desires to be back in her homeland to die, or otherwise, as most of the patriarchs desired to be buried in their homeland. And, thankfully, Ruth, a tower of strength and inspiration to Naomi, was willing to step out of the box of her beliefs for her.
Naomi, I believe lived her part well to inspire Ruth to take to a path unfamiliar to her.
This talk by Rabbi David Stern at TED may inspire us to further heights in our journeys-
Entittled, Roundup Spirituality Go to Utube, search for Rabbi David Stern and the topic.
Shalom!