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We Who Thirst by Jessica LM Jenkins
Delve into the captivating tales of women from the Bible, exploring their lives within ancient cultures and historical contexts. These narratives reveal not only their stories but also the profound love and beauty of the God we worship.
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We Who Thirst by Jessica LM Jenkins
024 Naomi & Ruth: When Everything Falls Apart (Ruth 1:1-5)
What if everything you thought you knew about the book of Ruth was missing the heart of the story?
Forget the Hallmark-style romance narrative—Ruth's story plunges us into a world of devastating loss, social vulnerability, and unexpected redemption. The true power of this ancient text lies in how it showcases God's compassion for the marginalized through ordinary people acting justly within divinely established systems.
In this opening episode of our five-part Ruth series, we explore how this book fits within the broader biblical narrative using the Bible Story Path framework. We decode the rich meanings behind Hebrew names—Elimelech ("my God is king"), Naomi ("pleasant"), and her sons whose names eerily foreshadow their fate—to uncover layers of meaning invisible to modern readers.
The historical context proves crucial: Moab's origins from an incestuous relationship, its prohibition from Israel's assembly "to the tenth generation," and its history of enticing Israelites into idolatry all create a backdrop of danger when Naomi's family seeks refuge there during a famine. When her husband and both sons die in this foreign land, Naomi is left utterly destitute with two Moabite daughters-in-law and little hope of restoration.
Rather than rushing to neat theological answers, this exploration invites us to sit with Naomi in her profound loss. Where is God when everything falls apart? How does divine compassion manifest through human justice rather than miraculous intervention? These questions resonate deeply with anyone who has faced devastating circumstances and wondered if God sees their pain.
Connect with me @WeWhoThirst on social media to share how Naomi's story resonates with your own experiences of loss and vulnerability as we await the next chapter in this remarkable journey of redemption through righteousness.
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Contrary to what you've probably heard, the book of Ruth is not a love story or a guide on biblical romance. Instead, this is a book of trouble and hardship that showcases our God's compassion as he reaches out for the weak and the vulnerable and cares for them through the actions of righteous people acting justly in the society and systems that God set up for all of their flourishing. I am so excited that you are here with me to learn about the book of Ruth in this five-part series. To understand what is happening in the book of Ruth, we need to look at the Hebrew, we need to look at the historical context and we need to really wrestle with what the characters in the text are experiencing. I believe the book of Ruth was likely crafted during the monarchy of Israel. There's a lot of places the book of Ruth points to David. Some of the big themes of the book point to David and the Davidic rule, in some ways legitimizing his rule, and so we are going to use those aspects of the Hebrew text to help flesh out the story and some of what is going on in this text. But first let's set the scene. Let's see where are we in the story of Scripture. Overall, in my work as a Bible teacher, I use something called the Bible Story Path to help us keep in mind the full story of scripture. The Bible Story Path is 12 words. That goes through the entire thing to help you keep it all in your mind. Every account fits in somewhere on the Bible Story Path and so, if we were to go through the Bible Story Path, we have creation, adam and Eve, fathers, abraham, moses, conquest, joshua, judges, samson's one of the judges, kingdom, david, solomon, exile. We had daniel return, ezra, nehemiah, and then the silence, and then we have a gospel with jesus and disciples. We have the church age, where we live now, and then we look forward to the future, new creation. So all of biblical history fits onto this Bible story path and if you want to learn more about that specifically, check out my website, mewhothirstcom, or my Etsy that goes under the same name, and I have downloads and explanations of the Bible story path there. I have an excellent trifold brochure that has the entire thing with all the books of the Bible. Highly recommend it. I'll be sure to link it in the show notes.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So when we look at the book of Ruth, we have the book of Ruth, the events of the book of Ruth are situated in the judge's time period, and we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get into the text. The original hearers in my belief those who received the Book of Ruth would have existed just one time period later, in the kingdom time period. There would be a king, there would be a formal government and the Book of Ruth some scholars think it was written by a woman, or at least originally composed by a woman. So perhaps you have an oral tradition of Ruth's story being passed down through generations of women that a scribe took and then wrote out to finally write the book of Ruth in similar to the form we have today. So that gives us some basic context and background of the book as a whole. It is a book that helps to undergird King David's legitimacy as king, and we will talk about why that would be important according to the Mosaic law here in a moment. But in order to really get into the book of Ruth, we have to allow ourselves to hear it in some ways, the same way the original hearers would have heard it.
Jessica LM Jenkins:In the text of scripture in the Hebrew language, a lot of names have meanings that are significant. Now, all names have a meaning. My name is Jessica. Jessica means wealthy in some ways, and my parents named me Jessica or wealthy that I would be wealthy and overflowing with the character of God. That was the blessing they gave me with my name. But when you hear Jessica, you don't think wealthy, that's not at all on your mind, even though that is the meaning behind my name. But in the Hebrew language a lot of names had overt meanings. It was like if I named my child Apple, you think about Apple immediately every time you hear it. Or if I named my child Grace. That is a character quality. It has a meaning and it's overt, it's in your face, shall we say. The Hebrew names are likewise. They are overt, they are in your face. So I'm going to read the first five verses of the book of Ruth and, rather than the transliterated name, which is what we're used to hearing, I'm going to say what the name means in Hebrew. So it'll sound very different, but it will give you a more immersive feel into the story and we'll do this in each episode for the passage that we are going through in that episode. Today we are doing chapter one, one through five. We're just doing the basic introductory information, because there's a lot to break down to really help us flesh out everything that's going on. So let me read that to us now. This is my own translation from the Hebrew text, so I'm not reading a different Bible.
Jessica LM Jenkins:And then it happened in the days. The judges judged that there was a famine in the land and a certain man from the city of bread in the tribe of the Lord be praised, went sojourning in the fields of incest. He and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was my God is king, the name of his wife, pleasant, and the name of his two sons, sick and wasting away. They were very fruitful ones for the city of bread in the land of the Lord be praised, and they came to the fields of incest and they were there. Then, my God is king, the husband of a pleasant, died. She herself and her two sons were left. Then they took to themselves women of the incestual land. The name of the first one was Turnable, the name of the second was Refreshing Friend. And then they lived there about 10 years and then, weak and wasting away, died, also the two of them, and then the woman was left from her two sons and from her husband. So when we start walking through this story, the names themselves give us huge hints onto what's going to happen before we even get there.
Jessica LM Jenkins:And we're going to go verse by verse in a moment, but I want to sit in the pain for a moment. These first five verses open up a ton of questions, ton of questions, and they allow us to see the darker part of life that we don't always want to talk about in our churches or our Bible studies. We are used to environments where we put on our happy face and we praise the Lord, and that is what we do. But when you read the book of Ruth, you have to wrestle with loss, you have to wrestle with pain. The book of Ruth is really in many ways Naomi's story, more than Ruth.
Jessica LM Jenkins:These first five verses center on Naomi. She is the one who loses everything except for Ruth, except for her God. Naomi's pain is palpable in these first five verses. As she starts the passage pretty much as high as a peasant woman could get in the ancient world. She is a wife, she is a mother of not one but two sons, so she is a matriarch. She has a face and a voice in her community. She has a presence and a place and then she loses it all. She loses her home, she loses her community, she loses her husband and she loses her two sons. And the text says she is left. So let's walk through the text verse by verse and see what else we can pull out.
Jessica LM Jenkins:Verse one says it happened in the days the judges judged. So this, of course, as we already discussed, takes us to the time of the judges. In our English Bibles, the book of Judges happens right before the book of Ruth. Now, if you recall the book of Judges, this was a very tumultuous time in the life of Israel. The theme phrase of the book of Judges is and they had no king, so everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The people are just doing whatever they want. There is no king, and the book of Judges is largely pointing for the people's need for a king, or at least for the reason they thought they needed a king. God was their king, but they didn't want to accept his reign and his rule. And so it happens in the days the judges judges.
Jessica LM Jenkins:Scholars are not sure which judges the story of Ruth would have happened under. I looked at several different commentators and one of them gave us a spread of judges that was pretty much the whole book. Another said it might have been a couple at the end, around Jephthah or Samson. We really don't know. Which judges might have been doing their judging during the time of Ruth. But this is a time period of where everything is very tribal. We don't have a lot of people acting righteously. They're not acting how God wants them to act, which is why we keep having to have judges, because during the time of judges they would go through a cycle.
Jessica LM Jenkins:The people of Israel would fall away from the Lord, they would disobey God, and so God would curse them, as he promised to do in the Mosaic Law. And the Mosaic Law is like if you honor me, god, I will bless you. If you disobey me, if you dishonor me, if you bring shame to my name, I will curse you. And we see that play out in real time in the book of Judges. They would disobey God, they would shame God, they would worship other gods and he would bring enemy nations in to conquer them and oppress them. And then they would cry out to the Lord. The Lord would raise up a judge, a deliverer, a military leader usually, who would come and defeat that enemy kingdom and then the cycle would start over. While that deliverer, that judge, was ruling, they would have peace. And this happened all over Israel, different tribes. If you look at a list of the judges, it's all over the nation of Israel.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So it's kind of during this tumultuous cyclical time that the Book of Ruth happens, and so it happened in the days of the judges that there was a famine in the land. A famine was one of the things that God said might happen as a curse if you're not obeying me. So this is not unexpected. That there would be a famine during the time of judges, when nobody's doing God way and they're all doing what is right in their own eyes. This is perfectly to be expected. But it also highlights that the book of Ruth showcases God's care for the weak and the vulnerable, with righteous. People function justly in the systems God set up in the Mosaic law. That is significant. This is not just individuals doing the right thing, it is individuals choosing to work the systems God created for the flourishing of his people.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So there is a famine in the land Now. Famine often could mean no rain. With the geography, carol Myers has pointed out that sometimes you could have some fields that got the water they needed and some who didn't. So famine could be somewhat localized, even within a small community like Bethlehem. It could be somewhat localized depending on the rain, depending on groundwater, all sorts of things, but there's a famine in the land. So this seems to be at least tribal, it's at least the general geographic region. This means that people are going to be not doing well. There's going to be malnutrition, there's going to be starvation, there's going to be a breakdown of community relationships because people are going to be just focused on how they can get.
Jessica LM Jenkins:And so during this, a certain man from the city of bread, from Bethlehem, in the tribe of the Lord be praised Judah, went sojourning in the fields of incest for Moab. So immediately we see irony in this text. There is a famine in the city of bread, a city that is supposed to be fruitful. The breadbasket of the region, the chief father of their entire tribe, was named the Lord be praised. But we're in a time of judges where the Lord is not praised. People are running off and doing their own thing, and so this certain man leaves. He leaves the city of bread, he leaves the land that should be praising the lord and he sojourns in the fields maybe they had food when israel didn't in the fields of mo sojourning is where you leave your land and you go and stay as a refugee or a foreigner in somebody else's land, hoping to have physical safety, hoping to have food. We see Abraham and Isaac did this when there was a famine, when they were in the land. But for those originally hearing this, there's going to be red flags going off constantly. You have a man from the city of bread where there is no bread. It's a famine in the land that's supposed to be worshiping the Lord leaving that land.
Jessica LM Jenkins:The ancient world thought about geography and purity in overlapping terms. They believed that wherever the Lord was was the most most pure. So when there was the temple would be the temple before the temple. We're going to center it on the tabernacle, which for some of the time was in shiloh, which is a bit north of jerusalem. We're not sure where the tabernacle was necessarily at this point, but we can use that as a general reference point. So in their mind for purity, the tabernacle or the temple is going to be the most holy, the most pure place in the land, and then it moves out from there. So you have the Holy of Holies, which is the absolute most pure. Then the tabernacle or the temple is pure, and then the city or the surrounding region is going to be pure, and then the land of Israel is going to also be pure. But we see this man. He's moving outside of that, he's moving into impure territory. That is going to strike danger bells in the mind or it should in the mind of the hearer who's familiar with the purity maps of the day. But he's not just going anywhere, he's going to Moab.
Jessica LM Jenkins:Moab has a very sordid history from top to bottom. The name Moab I said incest here, but it literally means in Hebrew Moab from father. Because the people of Moab, according to the book of Genesis we'll see this in Genesis 19,. You can go read the passage the people of Moab came from an incestual relationship between Lot and his daughter. The daughters, if you recall Genesis 19, get their father pregnant, they get their father drunk and then they sleep with him and get pregnant by him. So, and then she bears a child, one of the daughters, and literally names him from father. So not a good look. There's a lot of sexual innuendo just in the name. And so he's going to the city of Moab, which started from an incestual relationship.
Jessica LM Jenkins:And then in Deuteronomy 23, 2 through 3, it says and I'm reading the NIV no one born of a foreign marriage or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. And this was because, when Israel was coming to the land, moab refused to offer them hospitality, even though they were tribal relations, which was a huge, shameful offense. And so the Lord said the people of Moab may not enter the assembly, they may not worship at the tabernacle, they may not worship at the temple. They can live among you, but they are not to be core worshipers in the tabernacle and the temple for 10 generations. Now, why is this significant? Because, as I said, the book of Ruth points to David, who is Ruth's great-great-grandson or great-grandson. He is much less than 10 generations away, and Solomon is much less than 10 generations away, who is going to build the temple of God. So this could be a concern. And so, again, moab is a concerning place to be. We have the ancestral beginnings of Moab we have their exclusion from the assembly of Israel.
Jessica LM Jenkins:Then Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel. God wouldn't let Balaam curse Israel, so he had the bright idea of having Moabite women seduce Israelite men into pagan worship. That's in Numbers 22 through 25. So Moab has a history of seducing Israelite men to their gods, away from the Lord. Then, most recently, to the book of Ruth, eglon, king of Moab was conquering and treating poorly the tribe of Benjamin, which is just north of Judah geographically, and Bethlehem is like right on the border between the tribal territories of Judah and Benjamin. Jerusalem is in the tribe of Benjamin's territory in the Old Testament and Bethlehem is just like a couple miles south of Jerusalem and the border goes between them.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So a certain man from the city of bread, which has no bread, leaves the land that worships the Lord to go, stay temporarily in this land that is known for incest, it's known for a lack of hospitality, it's known for sexual deviancy and inviting Israel to rebel against the Lord and it is known for oppressing God's people. That is where he decides to go, and this man took his wife and his two sons with him, and the name of the man was my God is King. In a time where there is no king, where God is supposed to be king. This man's parents named him my God is is King to point to who the true king is. And yet, because of the famine, he walks away from the land of his God.
Jessica LM Jenkins:The text of Ruth does not put shame. It does not say anything about whether Elimelech or my god is king made the right choice here. It leaves those questions lingering in our minds. It doesn't tell us what the author thinks, but nothing good comes of this decision. The name of the man was my god is king. The name of the man was my God is King. The name of his wife was Lesant, the name of their two sons, sick and Wasting Away. Every time I talk about the sons, I get the question who would name their child Sick and Wasting Away? Well, we don't know for sure that that is their literal given name.
Jessica LM Jenkins:The person who wrote down the text of Ruth could have fiddled with the spelling a little bit. There are words that are similar sounding. That could have been their name, but they just flipped the spelling a little bit. We know things can be spelled multiple ways. Again, my name is Jessica. It is spelled J-E-S-S-I-C-A, but if you really wanted, you could spell my name G-E-S-S-Y-K-A-H. Now, because our names don't have significant meaning that we know of. That wouldn't change the meaning of my name. But if you use their T-H-E-R-E or their T-H-E-I-R, those have two different meanings even though they sound the same because they're spelled different. So we could have something like that that their name sounded like sickly and wasting away and the person who wrote down the story changed it.
Jessica LM Jenkins:It could be that this was a nickname that these boys got, that just stuck with them through to adulthood. We all know somebody who got a nickname and they are still called that nickname by almost everyone today, especially if you're dealing with food scarcity and you have young men who might be very well, sickly and wasting away. You have two little boys. You know Naomi didn't name them that, but maybe they have food allergies or maybe famine has been a concern for a while. So they are malnutritioned. They haven't been able to grow strong. They are not healthy, they are not strong, which may be why a limelight's like we got to get out of here because they're not going to survive a famine. We've had such malnutrition already that they're not going to make it. So we got to go, and so their names could have come from just being not healthy young men in an era where they're all sustenance farmers and if you lose a harvest it's going to have huge impact on your children's ability to grow.
Jessica LM Jenkins:We don't know where the names came from, but Malchon and Chilion sound like the Hebrew words sickness and wasting away. And so my God is king, pleasant, sickly and wasting away. We're very fruitful ones, or Ephratites from the city of bread, bethlehem, in the land that the Lord be praised of Judah. Ephratites, a very fruitful one could be their clan designation, showing which part of the tribe of Israel they are with, they are aligned with. It is interesting, if you look at 2 Chronicles 2, that the great-grandmother of the man Bethlehem, for whom we believe the city was named, the great-grandmother of Bethlehem, was a woman named Ephrata. So it's possible that she had significance in creating this clan of which now Elimelech is a part, in creating this clan of which now Elimelech is a part.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So Elimelech verse 2, takes his family and he leaves Israel, he leaves Judah, he leaves Bethlehem and goes to Moab. They go to the fields of Moab you have a picture here of them leaving a dry, desolate, cracked earth, famine land and they go to the fields. I picture, you know, wheat waving in the wind, the amber waves of grain, and so they go to the fields of Moab. Oh, maybe they'll be okay. Abraham found sustenance in Egypt, isaac found sustenance when there was a famine. Maybe there's hope. And then, while they were there, elimelech, the husband of Naomi, dies. The text doesn't tell us if he died because of his decision. We don't know why, but we just.
Jessica LM Jenkins:The text continues to go from bad to worse. There's a famine, they leave God's land and now the patriarch of their family dies and she, naomi herself, and her two sons were left. This gives the imagery of abandonment. They have just they're left. They have nothing. But the sons took to themselves women from Moab, moabite women. This may give the audience, the original audience of the book of Ruth, pause, because you remember, balaam had the suggestion of sleep or send Moabite women to seduce Israelite men, and now we see Israelite men marrying Moabite women.
Jessica LM Jenkins:Did Naomi and her sons leave the worship of the God of Israel? Did they adopt Moabite worship? We don't know, but that's a question that should be going around in our mind, that would be going around in the mind of the original audience. The name of one of the women was Turnable or Orpha Now Orpha. We're not really sure what it means. Some people think it means the back of the neck, which is where you kind of get the Turnable idea, but nobody quite knows what it means. I went with turnable. The name of the second was refreshing friend. That would be Ruth, and then they lived there for 10 years. So now Naomi's family has gone from sojourning in Moab to living in Moab. This Hebrew word indicates settling. They're living there, they're making a home there, they have married, they are living there.
Jessica LM Jenkins:We do not know what customs they are adopting, but we know that often women would be in charge of some of the household worship, and women were often involved in the ancestor worship and the daily routines that would include incantations and prayers and all of these things to your god. Whoever you're worshiping, women would be doing these things on a daily basis. And so when they bring these women in, there's a question of does Naomi, as the matriarch, retrain these women in prayers and incantations for the Lord, or does the family adopt the Moabite religion? When I was studying for this podcast, someone asked would Ruth have had a dowry? It's very likely both Ruth and Orpha would have brought dowries into the marriage.
Jessica LM Jenkins:It's not mentioned in the text, but those sorts of things are assumed by the ancient culture. But it also may be that Ruth and Orpha were not from a well-off family. They may have been from a fairly poor, destitute family themselves, which is why Naomi's sons could marry them, because Naomi's sons don't have a lot to offer. They don't have land, they don't have a house. They might be hiring themselves out as day laborers somewhere, but that's the best they can do. They might be like renting something, and so they may have had a dowry if their family could afford it. But if they married these sojourning men who have practically nothing, it seems they may not have had much of their own wealth at all. They may be from a very poor, very low class family in Moab family.
Jessica LM Jenkins:In Moab, dowries were standard. But you have to have something to give as an inheritance to give your daughter a dowry, and we just don't know anything about their family background to know whether their families had enough wealth to invest in the union of the daughters, with Naomi's sons to invest a dowry. So they live there about 10 years and it's not stated but no children are born. They live there 10 years and then, weak and wasting away Malchon and Chilion, they also die. So no children are born. They sojourn. They've decided to marry, they've decided to live, to make their home, and they stay there for 10 years. Presumably the famine has let up we don't know exactly when it let up, but they're just staying. And the question is would they have stayed there forever if Mahon and Chilion hadn't died? Why are they still there after 10 years? Is it because Ruth and Orpha don't want to go Again? Questions that we have.
Jessica LM Jenkins:But for Naomi, these whole five verses sink deeper and deeper and deeper into pain and sorrow. She loses everything. She loses her home, she loses her community. She loses her home, she loses her community, she loses her husband, she loses her two sons. And the last phrase of verse five says and then the woman. It doesn't even name her.
Jessica LM Jenkins:And then the woman was left from her two sons and her husband. She has no status. She has no status, she has no wealth. She has nothing except two foreign daughters-in-law, and next time we will talk about how she's going. What is she going to do with these women? Evidently they were probably living with her rather than with, rather than her, with their households old, but they may not be able to make an income, especially if Malchon and Chilion were day laborers You're not day laboring, you're out or maybe they were at some wealthy man's plantation and he's like, yeah, you can live in that shack if you work in my fields as a laborer, and so maybe that's how they were making their money. But now Naomi has nothing because she can't necessarily do the work needed to keep her temporary home and her daughters-in-law are dependent on her because she is the matriarch and they married into her family and there are family obligations that are necessary to be upheld in this culture.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So as we look at the book of Re, there, sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow, and it leaves our heart wondering where is God in all of this? Where is hope in all of this? And that's questions I want to leave you with at the end of this episode on purpose. I want to leave you with at the end of this episode on purpose, because often in our lives we come to the end of a situation and there it doesn't seem to be hope, there doesn't seem to be answers, and we are left with where is our God? Often, in Bible studying, we want to rush to application. We want to find the answer, we want to find the application, but sometimes we need to just sit in the pain and the loss and feel the feelings of despondency and of losing everything. Naomi has nothing. That does not mean she's without hope. We know that because many of us know the rest of the story, but she doesn't know the rest of the story.
Jessica LM Jenkins:So, as you wait for the next episode of this Ruth podcast, ponder Naomi's perspective. Ponder how you would respond if you were in this situation where you have lost everything, you are left, you are abandoned. That is the kind of language here. She's abandoned, she has nothing, she is completely destitute, and what we will find is that there is a God who cares for the destitute, is that there is a God who cares for the destitute, but he doesn't always show up when or how we expect. So come back next time when we are going to re-engage Naomi's story and see what is she going to do with these daughters-in-law.
Jessica LM Jenkins:While you are waiting for that next episode, get on my social media channels at WeWhoThirst and give me some feedback. Talk to me about Ruth and Naomi and what you have learned from this episode. How do these first five verses feel to you as you process your life with loss and pain and suffering, or have you had the type of life where you can't relate to loss, pain and suffering? How do you view those who have had loss, pain and suffering?
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