In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.
The book opens with a date and a crisis. Judges ruled Israel, and the land was starving. In one sentence a man leaves the town whose name means "house of bread" and moves to Moab. The whole story grows out of that move.
When it happened
The book just before Ruth ends by describing those same days.
Hamilton SmithThe opening verse tells us that the Book of Ruth deals with events that happened "in the days when the judges ruled." The last verse of the book before it tells us two things that marked the days of the judges. First, "in those days there was no king in Israel." Second, "everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
That era covers a long stretch of Israel's history.
William J HockingNo one can work out the exact date of this famine. It happened during the long period when "the judges ruled." That period stretched from about the death of Joshua to the start of the monarchy. Then Israel rejected the Lord as their King, and the "voice of the people" chose Saul to reign over them.
Famine in the house of bread
Bethlehem means "house of bread."
Samuel RidoutIt seems a strange contradiction to have a famine at Bethlehem. If there is no food at the "house of bread," where can it be found? ... The land depended on the seasonal rains. If these failed there was no river, as in Egypt, to take their place. So the land was in a marked way dependent on heaven.
That dependence gave the famine a meaning beyond weather.
William J HockingThe famine named in the book's opening sentence is itself a hint of the degenerate state of the chosen people. In their case, famine was not a mere physical accident, but a mark of divine displeasure. ... A threat of starvation in such a fertile land implied that God's chastisement had fallen on the tribes. They had neglected His worship and broken His laws. ... The physical fact is stated, but not its moral cause.
The name Elimelech
The famine pushed him out of the land, and the next verse gives his name: Elimelech.
William KellyThe pressure is of such a kind — or at least its effect is — that this Israelite, his wife and his sons end up outside the land of the Lord. The name of the man too seems clearly significant, Elimelech — he to whom God is King. Yet he was an outcast for want!
He may well have felt he had good precedent for the move.
William J HockingWhen the first famine on record came in the land of Canaan, we read, "Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there." Ruth 1:1 echoes those words. Isaac too sought refuge from famine in the land of the Philistines — a land not far off like Egypt, but next door like Moab. ... So Elimelech might have thought these examples from the forefathers matched his own case and justified his journey. Did he not have Scripture behind his plan? ... But a closer look at the history would have taught Elimelech that these incidents showed the slackness of the forefathers, not their integrity. Their conduct was to be avoided, not copied.
Why Moab
Of all the lands around Israel, he picked Moab, and the choice tells us something.
Hamilton SmithThe countries that surround the promised land no doubt picture the world in different forms. Egypt stands for the world with its treasures of wealth and pleasures of sin ... Babylon stands for the world in its religious corruption. Moab shows another side of the world again. ... Moab stands for a life of ease. There a person seeks quiet retreat from every distraction. There is little movement, and life flows along without much change.
His plan and the outcome did not match.
Leslie M. GrantHe intended only to sojourn there, to spend a short time. But the end of verse 2 tells us they "remained there." What a picture of believers who leave the place God has given them! Their own reasoning tells them some other place might be better. ... Faith would stay with God despite the famine.
The fair side of a dark time
Yet this dark beginning is not the whole story.
J. N. DarbyThe book of Ruth also tells us of the days of the judges, when there was no king in Israel. But it shows us the fair side of those days. We see it in the workings of the grace of God, who (blessed be His name!) never failed to work in the middle of the evil. We see it too in the steady progress of events towards the fulfilment of His promises in the Messiah, however far the general evil advanced at the same time.
Summary
- Dark days. The story happens when judges ruled — no king in Israel, and everyone doing what was right in his own eyes.
- Empty bread-house. Famine struck the "house of bread." That land lived on rain from heaven, so the hunger signalled God's displeasure, not bad luck.
- Denied name. Elimelech means "he to whom God is King," yet want drove him outside the Lord's land.
- Chosen ease. Moab pictures comfort rather than open sin — little movement, little change. A short stay there became a permanent one.
- Grace anyway. Even in this failure God keeps working, carrying His promises forward to the Messiah.