In the very first verse of Ruth, we are introduced to the concept of a famine that occurred in the land.
Ruth 1:1 Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem-Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
The question that arises is this, who are the people that are suffering from this famine? These are the same people who were fed by God in the wilderness. These were the people who were promised a land of milk and honey as they were led out of Egypt and into Canaan. That land became their home, their Israel, their Bethlehem. And yet they became sojourners in Moab. Did that mean that God's promises were lies like the lies spoken by politicians before the elections that rarely if ever get fulfilled?
Truth is this, that land of Milk and Honey could not be realized because God's promises had not seen their completion. But what about the people who occupied the land of Canaan before the Israelites? If we remember the report of the twelve spies from The Book of Numbers we will recall that the land was overflowing with milk and honey before the Israelites stepped there. Those who dwelled there were the descendants of Anak, a Nephilim. So, the land itself was not cursed even when the inhabitants were not the chosen people. When Israelites stepped there suddenly they were facing severe famine. Then obvious question is that was the promised land holding promises only for the ungodly?
Num 13:27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.
Elimelech and his family had to travel to Moab with his entire family to avoid death by starvation. These Moabites were the same people with whom God had asked not to have any relationships. This was the Moab, whose king Balaak had bribed the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites (Numbers 22-24). Despite the long-standing animosity between the people this family had chosen to sojourn in Moab. It was not a temporary situation either for their sons had married Moabite women. If they had the assurance that they would return to Judah, neither one of them would take a non-Israeli for a wife. Thus we see that the famine lasted a while and it was followed by personal loss.
Elimelech died. Naomi, the widow, was left in a foreign land with two sons. That is when they took Moabite wives. It can be easily imagined that Naomi was cut off from her kin and kind. She was trying to find bearing in a foreign land but even that was taken away from her when not one, but both sons passed away.
A famine refers to a shortage. It is not necessarily a shortage of food. Wikipedia defines, "A famine (as) a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, inflation, crop failure, population imbalance, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality." Elimelech had escaped from Bethlehem to flee from this increased death and that resulted in the wiping out of the family line with no male heir remaining. Elimelech may have faced material famine in Bethlehem but Naomi faced social and spiritual famine in Moab.
Naomi faced a shortage of a reason to struggle in a foreign land. She faced a shortage of social relevence in the absence of a male member of the family. That was accompanied by material shortage as well as women were not the socially accepted earning members of the family. In the mean time the famine in her own country had been resolved by divine intervention. That is when she decided to return to Bethlehem irrespective of whether she would be accepted or not. Her moral famine was too severe to care for the social situation of a widow in Israel. Nonetheless, she wished well for her daughters-in-law.
If we are to go by example, Naomi could have treated her daughters-in-law severely. Judah had assumed Tamar to be the cause of his sons' deaths and had condemned her to a solitary life. Naomi did not do that. She did not blame her daughters for the deaths of her sons. What she did was she wished them well and asked them to live even when she was not looking forward to life herself. This is the reason every outsider needs a Naomi in their walk of faith- to push them forward despite their reluctance to move.
This brings us back to the concept of Famine. Elimelech and Naomi left for Moab not because they were going hungry in Bethlehem but because the produce of the land was unable to meet their hunger. That is true for many of us today. We go through periods of crisis because we fail to appreciate the stock available to us. When Naomi returns to Bethlehem we find that she had indeed realized where the true famine lay.
Ruth 1:21 I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?
If only we too could realize in time that where our famine or the starvation truly comes from. The starvation was more spiritual than physical. It was not exclusive to Elimelech and Naomi but rather something prevalent in the land at that time. People failed to recognize that the source of this could be a separation from God. Nowhere in the entire book of Ruth do we find any prayer or any act of God. The pious greetings among the people seem a form of lips service at most, the kind that Jesus warns us against. Could that be the source of the starvation?
When we hear of starvation in the Bible, in Genesis God led Joseph to prepare for the famine in Egypt. That famine had a purpose. It firmly established Joseph as the second-in-command to the Pharoah and it provided the sojourning Israel a place to anchor and multiply. That starvation led to a four hundred years settlement in the land of Egypt. Yes, there was slavery faced in the land and there were the ten plagues but seventy turned into thousands in Egypt. So the famine in Egypt led to the growth of God's people. So it is only expected that a famine in Israel leads to some other form of growth. That growth is seen in the form of Ruth. The inclusion of a foreigner amidst the chosen family of Israel is a foreshadowing of greater things to come. Ruth chose to be part of Israel, she chose to be a widower and a sojourner.
Famine is an involuntary period of starvation while fasting is voluntary.
Israel was going through a period of starvation in the absence of God. The story of Ruth takes place in the time of the Judges. We know that the Judges were a period of disobedience, chastisement, and breakthrough of God. The famine, the spiritual famine of the people can be seen as the disobedience of the people as they fail to keep God at the centre of their lives. The tragedy that Naomi suffered can be seen as chastisement. The question that remains is that, where is the breakthrough?
For an aged widow like Naomi, the fact that her daughter-in-law does not abandon her to seek her future amidst her kinsmen is a breakthrough of sorts. All throughout the next part of the story we see that it is Ruth gathering food or seeking redemption from Elimelech's kinsman-redeemer. Ruth assumes the duties that Naomi was incapable of performing due to her mourning, bitterness, and depression.
Naomi's emptiness in life was involuntary but Ruth's was not. Ruth chose this life of her own free will out of her loyalty to a husband who was not living and for a family that could not provide her with any security. While Naomi faced famine, Ruth underwent fasting. The breakthrough in Ruth's life came through the presence of the Kinsman-redeemer in the form of Boaz. That was the blessing at the end of her fast rather than a breakthrough at the end of a chastisement.
