At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:14-17).

In the previous section, we heard the beginning signs of hope. It is the Lord’s doing. In verse 6, Naomi hears that “the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them,” and so “she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.”

Slowly, a salvation begins to emerge. Where there was famine, now there is food. Bethlehem, the house of bread, is no longer empty and bereft.

Yet after responding to this good news together, Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to turn back and go to their own homes, families, and gods. Naomi’s bitterness at all of her losses have not closed off her ability to respond to good news like that of bread in Bethlehem, but it’s not that she holds out much hope. The bitterness of her past continues to cloud Naomi’s future and she does not wish it to become the burden of others.

Orpah listens to Naomi and turns back. Her name comes from the same word in Hebrew as the word “stiff-necked.” God’s people are often accused of being a “stiff-necked” people who do not know how to respond to the good news of God’s presence and provision. This is not an indictment of Orpah. Instead, Orpah functions as a symbol of Naomi’s own hesitancy to believe that the promises of God can really come true. Will Naomi become “stiff-necked” in the end, resistant to the hope of redemption that her God is offering her?

Ruth speaks to a different path Naomi might take. One in which she may trust that she will never be left nor forsaken. Ruth’s vow to Naomi harkens back to the sort of clinging-together of the man and woman in the garden of Eden when they become one flesh. It is a firm commitment that transcends even our own marriage vows where death will “do us part.” “May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” Says Ruth.

Ruth’s name means “friendship.” She is to Naomi the kind of friend who sticks closer than a sibling, even closer than a spouse.

There are times when we are caught by despair: hopeless, bitter, cynical, alone—like Naomi. If left to ourselves, we can be overcome by that kind of despair. It is a despair that can make us resistant to God’s promises, stiff-necked. We can begin to fall away from our faith, disenchanted.

Time and time again, the remedy offered in the Bible for such despair is friendship. Community. An embrace from others who can hold out hope and faith for us until our hearts are healed and we can believe again ourselves. It is difficult at times not to feel forsaken by the God we cannot see, but when his love and presence are communicated to us through the firm commitment of a friend we can see—our faith can be renewed.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.