The Refugee Series

Good evening. My name is Naomi. You've probably already heard of my daughter-in-law Ruth, who has become very famous. But the story really began long before Ruth came on the scene. Before everything started to go wrong, my husband Elimelech and I lived in the city of Bethlehem in Judah. It had been about 200 years since Joshua had led the tribes into the land, and Bethlehem had become a very nice place to live, peaceful and prosperous. It's far enough south of the border not to be much troubled by the wars between Ephraim and Ammon, and it was far enough north to have plenty of rain for growing good crops. So we lived there, Elimelech and I, with our two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, and I thought there could be no life more contented and fulfilling than ours.

But then the crops failed. One year there wasn't enough rain, the next year the rain came at the wrong time, and the year after that the spring rains never came at all. We started a couple of business ventures, to try to keep our heads above water, but neither of them worked out and of course at the end we had used up almost all our savings. So Elimelech decided to use what little we had left to emigrate to Moab on the other side of the Salt Sea to start over. Their weather hadn't been as bad as ours, the economy was pretty healthy, and there were a lot of opportunities for a man who was willing to work hard.

It was difficult, of course, having to leave my friends and my cozy home where we'd all been so happy. And to go to Moab, of all places! There'd been bad blood between our people for generations, ever since Moses' day when Balaam tried to curse us and then they corrupted our young men with their horrible idol-worship. We weren't actually at war, of course, or Elimelech would never have taken us there, but everyone knew that Moabites were just terribly immoral and ungodly people. It was a terrific scandal. Several of my neighbors came by, they said to wish me luck, but the things they said about my Elimelech! He was too a good husband and provider. It wasn't his fault the crops failed; and what did they expect him to do? Sell himself, or me, or one of the boys into slavery? Would they have wanted their husbands to let them starve rather than to take a risk in a foreign land? I refused to listen to their reproaches, and tried to be just as optimistic and supportive as I could, so that Elimelech would know that we, at least, believed in him.

So we bundled up the few possessions we had left onto our shoulders and started to walk to Moab. It doesn't look very far on the map, but my word! Bethlehem is way up in the mountains, about 3,000 feet above the Middle Sea (what you call the Mediterranean) over on the west coast, and even farther above the Salt Sea, which we had to cross to get where we were going. And then Moab is just as high up as Bethlehem, so then we had to climb right back up again. We were lucky in one way, though; there had been so little rain that year that the Salt Sea was really low, and we could go right across, instead of going around the south end, through the desert.

And, well, to make a long story short, we bought a nice little business in the city of Ar, up here on the plains, and after a kind of rough start and some misunderstandings with our new neighbors, we started doing reasonably well. Mahlon and Chilion were turning into fine young men and were a great help to their father. But then one day Elimelech came in for the evening meal and just collapsed right there in front of the fire. He died before morning without saying a word. He was a good man, my Elimelech; I still miss him. But I had my two boys, and I knew they'd take good care of me.

I understand that in your day a woman can be head of a household, but that's not the way it was back then, especially outside of Israel. Only men had legal standing, which meant that a woman could only run a business or manage property under the protection of the head of her family. She couldn't just go out and get a job, either; the only choices a woman had, if she didn't have property to lease out or a family to protect her, were to sell herself into slavery or become a prostitute. And an old woman couldn't even do that. So I was really fortunate that God had given me two strong sons to depend upon.