Book of Ruth

[0:00] All right, well, this morning we're going to start a new study for Sunday school.

[0:16] It shouldn't take a long time. It's a small book, but we're going to study the book of Ruth. So why don't you open up your Bibles to the book of Ruth.

[0:30] Okay, I had something I was going to put up there, but I messed it up. I'm trying to advance it.

[0:42] Andrew, I'm trying to advance the slide to the first picture. The TV was on, and I blacked it out. There you go. Thank you. Now I want to know if I have control.

[0:53] Okay. Okay, so we are in the book of Ruth back there in the Old Testament. Joshua judges Ruth. And we're going to take a couple weeks here and just go verse by verse through the book.

[1:08] And you'll be surprised how much is in here. There always is more in there than you think. It's not just some story about a lady. As a matter of fact, in looking through the mentions here, the book's named after Ruth.

[1:24] But I'd have to look at it again and really count the nouns and pronouns and proper names and all that to see. I think Naomi's mentioned or referred to more than Ruth is in the entirety of the book.

[1:37] It starts with Naomi. It ends with Naomi. But it's named after Ruth, which is interesting in itself and brings up some thoughts that we'll cover as we go through.

[1:48] Before we even get into it, let's pray and ask the Lord to help us in this hour. Father, we are privileged to be able to meet together and to carry a King James Bible, to be able to study it together, to read it and consider its truths.

[2:04] And Lord, we're helpless without your Holy Spirit. These are just confusing thoughts and they're historical accounts that make no sense to us. We need your Spirit to enlighten us and to illuminate our minds and to point these things out that can be helpful and edifying to us today.

[2:23] And so Lord, I pray that today would be a beneficial time to each one and that you'd feed us from your word. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, let's just start with a little bit of background to the book.

[2:35] You'll notice in verse 1 that it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled. So we're given the timing of the book that occurs back in the previous book.

[2:47] So the time when the judges ruled. This story takes place probably around Judges chapter 3. I want to take you back there for just a moment. And take a peek here at Judges chapter 3.

[3:01] If you have a study Bible, you may have notes or you may have dates on the top. Or even at the beginning of Ruth, and you may be able to attempt to try to piece it together. But the trouble is nobody's dates line up with each other's dates.

[3:16] They're all different in a little way. And so I can't say with any certainty from what I've read and studied the exact year, the exact timing. But what it looks like is that it takes place near what would be the end of chapter 3 of Judges.

[3:31] So you have this man Ehud that shows up in verse number 15. And just prior to that, Moab, Eglon, the king of Moab, is being used of the Lord.

[3:46] Because once again, Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord. And so he gathers, the king of Moab is going to come against him. He gets the Ammonites and the Amalekites.

[3:56] And they come after Israel and they smite Israel. And he reigns over them in verse 14 for 18 years. So then the Lord raises up a deliverer named Ehud.

[4:07] And you may be familiar with the left-handed Ehud and his dagger. If not, read your Bible. Read Judges 3. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about. And as we come to the end of this passage, verse 28, he said unto them, Follow after me, for the Lord hath delivered your enemies from the Moabites into your hand.

[4:25] And so they do, they follow him, and they destroy and slaughter the men of Moab, about 10,000 men. And by verse 30, Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel.

[4:39] And the land had rest fourscore years. So there's 80 years of rest, of no persecution, of no enemies, invading, and things like that.

[4:49] And I believe the book of Ruth falls into that category or into that time frame. Of the rest. Now, it doesn't mean that the children of Israel did right at all.

[5:01] It doesn't mean they were serving the Lord at all. It never says anything like that. As a matter of fact, to begin, you see another guy named Shamgar in verse 31. And then in chapter 4, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was dead.

[5:16] So I'm assuming that Ehud died somewhere in those 80 years of rest. And they did evil again somewhere in there. I don't have the timing of this Shamgar fellow.

[5:28] Where he's, it could be in that time, as a matter of fact, because some of the judges overlap. It's not that one is ruling like a king would rule. That's not how it worked. It was more regional than anything.

[5:38] And this guy, Shamgar, is dealing with the Philistines. They're on the western and the southern side. The Moabites and the Ammonites and others are on the eastern side.

[5:50] And so this is regional stuff going on. And it's really hard, in my opinion, to nail down an exact date and to try, the best you can do. So I think that's when this took place.

[6:00] So come back to the beginning of the book of Ruth. And notice something else. This takes place during the days of the judges.

[6:14] The judges ruled. And I think that that's the timing. But the story's not told back in that timing. The story doesn't show up in chapter 3 or at the beginning of 4.

[6:24] And it can't take place really much after that or much before that. So it's got to be right in there. There is some things in the judges, some stories of things that are plugged into the book.

[6:35] Especially at the end of the book. And they don't have their own separate book. But Ruth has its own separate. It's like the story that took place within a time frame was extracted and then solidified as its own book.

[6:48] And, of course, the book of the judges focuses on the judges, not exclusively. But this book of Ruth stands alone as its own book of scripture. Which kind of, in my opinion, introduces a significant thought.

[7:02] Of the 66 books of divinely inspired holy scripture, two of them bear the names of a woman, Esther and Ruth.

[7:16] Ruth is not a Jew or a Jewess. She is a Gentile, she is a Moabite widow. It's pretty significant that a Moabite widow gets her name on a book of the holy scripture.

[7:31] It's very significant, as a matter of fact. And so it's a very rare thing. And there's a reason for it. And I think there's a bigger picture of redemption that we're going to see and study.

[7:43] And it's going to come out in more than just one way. More than just in Ruth's life. It's an interesting study. It's a beautiful book. And it has a typology in it.

[7:54] It has some genealogy that brings you to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Messiah, the messianic line runs through Ruth. So there's some beautiful things and some very important things.

[8:06] And so it's not a folk tale. These are real places that it's mentioned. These are real characters. And like I said, you can trace these things with the genealogy. Now, I don't want to say I wasted a lot of time.

[8:18] But I really got sidetracked and intrigued. And spent some time running a lot of references on some things that had to do with people. Had to do with genealogies.

[8:28] Had to do with places. And the names of places. And trying to, in the Bible, not online. But in the Bible, trying to locate and find some things. And piece them together.

[8:38] And it was incredible how accurately, how perfectly, really, this book is put together. I'd have to take you on the journey.

[8:51] And it would take us a half an hour. It would be probably a bit unprofitable. Just to make the point to say that Bible's got it all written down. And you just have to study it to find it. It's phenomenal. Now, we're going to just skip all of that kind of stuff.

[9:04] And start right at the beginning. I want to read the first five verses together with you. And then we'll come back through it. And pick some things out. Verse number one. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled.

[9:15] 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. And the name of the man was Elimelech.

[9:27] And the name of his wife Naomi. And the name of his two sons Malon and Chilion. Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there.

[9:39] And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died. And she was left. And her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah. The name of the other Ruth.

[9:51] And they dwelt there about ten years. And Malon and Chilion died also, both of them. And the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Now the story of Ruth that you know, this is just really the backdrop to it.

[10:06] To describe what's about to kick off and take place for the rest of the book. But we're going to spend the day here in this first introduction. And really just draw some things out of this. It says in verse 1 that it was in the days when the judges ruled.

[10:21] Well, what kind of days were they? What do we know about the days when the judges ruled? One thing, you can look at the very last verse of Judges. And it's probably right there across the page in your Bible.

[10:33] It's Judges 21-25. And this is not the only time it says this. It says it three times in this book. That in those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

[10:47] In those days, there was no government. There was no king. There was no standard. And somebody will say, oh, bless God. What would that be like to have no government? It would be wonderful.

[10:58] I don't think it would be that wonderful. You would have a time fighting for your own rights and your own self. And yes, government can get too big.

[11:09] Yes, no doubt about it. And it can restrict and it can get overbearing and overpowerful. But nevertheless, the opposite of it. It could have been good if they had allowed God to rule them.

[11:20] Like he said to Samuel, they didn't reject you. They rejected me. God could have been their king and their guide and ruler. But there was no king in the land. And as we studied in the past here, the book looked at it in a message that there was a cycle of them falling into sin and falling away from the Lord and worshiping other gods and doing some terrible, terrible things that they picked up from these heathen nations around them.

[11:46] And they're crying to him.

[12:18] And so he reaches down and he delivers them. And he sends a deliverer. He brings them up out of that mess. They have rest in that one case, 80 years of rest. And then they fall right back into it again.

[12:29] And the cycle goes all through the book. You could trace it one after another after another, generation after generation. Now, these are the days that what we're going to read and study in the book of Ruth.

[12:39] These are the days of this taking place. It's not a great time in Israel's history. They could not get it together. They were commanded and led of God and led of Joshua to go in there and to take over the land and to sterilize the land of the Canaanites to run them off.

[12:57] And they didn't do it. They got what you call a military victory. But they did not get an occupational victory.

[13:09] Meaning, still within the land, even within strongholds and cities, the Canaanites dwelt. One good case of that that goes on for a long time is the Jebusites in the city of Jebus.

[13:20] And that's what's Jerusalem. It wasn't until David came and took that stronghold and named it after himself. So, for years and years and years and generations, within that land, Canaanites existed in pockets and all over.

[13:36] And they caused God's people to sin just like he told them they would. This is the time that we're reading about in the days of the judges. So, Israel should have removed the Canaanites.

[13:47] They did not. So, we read in verse 1, in the days that the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. It shouldn't surprise you that a famine is in the land.

[13:59] There's not a famine in the land unless God allows a famine to be in the land. This is the land that God told Moses, and through all of that, that you're going to possess it, and I'm going to be your God, and I'm going to bless you, and this is your inheritance, is what I promised.

[14:13] Famines don't occur in that land unless they're doing something wrong. So, take a hold your place, but go to Ezekiel chapter 14. I guess I could go back into Deuteronomy just the same, but here's a pretty strong verse that a future prophet, Ezekiel, gives you the mind of the Lord about how God deals with a land when they sin.

[14:37] Ezekiel 14, and look at verses 12 and 13. The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and I will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it.

[15:10] So, there's a little mind of the Lord, some of the punishment, and one of the avenues God will choose to send punishment against his people and against the land when there's sin. We can infer that the time that we're reading in Ruth chapter 1, there's sin in the land.

[15:28] There's something going down. They're falling away from serving their God from the times of the deliverance of Ehud. They're definitely slipping and going downhill quickly, and the Lord sends a famine.

[15:39] And so, that's not surprising to see God do that. Something he's done. Now, what's coming right around the corner from this timing is Judges chapter 4 and verse 1, where Jabin, I think his name is.

[15:52] I'm not sure if that's his name, or I hope it's not Jabin. I like that name. It's the king of Canaan. No, Jamin was the name I liked. Yeah, it's Jabin. King of Canaan shows up and oppresses Israel.

[16:08] He oppressed them 20 years, mightily oppressed the children of Israel. So, that's coming right around the corner. So, the famine's first, and they don't respond to that, or it doesn't go well.

[16:19] God sends in the king of Canaan to take over them, or to subdue and oppress them. And he's called the king of Canaan. So, he's living in the land, and he's a king in the land. While they had militarily supposedly destroyed, it shows you, you disobey God, all bets are off.

[16:36] Not to do with your soul or salvation, but when you walk away from the Lord, you're walking away from his protection. He can rise up something little in your life, and it can take over and control your life.

[16:48] The king of Canaan, he wasn't reigning very strong in the land when Joshua came in and subdued it. But as sin was allowed in the land, picture your flesh, that little sin that you thought you could control and had subdued.

[17:01] You didn't get it out. It just comes back to get you and mightily oppress you. And there's pictures of that stuff all over this book. Okay. Back into verse number one, it says that there was a famine in the land.

[17:16] Halfway through the verse, and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah. So, Bethlehem Judah. Bethlehem's the town. Judah is the tribe, or the lot of inheritance to the tribe.

[17:31] So, it would be like our county lines with cities inside the counties today. Just something like that is all that is. It's not a separate town, a separate name of a town. There's not a Bethlehem and a Bethlehem Judah.

[17:42] It would be Bethlehem of Judah, and it's just condensed together. So, a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife, and his two sons.

[17:56] The country of Moab. Here, I want to put a little picture up there for you. So, oh, come across. This is modern-day Israel. And so, here's Bethlehem right there, and Jerusalem straight above it.

[18:11] You can see that they're kind of just west of the top of the Dead Sea. And now, if you come over here, this isn't going to help. You can see a supposed, a proposed track.

[18:24] I don't know how well you can see that red arrow. But from Bethlehem, this is a potential track they may have taken to travel to Moab. And likely would have went north to Jerusalem and around the Dead Sea and then down.

[18:36] And so, over here, you've got this region of Moab. Wow. It's a touchscreen. So, check this out.

[18:46] Okay. Up there is Ammon, and here's Moab. These are regions. You know who Ammon is and who Moab is? You know who those are? Those are brothers. They're brothers born of Lot's daughters in an incestual relationship of Genesis 19.

[19:02] So, all of Israel knows this. They know what Moab is. They know who Ammon is. Edom, we'll read a verse here in a little bit, that Edom was the brother to Jacob.

[19:16] He's Esau. You can read that. Esau is Edom. That's in Genesis. I'm not sure. So, these are brothers. These are brothers.

[19:27] Just for that matter. Now, just keep that in your mind. But there's the region. There's the land. And that's the area they moved. They moved east across the river, outside of the land of Israel, to Moab.

[19:43] That'll come up in a little bit. So, hang on to that. So, let's come back into the verse. They went to sojourn in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons. Verse 2.

[19:53] And the name of the man was Elimelech. Elimelech. So, let's look at these names just briefly to give you some understanding. Elimelech, his name means, my God is king.

[20:04] And you see that if you would learn a little bit of the Hebrew names. Eli is my God. Remember what Jesus Christ said on the cross? So, your King James Bible can interpret this.

[20:16] You don't need any Hebrew. He said, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. Eli, which is interpreted, my God, my God. Why hast thou forsaken me?

[20:27] And so, you already know from the Gospels, or at least it's available to your knowledge, that Eli means my God. But, Melech, as a matter of fact, you could find that one too.

[20:39] Melech means king. And so, that comes out of at least one place it's mentioned would be Melchizedek in Hebrews. His name's interpreted, Melchizedek, which is, let's see, the king of righteousness is what it's called.

[20:56] And it says king of Salem, and it says king of peace. So, then you learn that Salem means peace, that Melech means king. There's Abimelech, like Abba, father, Abba.

[21:09] That's the, like, my father is king. Abimelech, there's a few others that you'll see Melech show up. It's a Hebrew term, Hebrew name. So, Elimelech means, my God is king.

[21:21] His wife's name is Naomi. Naomi means pleasant or beautiful or delightful. So, a very positive ring and great sound of the name Naomi.

[21:33] The name of his two sons. Now, it really kind of tanks here. Malon. Malon means sick or sickly.

[21:44] And his brother, Chilion, or Kilion, means pining or wasting away. So, they name their sons sickly and pining or wasting away.

[22:01] It sounds like a famine. It sounds like times are tough. This isn't necessarily, and I can't prove this, but it's not necessarily their birth name. It very well could be.

[22:12] It doesn't say she had a son and they named him that. That's what their names became. Or, at least, that is what they're called. That's what they're identified as. You can also understand the times were tough.

[22:25] The famine was grievous and sore. And the names of the sons don't match anything like the names of the parents. Times were rough.

[22:37] It just sounds like they're starving. All right. Back in chapter 1, verse 2, it says, Malon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah, they came into the country of Moab and continued there.

[22:53] Now, we all know, and they all knew, even more than we know, they knew their Jewish history. They knew what Moab was and who the Moabites are, the product of Lot and his daughters after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

[23:08] They knew where they came from. That's Genesis 19. Moab is not a friend of Israel. Come back to Deuteronomy 23. Deuteronomy 23.

[23:23] Before Moses dies in the land of Moab, and is buried in the land of Moab, he reminds Israel of some things concerning these people of that land.

[23:38] Deuteronomy 23, and verse 3. An Ammonite or Moabite, that's those two guys, those two brothers, and they both reside to the east and southeast.

[23:55] An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation, shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever.

[24:06] Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when you came forth out of Egypt. And because they hired against thee Balaam, the son of Beor of Pithor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.

[24:19] That's Numbers chapter 22, 3 and 4. Nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.

[24:31] Thou shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days forever. Now, we can contrast a little of the New Testament Christian attitude and mindset that would be from Christ to what God commanded his people.

[24:55] They are your perpetual enemies forever. End of story. David described him hating his enemies and praying that God would judge the enemies of Israel.

[25:08] It was a holy and righteous prayer of those people. They've got enemies today, this weekend. They've got real enemies that hate them. And they're not to seek their peace.

[25:22] But then later on, Jesus Christ comes on the scene and he's giving them the way of the kingdom. And that's a whole other doctrine, a whole other teaching, but when he tells them to love their enemies, that's not what Moses taught.

[25:34] And so, Jesus Christ is opening the door and instituting a new thing. All right, so back in Deuteronomy, he says, thou shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days forever. Now, look at verse 7.

[25:46] Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother. Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land. Isn't that interesting?

[25:56] God has more respect, or teaches his people to have more respect to the Egyptians than he does to the Moabites and the Ammonites. That's very interesting. And he says in verse 3, the children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the Lord in their third generation.

[26:12] A little bit more removed, a little bit less of the seed. But the Moabites, Ammonites, he's like not even to the 10th. Don't even think about it. So, okay, come back to Ruth.

[26:23] Just a little bit of backdrop, a little bit of history about the surrounding area and enemies. And that's the land that Elimelech chose to go and take his family and move to, to Moab.

[26:40] There's no way you can justify this as if this is a godly thing. You can't say the Lord was leading him, because he would never lead him to Moab to do that.

[26:50] That's not, that's against the scripture. It's against the commands of Moses. Now, in recent years, as I pointed out earlier, it was the king of Moab, Agon, that ruled over the Israelites until God raised up Ehud.

[27:07] So, there's nothing good about Moab, even in their, in their history as a nation of Israel, even in the very recent years, just generations before, knows the oppression of Moab.

[27:20] It's not a good thing. So, there's nothing good to say about Moab, yet this man, Elimelech, decides to move his family there when the going gets tough. Do you think it was a good move?

[27:33] I'm building it up to show you some things that show the contrary, but just on the surface, it's a famine in the land, and there's Moab over there, there must be something there to sustain him and his family, so, is it a good move or not?

[27:46] What do you think? You gotta look out for your family, right? You gotta take care of your wife and kids, right? There's no food here. Gotta do something, what should I do?

[27:58] Is it a good move or not? I'll speculate that if Elimelech could do it again, he would not go to Moab. If he could do it all again, he would not leave Bethlehem Judah.

[28:13] He would not set one foot off of his inheritance and walk away from the people of God and from the house of God. He would stay right there and endure it.

[28:24] Now, look at chapter 2, verse 1. There's a kinsman of Elimelech's named Boaz. So, somebody in the family is doing pretty well.

[28:37] Verse 1 says, Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech. And his name was Boaz.

[28:49] Do you suppose that Boaz wasn't around? Do you suppose that Boaz wouldn't have helped out Elimelech and his wife Naomi if he, he's a mighty man of wealth. Surely he could have pitched in.

[29:01] Surely if he didn't have any pride in him, he could have asked his kinsman for a little help. I'm speculating, of course. But I bet there was more options than pick up and leave the house of God, or the land of God.

[29:16] So he took off anyway from where God placed him, which is his inheritance, which is where his family lived, which is in Judah, in that area specifically. He took off and left the place and plot that God had placed him in and he never made it back.

[29:34] And his children never made it back. Naomi made it back by the grace of God and some wonderful things took place. But the man and his sons never made it back.

[29:48] It's interesting that he left the town and left the land of God because his children were sick and pining and waning, wasting away and everybody's sick and everybody's starving.

[30:02] And so he left in search of better land. But I'd say that staying in God's land and enduring the famine that God sends is better than dying in Moab.

[30:14] His children never made it back. They never returned to the Lord's land or the Lord's people. They never made it to the house of God to offer their sacrifices and be right with the Lord Jehovah God.

[30:28] He just, he stripped all of that away from them. Look in verse number one, at the end of the verse, it says that a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn.

[30:39] Sojourn, that's a temporary stay. He went there just temporarily I just need to get past this just one season. Maybe there'll be rain. Maybe there'll be food next year.

[30:51] But I just got to go seek food for now. Just for now. Just temporary. He went to sojourn. At the end of chapter, or verse number two, they came into the country of Moab and continued there.

[31:06] Their sojourning turned into continuing and by the end of verse four, they dwelt there about ten years. And they never made it out.

[31:18] Doesn't that just sound like there's application to be made there? What you think you can handle or what you just intend to do for a short time or just once turns into twice, turns into more, turns into something that takes you out?

[31:33] The lesson you can write down is that your heart has a way of justifying its actions, but the world has a way of altering your intentions.

[31:46] The heart has a way of justifying its actions. I need to leave God's people. I need to get away from here. I need to go find food somewhere else. The heart has a way of justifying that move.

[31:59] But the world has a way of altering your intentions, of just being there a short time, of just checking in and enjoying it. I mean, this applies all over the place.

[32:10] I'll just have one drink. That's it, just one. Or I'm just going to talk to her one time. It's not going to be anything. I'm just going to talk to her. Whenever you know it's wrong, but you justify it with it's just temporary.

[32:23] It's just a little bit. You can mark it down. Your intentions will be overrun and they'll be altered and your flesh will get in the way and the world will get in the way and it'll end up being 10 years.

[32:35] It'll end up being death. It'll end up being misery. And there we are. Elimelech made a choice and his family suffered because of it. Now come back up there into chapter one, verse number two.

[32:48] And I want to point something out here that's interesting to me. It's referring to Malon and Chilion and then it calls the family Ephrathites. They're Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah.

[33:02] What in the world is that term? Ephrathites. Did you ever meet an Ephrathite? Well, you've read about a few. Take a look at 1 Samuel chapter 17. And this is a term that is identified with a town that carries on for generations after the town's even renamed.

[33:23] 1 Samuel 17. If you know your Bible, you should know that this is David and Goliath. 1 Samuel 17. And when David's introduced in this story, verse number 12.

[33:36] Now David was the son of that Ephrathite Ephrathite of Bethlehem, Judah, whose name was Jesse. So all the way generations down, hundreds of years later, still they're referring to those people from that area as Ephrathites.

[33:54] Now come all the way back to Genesis 35. We can trace this a little bit further. Genesis 35.

[34:05] And this is where Rachel, Jacob's wife, dies.

[34:22] In verse 16, they journeyed from Bethel and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath. And Rachel travailed. She had hard labor. Now a little bit later, we get a little Holy Spirit light as to that place and locality.

[34:41] Where's the verse? Where's the verse? 19. And Rachel died and was buried in the way, which is the road or heading to that town, the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.

[34:58] So it wasn't Bethlehem then. And what's interesting to me is I don't know or think that it was Bethlehem when Moses wrote Genesis. I know it wasn't when Jacob was walking in that territory, but even after they go to Egypt and come out of Egypt and Moses gives these five books, there was probably still no town called Bethlehem.

[35:20] And so that's something that's given by inspiration of God is naming some of these towns aforetime. The only other option is some scribe and then you come up with some stuff of scholars try to argue and fight.

[35:34] I'll just stick with the Lord gave the name and I don't have a problem with that. There's a few other places. This I don't understand if this is true or not, but I'll run it by you and let you consider it.

[35:45] Look at 1 Chronicles chapter 2. There was a woman that bore that name and I don't know if it has anything to do with her coming from there or if rather that she's connected or the name came from her.

[36:05] It's hard for me to really to understand this part of it. But you know the man Caleb, Joshua and Caleb, the two spies that went in the land and believed that they could take it and God allowed them to persevere all the way to the going in.

[36:23] Everybody else died off. Caleb got an inheritance in that land and he's of the tribe of Judah. So he's going to be in that region of Judah. And he even got Hebron.

[36:33] I don't know if it's on the map there or not. If you can see. Yeah, it's Hebron right below the word Judah. You see that town. So that was a part of his inheritance. Verse number 18 in 1 Chronicles 2 says, Caleb the son of Hezron begat children of Azubba, his wife, and of Jerioth.

[36:54] Her sons are these, Jeshur and Shobab and Ardun. And then she dies. Notice this in verse 19. When Azubba was dead, Caleb took unto him Ephrath, which bare him her. And her begat Uriah and Uriah begat Bezalel.

[37:06] Now this guy Bezalel is the one that's working in all manner of workmanship and wisdom. And the spirit gave him all this back there in Exodus 31 for the tabernacle in the wilderness.

[37:20] So this guy was alive back then. And she, Caleb obviously married her. And this lady's name is Ephrath. Now a little bit later, verse number 24.

[37:30] 24. And after that, Hezron was dead in Caleb Ephrath. It's a town. And it looks to me like it's the town bearing the name of the husband and wife.

[37:44] And you can see later that verse 50, Caleb's wife, Ephrath, is also called Ephrath. Verse 50. These are the sons of Caleb, the son of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrath.

[37:58] So her name comes out as Ephrath or as Ephrathah. There's a town named Caleb Ephrathah. And I don't know if that eventually becomes what's Ephrath or the town which becomes Bethlehem.

[38:09] I can't prove that. But that's part of some of the stuff I was running and I went a little further and it just kind of was a dead end to me. So I'll let that go and just leave that up for your own speculation.

[38:20] Now we'll come back here and let's wrap up with the time we have here. Verse number 3. In Elimelech, Naomi's husband died and she was left and her two sons.

[38:34] So Naomi is a widow now. She's in Moab with her two sons experiencing tremendous loss. Now she's going to have to call the shots.

[38:45] She's going to have to make decisions. And instead of taking advantage of an opportunity it would appear to return to God's land and to God's people now that her husband's dead she does something else.

[39:00] Verse 4. The two sons they took wives and they took them wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah the name of the other Ruth and they dwelt there about ten years.

[39:11] So taking wives taking wives in Moab. When is this a thing that's to be done? I don't have the verse written down but Moses commanded them you're not to take wives and give your children to them and take them to you.

[39:28] You don't do that. You keep the holy seed holy. But they did it. Now they must have been content to stay in Moab. And what ends up here just to close here Malon and Chilion in verse 5 die.

[39:43] They died also both of them and the woman who was left of her two sons and her husband. And so the situation isn't good at all. Although back in the beginning there's a famine Elimelech justified his move in his mind.

[39:58] The move was not of faith. He was not trusting God. He was not believing God. He was not enduring whatever the Lord's hand sought to bring upon the land. He decided he's going to take matters into his own hand and the whole thing not one portion of it was blessed of God.

[40:14] Now the Lord in the way God is he's so full of mercy he's so full of grace and wisdom he can take an ugly situation that man makes and he can bring it about to bring glory to himself.

[40:28] When they seek him it's not till they go back to the land that the blessings show up. It's in Moab and in the world and where the bad decisions were made that the heartache and the tragedy just compound one upon another upon another.

[40:45] There's a famine in Israel but the family's dying in Moab. You should have stayed in Israel. You should have dealt and just waited through the famine and waited for God's hand and cried out to God for mercy.

[41:01] They're better off suffering with the people of God than leaving to make a better life in the world. And there's a lesson in that. There's a lesson for Christians. There's a lesson for anybody raised in church or around the word of God.

[41:15] You're better off when times get tough to stay with the people of God to stay with the word of God to stay where you know the Lord has you than to walk off and seek something better or to walk off into the world and you'll never chances are many times never make it back.

[41:32] It's never going to be what you thought it would be. The better life turns into tragedy and it turns into heartache and it's a sad story for a limelight as a man to pretend that I've got to provide only to watch he can't control what takes place in one year or two years or three years.

[41:50] He's in the grave. He's in the dirt and now his family's left to fend for themselves and those boys they see some pretty girls. They just get attracted like naturally you would because they're not around the house of God and they're not around the people of God so why would they not?

[42:07] Nobody's training them in the truth and in the word of God so their kids just go off with the world and it's happened time and time again when people walk away from church and they walk away from the Lord their families suffer they suffer it's all tragic but there's redemption in this passage and we'll get to it Lord willing as we study through this book the Lord brings this to a good end and such a good end that his own son is associated with this very story right here it's amazing so we'll stop there we've got to quit and we'll pick it up next week right there and we'll get to it it so we'll get to it it it so ok as here it we'll put it as far too so and we'll be because here we'll show you