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It shows the beauty of unselfish devotion and constant love, and the happiness which they brought, and teaches a lesson which is very helpful to us all. A long time ago, in the days of the judges of Israel, there was a famine in the land of Canaan, and a man named Elimelech, whose home was in Bethlehem, went with his wife Naomi and his two sons to live in Moab.
"Naomi," said Ezra desperately, "dost thou love me?" "Aye, thou knowest that I love thee," answered Naomi in surprise. "Then, to please me, come to the inn stable," was Ezra's quick response. "Ask me no questions and delay not, but come. It is early, Naomi. We will meet no one, I hope and trust. Give me thy hand and come."
Boaz forms an attachment for the womanly gleaner an attachment full of undying interest to the Church of God in all ages; while Ruth, with an ephah, or nearly a bushel of barley, goes home to Naomi to tell her the successes and adventures of the day.
The old woman by the fire slewed her head painfully round and stared at him, then at Naomi. But Naomi was standing with her back to them both, and her hands soaping the linen in the tub gently, however, and without any splashing. She therefore let her head sink back on the cushion, and assumed that peculiarly dejected air, commonly reserved by her for the consolations of religion.
Now, carefully as Ali had arranged every detail of his enterprise, down to the removal of the black woman Habeebah from this door, one fact he had never counted with, and that seemed to him then the chief fact of all the fact that since he had last looked upon Naomi she had come by the gift of sight, and would now first look upon him.
What to do, where to look, which way to turn first, she knew no longer, and could not think, for lack of the hand that had been wont to guide her. The neighbouring Moors heard of what had happened to Naomi, and some of the women among them came to see her.
And with this hope to comfort her, Naomi lay quietly down upon her bed and let her thoughts go back to her last trip to Jerusalem and its sad homecoming. She remembered the long ride in the jolting bullock cart, which Jacob guided as carefully as he knew how in order to spare Naomi's aching head and throbbing eyeballs. For the night's rest had not cured Naomi.
Did Naomi hear his words to understand them, or did they fall dead on her ear like birds on a dead sea? In her darkness and her silence was she putting them together, comparing them, interpreting them, pondering them, imitating them, gathering food for her mind from them, and solace for her spirit? Israel did not know; and, watch her face as he would, he could never learn. Hope! Faith! Trust!
I had never seen him since the parting at Hilo. La, la, suitors a many have I had since; but I was like Uncle John. Mating for me was but once. Uncle John had his Naomi room at Kilohana. I have had my Lilolilo room for fifty years in my heart. You are the first, Sister Martha, whom I have permitted to enter that room . . . "
So she set out with her daughters-in-law to return from the land of Moab, for she had heard that Jehovah had remembered his people and given them food. As they were setting out on the journey to Judah, Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to the home of your mother. May Jehovah be kind to you, as you have been kind to the dead and to me.