Book of Ruth: New European Christadelphian Commentary

By Duncan Heaster

Verse by verse exposition of the Old Testament book of Ruth, part of the New European Christadelphian Commentary by Duncan Heaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244704827

Book preview

Book of Ruth: New European Christadelphian Commentary

Book of Ruth: New European Christadelphian Commentary

Duncan Heaster

Carelinks

PO Bo 152, Menai NSW 2234

AUSTRALIA

www.carelinks.net

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 by Duncan Heaster.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2018

ISBN 978-0-244-70482-7

PREFACE

This commentary is based around the New European Version of the Bible, which is generally printed with brief commentary on each chapter. Charities such as Carelinks Ministries and the Christadelphian Advancement Trust endeavour to provide totally free copies worldwide according to resources and donations available to them. But there is a desire by many to go beyond those brief comments on each chapter, and delve deeper into the text. The New European Christadelphian commentary seeks to meet that need. As with all Divine things, beauty becomes the more apparent the closer we analyze. We can zoom in the scale of investigation to literally every letter of the words used by His Spirit. But that would require endless volumes. And academic analysis is no more nor less than that; we are to live by His word. This commentary seeks to achieve a balance between practical teaching on one hand, and a reasonable level of thorough consideration of the original text. On that side of things, you will observe in the commentary a common abbreviation: s.w.. This stands for same word; the same original Greek or Hebrew word translated [A] is used when translated [B]. This helps to slightly remove the mask of translation through which most Bible readers have to relate to the original text.

Are there errors of thought and intellectual process in these volumes? Surely there are. Let me know about them. But finally- don’t fail to see the wood for the trees. Never let the wonder of the simple, basic Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom become obscured by all the angst over correctly interpreting this or that Bible verse. Believe it, respond to it, be baptized into Him, and let the word become flesh in you as it was so supremely in Him.

If you would like to enable the NEV Bible and associated material to remain freely available, do consider making a donation to Carelinks Ministries or The Christadelphian Advancement Trust. And please pray that our sending forth of God’s word will bring back glory to His Name and that of His dear Son whom we serve.

Duncan Heaster

[e-mail]

Ruth

Ruth Chapter 1

Ruth 1:1 In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A man of Bethlehem Judah went with his wife and two sons to live in the country of Moab-

The famine was because of Israel’s disobedience. The idea of famine was to bring the people back to God, but Elimelech [like many people today] responded poorly to it, and went away from God’s people by moving to Moab. In Moab he would be unable to come to the sanctuary, and his children ran the risk of marrying unbelievers; and seeing marriage required the father’s approval, their marriage out of the faith reflects poorly on Elimelech as well as on his sons. So we see how sin results in Divine intervention [famine, in this case]; that intervention is punishment, but it is aimed at reformation. But it can be taken the wrong way, and people who respond poorly to it are then driven even further from God. This is the way the downward spiral works; but the holy Spirit likewise is the dynamic of the upward spiral. See on :13.

Ruth 1:2 The name of the man was Elimelech-

'God is king', reflecting the belief at the time of the judges (:1) that Israel had no human king because Yahweh was their king. But he went to live in the land of Moloch, a form of the Hebrew melech; Moloch who was presented as the real king rather than Yahweh, and this family were happy to go along with that on a surface level.

His wife’s, Naomi; his two sons’, Mahlon and Chilion-

The names of the sons mean sickly and wasting away. So we are given the impression of a pleasant woman ['Naomi'] with two sickly sons and a materialistic husband, ever seeking a better deal in life, which never worked out. To have just two sons was a very small family for those days; for we get the impression they had no other children. We can imagine the child deaths, miscarriages etc. which led her to feel that God was not completely with her. And yet it was through all this that she came to Him so strongly.

They were Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab, and stayed there-

As he now shifted to Moab for a better life, perhaps he had already made such a shift before; because he was a man of Ephraim who had moved to Bethlehem in Judah. We are presented with a family who always wanted a better life, but it never quite worked out. We have surely met this type in our lives. We note that many of the histories of apostacy in the book of Judges feature people from Ephraim, and it seems we are intended to read Elimelech's move to Moab as a continuation of that sad theme. The whole point of the story is that out of such weakness, at least one person [Naomi] holds on, and through her, indirectly [through Ruth] a wonderful movement of God's Spirit is seen. And this too is a story we have all seen time and again.

Ruth 1:3 Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons-

See on :5. "Left"