I've recorded the Biblical Book of Ruth at this time for three reasons.
Firstly, it's National Storytelling Week, and this is a personal favourite.
Secondly, it celebrates an exalted form of love, Chesed, which is so rich in interpretation that no one word or phrase in English is sufficient to the task. It is loyal love, a covenant love, an enduring love, a love that never fails.
Thirdly, Ruth demonstrates the importance of seeing oneself as part of a bigger plan. She is an ancestor of King David, and thus vital to that timeline... in fact, David was born what appears to be 300 years later. When we face troubles, as the whole world is doing today, it is important to "think longer" and to see the current darkness as a blip that will pass. My Dad will never forget the War but it did pass and it is now seen in the context of a much longer time frame. Our children who have been most affected by this year (so far) of confinement will feel like it fills their whole life. It doesn't, but it will take them time to realise that. This too shall pass.
Ruth went through times of great loss, great sorrow, and great suffering... but within a larger time-frame, we hear how everything works out to the good.
There is hope.
For those of you with a strong personal faith, it is interesting to look more deeply at some of the language. Chesed is "covenant love" - and thus "loyal love". It is as unbreakable as a covenant.
Hear then, what Ruth says, with fresh ears...
"May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."
This is a Covenant Oath - utterly binding.
Some commentators link it to the Blood Covenant where the parties who were binding one another to each other would split a sacrifice down the middle. This would create two walls of blood. They would walk between the pieces and then say, pointing to the pieces, "May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."
Here is Ruth's full statement (Chapter 1:16-17)
16 Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
THIS is the kind of love I want to express to others;
THIS is the kind of love I desire to experience from others;
THIS is the kind of love that God consistently demonstrates to His chosen people.
Credits
Photo by Shalitha Dissanayaka on Unsplash
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