Ruth 1:22: So Naomi returned and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Ruth begins tragically. Elimelech flees from famine in Bethlehem by taking his wife and sons to Moab, where death assaults them. First Elimelech dies, and Naomi is left with her two sons. Then her sons die, and she is left with only her daughters-in-law.
But the movement of the chapter is not tragic. It begins in famine, but ends in harvest, and the central turning point of the story is verse 6, where Yahweh “visited His people in giving them food.” Because of Yahweh’s visitation, Bethlehem has again become what its name suggests, a “house of bread.”
Yahweh’s visitation brings more than a harvest of barley. At the same time Israel is beginning to reap the barley, Yahweh is beginning to reap in the Moabites – the Moabites who descend from the incestuous eldest daughter of lot, the Moabites who seduced Israel as they came out of Egypt – those Moabites are being gathered in. Because Yahweh has visited His people, they become a house of bread, a land of milk and honey, and the nations begin to stream in.
Ruth 1 is redemptive history in miniature, depicting the movement from wrath to grace, from famine to feast. It all turns on the great visitation that occurred in Bethlehem, in the incarnation. Ruth 1 is the gospel in miniature: In the midst of the divided nations of the world, He has visited His people in gathering the Gentiles into His house. In the midst of the famine of this world, Yahweh has visited His people in by giving His people living bread from heaven.
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