Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Mara, not Naomi

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Ruth 1:19–22, “So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.”

Naomi and Ruth went down from the Moabite highlands and into the Jordan Valley. They climbed all the way back up to the Judean highlands again before they finally arrived in Naomi’s hometown. Everybody in town heard that someone had come and they asked her if she was Naomi. Naomi means “pleasant” so she told them that he life was no longer pleasant but bitter and would the call her “Mara”, that is, “bitterness”. She had left Bethlehem during a drought but she returned during the harvest time when there was plenty of barley being harvested.

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