I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Ruth 1-4.

I often wish that the Book of Ruth was not only one day for the whole book because there are too many things to write in just one entry.   We tend to skip over the introduction as unimportant, but it tells us that Ruth and Orpah were married for ten years before their husbands died.  This lets us know that they were part of Naomi’s family for ten years before disaster struck.  If they married their husbands at a typical age for the time they would have been in their early 20s when they were widowed.  By the same logic, Naomi would have been in her late 30s to early 50s.  From this we learn that Ruth and Orpah spent almost as much of their lives up to this point as part of Naomi’s family as they did in the family they grew up in. 

Which brings us to the first big point in the story, Orpah returning to her father’s house and Ruth going with Naomi to Israel.    Often times when we look at this we make the mistake of thinking that since Ruth made the right decision, Orpah made the wrong one.  But that is not necessarily the case.  Ruth’s decision made her a role model, but if Orpah had made the same decision things might not have worked out so well.  Then there would have been two young widows needing husbands, not just one.  Perhaps Ruth and Orpah even knew this and discussed between them which one should accompany Naomi.  However it came to be, some of us are called, as Orpah was, to be the supporting cast in someone else’s story.