Full and Empty Are Relative Terms

It's humble pie time for Naomi as she returns to Bethlehem with Ruth in tow. The people are shocked to see her and call out her name. Her response is emblematic of the times of Israel during these harsh Judge-led years.

Ruth 1:20–21 (ESV) She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

Let us dissect this for a moment. She went away full? There was a famine in the land and they went to Moab to get away from it. A famine by definition is a place of emptiness. Perhaps Naomi was considering her family to be her fulness but if that is the case, why not stick it out in the Lord's promised land WITH THEM and not chase greener pastures?

This would be a good time to bring up the covenant of promise concerning the land. In the Torah, God set stipulations for the people to obey Him in order to experience the bounty of the land. Deuteronomy 28 is where see find them. In that chapter, there are far more verses devoted to the curses God would bring upon the land if they disobeyed than there were blessings for obedience. It's as if God wanted it to be crystal clear that famine and plague in the land would not be random or ecological in nature, they would be SIGNALS to their souls that they had LEFT HIM and they needed to repent and return. 

But I want to point out some of the signs of God's judgment upon their rebellion:

Deuteronomy 28:18 (ESV) Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.

Now Naomi and Elimelech experienced both the curse of their harvest (fruit of their ground), and the curse of their womb (both sons died in the foreign land).

So Naomi comes back from Moab blaming God for all her trouble:

"I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty." 

This is just like the last chapter in Judges when the people ask "Oh Lord, why has all this happened to us" (Judges 21:3). They were ignorant and blind to their own sin. They were just like their last deliverer Samson who was lulled into defeat through blind attachment to Delilah. 

But the good news is this for Naomi. The empty place to which God brings her is the very place where He will start to work FOR her. It is at this empty place that Ruth will attempt to harvest barely. Note the narrator's subtle hint of hope in the last verse of chapter 1:

Ruth 1:22 (ESV) "And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest."

Now barely was a poor person's food in ancient Israel. But empty people are willing to receive anything. And so that receptivity brought upon them through terrible tragedy becomes the birthplace of an enormous turnaround. The humbling experience Naomi has been given has put her in the very place she needs to be for Ruth and Boaz to meet. 

What I see the text saying is this: "empty" and "full" are relative terms in God's economy. The moment you feel emptiest can be the very place where God begins toward your fullness. Instead of looking at your life "right now" and making a declaration of bitterness as Namoi did ("Mara" means bitter), why not live with an expectant heart that God who refuses to give up on you will meet you at the end of you?