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Does God help those who help themselves? That may seem to be the message of the books of Esther and Ruth. Some think that Ruth’s attractiveness won over Naomi and Boaz, or that Esther’s bold faithfulness saved her people. But a closer reading shows an embittered Naomi to have abandoned the Promised Land and God’s people, and Esther to have become thoroughly assimilated to the culture and values...

the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there” (Ruth 1:2). Unfaithfulness to God had once again resulted in a famine in the land.2 The ultimate irony had occurred: Bethlehem, whose very name means “House of Bread,” was a place of no food. In that situation, Elimelech had a choice to make, a road to choose. He could stay in Bethlehem, the empty breadbasket of Judah, mourning the sin that surrounded
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