Ruth 1:20 And she said to them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. How unfit are we to judge of an unfinished providence, and how necessary it is, if we would understand aright the reasons of God's ways, that we should wait and see the web with its many colours woven out! Three short months, during which those dark providences were suddenly to blossom into prosperity and joy, would give to that sorrowful woman another interpretation of her long exile in Moab. And one Gentile proselyte was thereby to be brought to the feet of Israel's God, who was not only to be the ancestress of Israel's illustrious line of kings, but of that Divine Seed in whom "all the nations of the earth were to be Blessed." When the night seems at the darkest we are often nearest the dawn. Begin to tune thy harp, O weeping saint and weary pilgrim! "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." Learn to wait. When the great drama of our earth's history is ended; when Christ's glorious redemption-work is seen in all its wondrous issues and ripened fruits; when order has evolved itself out of confusion, and light has come out of the bosom of darkness, and the evil passions of wicked men and the malignant devices of evil spirits have been so overruled as to work out the sovereign will of Heaven; when all the enemies of Christ have been put in subjection under His feet, and death itself has died then shall the words spoken at the creation be repeated at the consummation of the higher work of a lost world's redemption, and God will again pronounce all to be "very good." (A. Thomson, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. |
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