Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I’m not going to say Orpah was weak-willed.

Or maybe I am.

I don’t know what I’m going to say about Orpah, really. We’ll find out when we get there.

What I know is this: Ruth and Orpah both loved their mother-in-law. They both invested emotionally in Naomi. They both started down the road to Bethlehem with her. And they both stood in tears and insisted over her protests they would go with her the whole way.

And then Orpah turned and went home while Ruth stayed by Naomi’s side.

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You can’t blame her, really. Naomi was right — she was fresh out of sons for Orpah to marry. She had better odds back home.

It’s not as though there were even a single right answer. She had no clear obligation to leave her homeland and travel with Naomi. And even if she did, her mother-in-law released her from it.

Naomi practically forced her to leave.

So she did.

If I read the rabbis and the Babylonian Talmud right (again, this is murky — I am neither adequately schooled nor able locate enough independent corroboration to say much about this), it was the last acceptable decision she made. The story goes that God blessed her for her faithfulness to Naomi up to that point, and gave her four sons. But then there is a dark turn of events in which she is said to have given herself to multiple men (and a dog) the very night she left for home and the tenuous connection to Goliath emerges from that wreckage.

I’ll let you do your own work to sort that out — but what we know is that the Old Testament canon seems to go silent on her once she leaves. There’s not a word to suggest she abandoned Naomi, and we have every reason to believe she did right by Naomi in traveling with her as far as she did.

So why would I pick on her now?

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Orpah didn’t do anything wrong (except that 100-guys-and-a-dog thing, if it turns out to be true).

But Orpah did just enough to get by.

She looked down that dusty road to Bethlehem at her future as one of the Three Amigas, and it looked pretty bleak, frankly. She would not marry, she would not bear sons, and she would be forever known as that old foreign spinster Naomi brought back from Moab.

And let’s face it. Naomi was turning into a real downer.

When she gave Orpah the out, Orpah took it.

Something had just not happened between the hearts of Naomi and Orpah that clearly took root between Naomi and Ruth. So when it came time to sacrifice all for the life another, Orpah went home.

Nobody said she couldn’t. Nobody said she shouldn’t.

But sometimes maybe we could stand to crank it up just a notch.

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In the moment where, in part being selfless and in part being bitter and cranky, Naomi sent the girls on their way, the contrast between the two tears my heart.

But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons — would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has gone out against me!”

At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. (Ruth 1:11-14, emphasis mine)

One kissed Naomi goodbye while the other clung to her.

Kissing and clinging — they both come from a deep emotional attachment. But I find the two draw a sharp distinction between words and action. Orpah expressed her affection for her mother-in-law. Ruth lived it.

Take a little trip to Strong’s with me for just a second. This idea of Ruth clinging to Naomi — it’s the same word used in Genesis 2:24 to describe what happens when a man leaves his mother and father and cleaves to his wife. It’s same the word God uses in Deuteronomy 11:22 (and a bunch of other places) when He instructs us to follow all his ways and hold fast to him.

It means this, in short:

Cling or adhere; figuratively, to catch by pursuit — abide fast, cleave (fast together), follow close (hard after), be joined (together), keep (fast), overtake, pursue hard, stick, take. (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance)

Ruth clung to Naomi. She joined herself to her mother-in-law. She pursued her hard and overtook her. She stuck to her with the same depth of commitment that we have for our mate or for God.

That’ s a lot of clinging.

That’s what Ruth did.

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And then I look back at Orpah. She kissed Naomi goodbye.

She did the thing that was expected. It was adequate. No one required her to do more than she had already done.

But this expected thing, this adequate thing, it pales next to the clinging and cleaving and latching on and chasing hard that Ruth did.

She didn’t have to. But she did.

And it makes doing it “good enough” look like not doing anything at all.

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Photo: A little bridge in the middle of nowhere by Ann-Kathrin Rehse

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