Naomi’s Tragedy

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Previously on the Chosen People. Before the breaker of chains came, the Lord would send lesser heroes, fractured and broken images of the Deliverer to come. 00:00:12 Speaker 2: They would be. 00:00:13 Speaker 1: Imperfect vessels in God's hands, crafted to lead Israel out of its self inflicted destruction. 00:00:22 Speaker 3: None of the good promises the Lord had made to the House of Israel failed. 00:00:27 Speaker 2: Everything has been fulfilled. I suppose humble things can accomplish great works. 00:00:38 Speaker 4: Happiness takes years to build, but tragedy can strike in an instant shell. Oh, my friends, from here in the holy Land of Israel, i'm l Extein with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and welcome to the Chosen People. It's the age of Judges, where everyone is doing what seems right in their their own eyes. The Chosen People are vulnerable and suffering, oftentimes under the weight of their very own sin. But in the middle of the reign of Judges, where kings clash and heroes rise and fall, we get the story of a family, A humble family with modest beginnings. Naomi and Elie Melech, two parents just trying their best to make it work in a very troubling, trying world. Will they make it, Will they endure? Is their hope for the underdogs? Well, the journey of Ruth begins right here. 00:01:41 Speaker 1: Naomi carefully and slowly shut the door behind her so the creek didn't wake the sleeping boys. Her husband, Elimelech, came in while she was putting the children to bed, long after the sun has set. He was seated at their modest table, defeat etched on his broad shoulders, resignation weighed him down and slumped him forward, his forehead in his hands. Naomi softly padded to his side, careful not to wig the boys, and sat in the chair beside him. She gently pulled his hands away from his face and met his gaze. Naomi was determined that whatever he said would not break her, but when his eyes found her, her heart ached at the broken pride and sheer failure she found there. 00:02:34 Speaker 5: It's all gone, isn't it? 00:02:38 Speaker 1: Elimelek nodded in confirmation. Alimelek felt as though he had failed his family. It was not his fault that Israel faltered into famine. The clear and sunny skies seemed to mock him, and the fields turned to dust in his hands. That he was burdened with the responsibility anyway. Elimelek had already sold off all but one of their fields, and he had let all of the workers go to attempt to buy food for his family. But no one else was having better luck. There was no more food to buy in Bethlehem. He toiled alone in a barren mockery of a field, futilely trying to coax anything to grow from the scorched earth. He had to watch his wife and young sons wither away from malnutrition before his very eyes. Despite the gnawing hunger that gripped her, Naomi's fierce loyalty bore up at him as he sadly smiled down at her. Elimelech would never speak the words aloud, but felt he did not deserve her love when he could not provide for her and the children. 00:03:47 Speaker 2: Another family left her Wellham. 00:03:51 Speaker 5: Today ay Nashan's family. 00:03:55 Speaker 2: Aye, they just abandoned. Therefore, the same as the others, no one will buy the land anymore. The Redeemers can't help either. 00:04:08 Speaker 5: I suppose we were fortunate to sell the land we did a few years back. 00:04:13 Speaker 2: A lot of good that did us well. We should have packed up and left. 00:04:17 Speaker 1: Then, but now oh, Naomi's eyes widened. They had discussed following their neighbors and leaving Bethlehem, but she and Elimelech had never been able to imagine leaving the land of their ancestors, the land of the tribe of Judah. 00:04:34 Speaker 2: Naomi, I love you, and our boys are more precious to me than even my father's ancestral home. I I never thought this day would come, but I just don't see a way around it. We will go to the land to Boap. I hear the territory is still hilding crops. Yeah, it seems there gods had not abandoned them. Perhaps we can. We can make a new start, wait out the famine there, and then return home. 00:05:15 Speaker 1: After a while, Elimelech sighed deeply and clenched his eyes shut, trying in vain to compose himself and mask his profound disappointment. Swallowing against the tightness in her own throat, Naomi copped her husband's face between her hands. When he opened his eyes and met hers, they were brimmed with tears. 00:05:39 Speaker 2: My only regret is that we did not go sooner. I fear the years ahead will be hard. We will have no money in a foreign lamp. We'll have only what I can grow with the strength and skill of from my weakened hands. I'm sorry, my love, this was never the life I wanted for you. From ael On and kill Leon that there will be no future at all if we stay here. 00:06:19 Speaker 1: Naomi could taste the saltiness of the tears she hadn't realized with falling down her face. However, she denied the pull to succumb to them and held Elimelek's face firmly. 00:06:31 Speaker 5: Then we will hold fast to that future. If you say there is a life for us in Moab, then that's where we'll go. You are my family, Illimelech. Wherever you go, I will go too. We will find that future for our sons, even if it means leaving behind the land of our ancestors. I pray that the Lord will find us again in Moab and bring us favor there. 00:06:56 Speaker 2: I don't know how you can still cling to the hope of our people's God after all we've seen. If Israel is dying all around us, I mean, every day more and more ancestral homes are abandoned, to the very land the Lord gave us is dying and the people have turned corrupt and cruel. 00:07:16 Speaker 5: I'm not sure, but the Lord gave me you. He gave us Meilan and Chilian. That's all I need. As long as I have you, my faith will endure. 00:07:27 Speaker 2: Thaomi, your name means pleasant. You well, what gives me hope in these dark days. 00:07:37 Speaker 1: The family set out from Bethlehem and settled in Moab for what they thought would be a short time. Elimelek erected a simple structure made from the region's ample, bustled stones, and Naomi wove reeds and long grasses together for their thatched roof. It wasn't much, but it would suffice until the first of Elimelek's crops could be harvested and sold. They could then fill the spaces between the stones and reeds with mud, bricks, or other durable materials. Elimelech tilled the land, fretting and laboring over reaping the scant seeds he could purchase with what was left of their former wealth. The young boys helped their father and mother as they could, but it would be many years until they were grown. Slowly but steadily, the family built a new life in Moab. Naomi made their stone house a home, and Elimelech worked the land until timid sprouts joyfully sprang from the earth. Marlon and Kilian delighted in chasing hungry crows from the vulnerable plants, and absorbed their father's lessons as best as possible with their youthful minds and attention spans. 00:08:51 Speaker 3: Oh, oh, finally, I can see why the Morbites praised this god, bab. It appears he has not turned us back on this country. 00:09:03 Speaker 1: Naomi celebrated alongside her husband, but remained wary of this foreign god. The teachings of her upbringing of the God of Israel were planted deeply in her heart, even if she did not often acknowledge why. She saw her young sons soak up their father's words and promised herself she would redouble her efforts to teach them about the God of Israel. They had been in the land for about three years. Elimelech gingerly warped the fields, admiring how it had grown. This year's harvest would be triple last year's. He walked the fields with his sons, pointing at each stone that needed removing and each weed that needed plucking. The grain hushed in the slight breeze masking the sound of a rattlesnake coiled beside a stone. 00:09:57 Speaker 2: See, boys, large stones like these need to be to him. Out every inch of our field count stand up. 00:10:04 Speaker 1: Elimelech froze mid reach as he saw the snake. Its fangs bore deep into his hand, and he fell back, clasping his hand and screaming in pain. He swore and kicked away, crushing its head with his heel. Thinking the danger was behind him, he quietly thanked the god of the field this ball, that it had bitten him and not one of his young children. 00:10:29 Speaker 5: Should we go home and see mother? Are you all right? 00:10:32 Speaker 1: Elimelex stooped over and examined his hand. The skin was red and irritated around the two puncture wounds from the fangs, but that was to be expected. He wiped away the blood and tried gripping his staff. He winced, but the pain was bearable enough to keep working. Elimelex squinted up at the position of the sun in the sky, and then swept his gaze over the field, calculating how much work they could get done before it set. 00:11:01 Speaker 2: Don't worry, don't worry, boy, sob I'll be all right. We should harvest the rest of these rows before the day darkens. 00:11:08 Speaker 1: The trio worked until nightfall, and it wasn't until Elimelek stopped moving that he realized the shortness of breath and the tightness in his chest was not due to the exertion of the day's work. The boys ran into the house and excitedly chatted at their mother's elbow as she prepared their evening meal at the table in the one room of their house. She smiled down at them, talking a mile a minute about the snake their father had killed. Naomi turned that radiant smile to Elimelek in the entryway, but her smile fell as she saw Elimelech sway and grip the stones for balance. 00:11:48 Speaker 5: Slimak. 00:11:50 Speaker 1: Naomi rushed to her husband's side and nudged her shoulder under his arm to support his weight. She helped him lay back on their bed roll and examined his hand. The blood and pass had scabbed over, sealing what was surely venom inside. Elimelek was shallow, breathing and struggling to maintain consciousness. Panicked, Naomi fumbled around the ingredients she had on the minimal shelving on the side of their dwelling curdled milk. She hoped that would soothe the swelling and calm the infection, but as for a medicinal solution, she needed to think. Calian, their youngest, frightened by his parents panic, began to cry. Marlon stared, paralyzed and wide eyed. 00:12:34 Speaker 5: Think think, Maelan, take your brother outside, Go and find rue. It's an herb. Look for a bush with bluish green leaves and yellow flowers. It should remedy the poison. I hope, Go hurry. 00:12:47 Speaker 1: Marlon grasped his little brother's hand and pulled him outside to look for the plant. Naomi pressed the cool kurds to Alimelech's wounds. Elimelech let out a sigh of relief. Skin beneath the curds was hot to the touch, his face was flushed, and a fever was inevitably ravaging his body. Elimelech suddenly grabbed Naomi's forearm with surprising strength. 00:13:12 Speaker 2: Go go tell them the tailgates raiders. We scare them off. 00:13:26 Speaker 1: Naomi's heart sank. Elimelek was hallucinating about events years past. Shakily, she reached her hand out to his forehead, but he jerked away in fear and confusion. She then noticed that his skin and fingers were beginning to take on a bluish sheen as he labored to breathe and jerk, as if his limbs were no longer his to control. His breath was jagged, and there was a deep rattle from within his lungs, the telltale sign of a fluid that should not be there. This poisoning was too far gone and beyond her skill to heal. Choking back a sob at the realization of what would likely be her husband's final hours, Naomi gently but firmly pushed past Alimalex's protestations and propped him up against the stone wall of their house to ease his breathing. 00:14:21 Speaker 2: The reader's her They'll be back again. My wife was pregnant. 00:14:28 Speaker 1: I have to protect her. 00:14:32 Speaker 5: You have protected her, Naomi and the voice are safe. You can rest now. 00:14:38 Speaker 1: Elima Lex's eyes narrowed on her face before him, and he finally registered who she was. He struggled for breath and struggled to maintain consciousness, keeping his eyes fixed on his wife before him. Marlon and Keelian returned with handfuls of the herb. Naomi bitterly wished she could shield the boy from this horror. She plucked the leaves from her son's and carefully laid them across the wound, allowing the oils from the plant to absorb into the skin directly. 00:15:20 Speaker 5: Yes, my little I'm here. I will stay with you now rest. 00:15:27 Speaker 1: Elimelek nodded in a muddled acceptance, but seemed comforted by her words. He didn't fight her as she reached for his face again and traced the familiar laugh lines in his cheeks and the deep contemplative lines of his forehead. His eyes fluttered shut, and though his breathing was still ragged and irregular, he seemed to calm to her touch. Eventually, Elimelek lost consciousness, but the rattle from within his chest became deep and difficult. Naomi spoke soothing words to Marlin and Kellian and pulled them close so they would not be afraid. True to her word, Naomi stayed at a Limelech's side until he breathed in his last labored breath on this side of heaven. When the sun rose the following day, casting its warm rays across the plains of Moab. Naomi found herself to be a widow, but in her loss, she was burdened with an even greater purpose. She was all Marlin and Kelian had in the world now, and so they became her purpose. The years marched on, and though it was harder than Naomi ever could have imagined, she made a life in Moab for her small family. Her young boys had grown into young men, and though the farm never flourished, they were able to make a living. Naomi's eyes swept across the wedding feast and up to the radiant, beaming couple at the center of it all. Their joy was so contagious that Naomi found her lips tugged upward into a rare smile. It was perhaps only the second time she smiled since Elimelech died, she remembered the first time well. Marlon had left that morning uncharacteristically fidgety and distracted, but determined, and when he returned to tell her that his bride price had been accepted, she had never seen her son so triumphant. A young woman in town by the name of Ruth caught Marlon's eye, and he worked tirelessly to earn enough money for the bride price. Naomi was so proud of her son. She knew that Marlon's offer was likely not the highest Ruth's father could have gotten, but he was impressed by his determination and work ethic in winning his daughter's hand. Ruth's deep brown eyes seemed to sparkle under her veil in the glow of the torches, and she couldn't take them off her new husband. Her winning smile never faded through the weeks of their betrothal, the wedding ceremony, and even the days of the feast. The girl adored Marlin. Naomi was grateful that her son had found such an adoring wife. She prayed to the God of their homeland that her loyalty would be a blessing to her husband and their family. Naomi scanned the feast again and found her younger son, Kelian, grinning at another local girl from town Upah. She blushed and timidly smiled back at Kellian. Naomi once more allowed a smile to grace her lips. Perhaps she would be blessed with a second wedding soon enough. It would be bittersweet, though her sons were no longer children but men grown. Naomi had loved them faithfully and fiercely, clinging to the hope of the land she and Elimelech had fled to. It would be difficult to see her sons start their own families, but in that endeavor, they would carry their families hope forward through her husband's family line. Their father's memory would live on through them, And so Naomi found herself praying once more amid the wedding feast. She prayed that the hope that brought her family to this land in the first place would be rekindled, and that all the tragedy and strife would be redeemed. 00:19:45 Speaker 4: The story of Ruth begins with this verse. In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. Right away we're thrust into suffering, and in the midst of this suffering and famine, we meet elimele a wealthy and influential leader in Bethlehem. As the famine and the promised land progressed, Elimelech left with his wife and his two sons to live in mob But even with the famine threatening, why would this seemingly comfortable Israelite leave the Holy land that he'd been promised by God. Well, the Jewish Aga suggests that Elimelech had a selfish streak. They teach that he was afraid that all the hungry people would knock on his door for help during the famine. Tradition doesn't actually look favorably upon Elimelech because a bedrock of faith of the Chosen People is to help those in need, especially if you have the means. 00:20:43 Speaker 2: To do so. 00:20:44 Speaker 4: If you see Jewish people who succeed after a lifetime of hardships, they don't leave their communities. Rather, they stay and invest in making their communities stronger. They invest in the schools, they invest in feeding program, they invest in everything that the poor community needs, which now that they have a way to help build them up, they do so. They take that seriously. And it's not just the Jewish community, it's the Christian community as well. I am so proud of the work that we do at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the organization that I lead, because we do what Elimelch did not do. The Fellowship, because of Christians who give so sacrificially, is able to help people in need on a huge basis We help hundreds of thousands of elderly Holocaust survivors, young children, orphans who don't have food. 00:21:46 Speaker 5: And we're able to. 00:21:47 Speaker 4: Do that because of the generosity of our Christian friends who make it possible. We do that together right here in the Holy Land, Jews and Christians together, we do it here in Israel, this same land that Elimelech and his family deserted in a time of need. I think this is a fixing, a repentance. We're coming back to this land that Alimelech left, and we're bringing the food. We're bringing the aid. Ironically, Bethlehem means house of bread in Hebrew. You say it bit Lachen and Naomi's family left because there was none, And when they do, tragedy follows. Naomi's husband dies, her son's Mary, but soon after they die as well. In just four short verses, Naomi's world unravels. Her happiness, carefully woven together over years, collapses in an instant. She's left broken, she's left empty, she's bitterly alone. We look at Naomi's story and it's difficult to find hope. Her beginning doesn't hint at redemption. It's drenched in loss, sorrow and despair. Like Israel her self under slavery in Egypt or the dry wilderness, Naomi is a portrait of need, desperately longing for redemption. There's a lesson hidden within this darkness, and it's that happiness is fragile. Happiness can take years to build and only moments to shatter. In the later episodes, we'll meet Job, whose life was rich in blessings until it wasn't. In an instant, everything vanished, health, family, wealth, gone, and Job, like Naomi, was left to question and grieve. We often cling tightly to happiness, don't we. Sometimes we even trick ourselves into believing it's proof of God's goodness. But happiness isn't guaranteed, and it's not necessarily God's ultimate goal for us either. His purpose is often much greater. Do you remember in an earlier story when God laid out his purpose for Abraham with these words, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. God's plans for the chosen people have always been great. All of us are called to be a blessing to the nations like Naomi, We too face moments when hope seems distant, when happiness seems elusive. But redemption doesn't depend on our circumstances. It depends on God's faithfulness. Maybe today, my friends, your happiness feels fleeting, fragile, or entirely absent. But take heart. Though happiness may falter, redemption does not. Trust God to transform your pain into his greater purpose. Your story, like Naomi's, isn't finished yet. Cello, my friends, from here in the Holy Land. 00:25:12 Speaker 1: You can listen to The Chosen People with Yile Eckstein ad free by downloading and subscribing to the prey dot com app today. This preydog comproduction is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Katina, Max Bard, Zach Shellabarger and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of The Chosen People with Yile Eckstein, edited by Alberto Avilla, narrated by Paul Caltafianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton, Aaron Salvato, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwold, Sylvia Zaradoc, Thomas Copeland, Junior, Rosanna Pilcher, and the opening prayer is voiced by John Moore, music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Aaron Salvato, bre Rosalie and Chris Baig. Special thanks to Bishop Paulinier, Robin van Ettin, Kayler Burrows, Jocelyn Fuller, and the team at International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People with Yile Eckstein, please rate and leave a review.