Your People Shall Be My People

 

"And Ruth said, Urge me not to leave you or turn back from following you;
for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people
shall be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and
there I will be buried.  The Lord do so to me, and more also,
 if anything but death parts me from you."
(Ruth 1:16-17)

Ruth

Painting courtesy/Bible Scripture.net

A story from the days of the judges, when yet there was no king
 ruling in Israel, the love story of Ruth exemplifies the amazing
grace and mercy of Almighty God in the midst of evil, in a
time when, "every man did what was right in his own eyes."
(Judges 21:25)

Ruth, a daughter of the land of Moab, decides to follow her
 widowed mother-in-law Naomi,  who is going home to Judah,
 while her sister-in-law, Orpah, another woman of Moab,
decided to go back to her homeland.

In the beautiful words of the psalmist, Ruth sought *"refuge,
 and trust in the shelter of Thy wings".  Through her faith in the
 Living God of Israel, she received unmerited favor in His sight.

The story of Ruth is a beautiful prophecy, the foretelling of the 
 heathen, or gentile world, entering into the kingdom of God.

Ruth's confession in the above passages sprang from the love
and acceptance she received from her mother-in-law, Naomi,
a woman of uncompromising and steadfast faith in the
promises of Elohim hayyim, the Living God of Israel.

Ruth married Naomi's kinsman, Boaz, and bore a son, Obed.
Obed was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David,
placing her in the human ancestry of  Yeshua Ha'Mashiach,
Jesus Christ Our Lord.

* Psalm 61:4