Metaphysical meaning of Naomi (mbd)
Naomi, nå-o'-ml (Heb.)--my sweetness; my pleasantness; delight; my beloved; my delight; beauty.
Wife of Elimelech, and mother of the first husband of Ruth the Moabitess. She was an Israelitish woman of Beth-lehem judah. With her husband and sons she went to live in the country of Moab during a famine in their own country. In Moab her husband and sons died, and she came back to her own land a widow. (Ruth 1; 2; 3; 4).
Meta. The soul, when it has failed to unite itself with God. The soul feels that the "Almighty hath dealt very bitterly" with it, when it fails to express itself under the law of Jehovah.
Naomi, the soul, goes out from Jehovah charged with spiritual ideas. Man has free will in the exercise of spiritual ideas and may utilize his soul forces in the sense consciousness, but he is always brought back to his original spiritual starting point, no matter how far away from the Source of his being he may wander (Ruth 1:21).
The love nature of man is satisfied only as the soul is attached to thoughts of Spirit. Then love becomes a magnet to attract into one's experience only that which is uplifting and constructive. (See Ruth 1:14-22.) Symbolically Naomi represents the outcome of the soul's experiences, when in its apparent lack it turns to the resources of sense instead of to God. This is going into a foreign land when apparent lack sets in at home. Prosperity may seem to express for a season in the new surroundings, but the ruling thought of sense is material; the apparent prosperity that it brings cannot be permanent. The love of the soul is for Spirit, and for the people (thoughts) of Spirit. When it is true to its highest wisdom it becomes a magnet to attract other souls of like character, to the higher life.
Naomi (meaning my pleasantness, my delight, my beloved) may also be said to represent the divine feminine, or love. Her history illustrates the search of love for satisfaction in outer things when there seems a dearth in the inner. The result of leaving the true spiritual environment for what seems in the outer to be riches and honor is disappointment and lack; a return to the old home --the Father's house, Israel, the real--is necessary.
Ruth here means sweetness, beauty, firm will. She represents the symmetrical expression of the soul in form. Naomi loves the beautiful body, Ruth, but in her lack of spiritual sufficiency tries to deny it place in her life.
Ruth clung to Naomi; the spiritual quality of Naomi awakened the soul of her beautiful body, Ruth, and an indissoluble attachment was formed between them.
Beth-lehem means "house of bread"; the beginning of the barley harvest symbolizes a renewal, or a reunion of the soul and body with the true substance.
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