Gleaning Becomes a Place of Protection and Provision

The reader learns of Boaz before Ruth does. “Kinsman” here is moda, an acquaintance or known relative, not yet the legal term go’el that Naomi will use in verse 20. “A mighty man of wealth” is gibbor chayil, a phrase that can mean a warrior, a man of property or a man of worth; Ruth will be called an eshet chayil, “a virtuous woman”, in 3:11.

Ruth takes the initiative and Naomi answers in two words. “Ears of corn” means heads of grain; “corn” in 1611 English was any cereal, here barley. “Find grace” is chen, favour, and the word will return three times in this chapter as Ruth and Boaz speak.

“Her hap was to light on” translates a doubled Hebrew phrase, literally “her chance chanced upon”, miqreh, luck or happening. The Book of Ruth puts it in the language of pure accident, with a straight face, and then names the field’s owner in the same breath.

Master and workers exchange blessings in the LORD’s name, a greeting that shows the tone of the field before anything happens in it. “Behold” marks his arrival as a surprise and as good timing: he comes out from the town on the very day she chose his field.

“Whose damsel is this?” asks to whom she belongs, a father, husband or household, the ordinary way of placing a young woman. Boaz notices her among the gleaners at once.

The overseer answers with her origin twice, “Moabitish” and “out of the country of Moab”, which is how the town sees her. He does not give her name; he may not know it.

The Hebrew of the last clause is difficult: literally “this her sitting in the house a little”. It may mean she rested only briefly in the field shelter, or that she has hardly stopped since morning. Gleaning “among the sheaves” was more than the law required, which only left the edges and the dropped ears (Leviticus 19:9).

“Hearest thou not” is a gentle way of saying “listen”. “My daughter” sets Boaz as an older man speaking to a young woman. “Abide here fast by my maidens” uses davaq again, the verb of Ruth clinging to Naomi (1:14), now applied to staying with his women workers.

“Touch” can mean molest or strike, and the charge suggests the danger was real for a lone foreign woman in a field. Drawing water was usually work for women and foreigners (Deuteronomy 29:11); here the young Israelite men draw it and the Moabite widow drinks.

Falling on the face and bowing to the ground is the full gesture of a suppliant. Her question contains a Hebrew pun: “take knowledge of me”, lehakkireni, and “stranger”, nokhriyyah, come from the same root, to recognise and to be foreign.

Boaz describes her journey in words that echo God’s call to Abraham in Genesis 12:1: leaving father, mother and “the land of thy nativity” for a land not known before. He has heard the whole account, fully, from the town’s talk.

“Recompense” is shalem, to repay in full; “a full reward” is maskoreth, wages. “Under whose wings” pictures a bird sheltering its young, as in Psalm 91:4. In 3:9 Ruth will ask Boaz to spread his own “skirt”, the same Hebrew word, kanaph, wing, over her.

“Spoken friendly” is literally “spoken to the heart”, the tender phrase of Judges 19:3. She calls herself shiphchah, a maidservant, and adds that she is not even equal to one of his. In 3:9 she will choose a different word, amah, one of higher standing, a handmaid who can be married.

“Vinegar” is chomets, soured wine used as a dip for bread, a labourer’s relish. Parched corn is roasted grain, eaten from the hand. Boaz serves her himself, and she eats until she is “sufficed, and left”, enough for Naomi too, as verse 18 shows.

“Among the sheaves” is now permitted outright by the owner, the very request she had made in verse 7. “Reproach her not” means do not shame her; she is to gather in the heart of the crop without being chased off.

“Of purpose” is a rare Hebrew verb, shol tashollu, to pull out, draw from the bundle. The reapers are to pull stalks from their gathered handfuls and let them fall, so that what Ruth picks up still counts as gleaning, not alms.

An ephah was a dry measure of perhaps twenty to thirty litres, several days’ worth of grain for two women from one day’s gleaning. She beats it out herself with a stick before carrying it home, which reduced the load to the kernels.

“She brought forth” is the leftover food from the meal, kept back for Naomi. The Hebrew subject of “saw” can be read either way: Naomi saw the grain, or Ruth made her see it. Either way the evidence comes home first and the explanation follows.

Naomi asks two questions in one breath and blesses the unknown benefactor before she knows who he is. Ruth holds the name to the last word of the verse, and in Hebrew “Boaz” does end the sentence.

The “his” of “his kindness” can refer to the LORD or to Boaz; the Hebrew allows both. “Near of kin” and “next kinsmen” are two different words: qarov, close, and go’alenu, “one of our redeemers”, the relative bound by law to buy back land or a person for the family (Leviticus 25:25).

Ruth reports the order slightly differently: Boaz told her to stay with his maidens (verse 8), and she repeats it as his “young men”, a masculine form that may be general. “Until they have ended all my harvest” means some weeks of secure work.

“That they meet thee not” uses paga, which can mean to fall upon or harm. Naomi confirms what Boaz meant: in another man’s field a lone Moabite gleaner would have no protection.

Wheat followed barley by about seven weeks, the span from Passover to Pentecost. Through all that time the chapter reports nothing further between Ruth and Boaz. “Dwelt with her mother in law” closes on the household of two widows still unchanged, which is the problem chapter 3 takes up.