Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The LORD be with you!” And they answered, “The LORD bless you.” Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”
Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.” Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!” Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”
And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”
So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Ruth 2 ESV
Return was the word that expressed the dominant theme of chapter one. From verses 6-22, it was used twelve times. And rightly so. The book’s opening told of Naomi’s ten-year sojourning in Moab and the death of her husband and children there. Thus, the remainder of the chapter focused on her return to the Promised Land, bitter as both she and her return were. Yet the chapter ended with a note of hope. While the chapter began with famine, it ended with the beginning of the barley harvest, signaling that better days now lay ahead.
With the harvest begun, chapter two gives us a new key word, glean, which is used twelve times in this chapter. In order to understand the significance of this word, let us consider two commands from God’s law for Israel:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourners: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:9-10)
When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 24:19)
These laws reflect one of God’s good and gracious means of providing food for the poor and needy in Israel. He commanded His people to purposefully leave grain unharvested, so that the poor could harvest it. We would do well to consider the wisdom here for our present-day giving to the poor. This preserved the poor from enduring the indignity of begging as well as giving them actual work to do. This will be the central action of chapter two, since Ruth is a poor, widowed foreigner who must depend upon the generosity of others for food.
However, gleaning is significant for us as we study this passage as well. When learning from narrative portions of Scripture such as Ruth, the meaning and teachings are less explicit than in didactic literature such as Old Testament laws or New Testament epistles. Narrative literature is a bit like a field ripe for the harvest. The grain is full and ready to be gathered, but we must do the work of gleaning before we can be nourished by its fruit.
While there are much divine truths to be gleaned from this chapter (indeed, far more than we can cover here), the author of Ruth seems particularly to desire for us to observe and meditate upon the character and excellence of Ruth and a new person in the narrative, Boaz.
Let us, therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest for spiritual strength and wisdom to glean an abundance from His Word before us.
DILIGENCE DISPLAYED // VERSES 1-7
If chapter one ended with a glimmer of hope by mentioning the beginning of the barley harvest, chapter two reinforces that hope by immediately introducing us to our third main character of the story, Boaz. Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. Although Naomi was bereft of her immediate family, extended family of her husband still remained in Bethlehem, which raises hope of some sort of intervention into her destitution. One of these family members (for there are others) is a worthy man named Boaz. This phrase is used of Gideon in Judges 6:12, calling him a mighty man of valor, and it is often used similarly to describe great warriors. It can also mean a man of wealth or, as seems most clear from the following chapters, of a noble or honorable character. One translator notes that calling Boaz a man of substance captures the right amount of ambiguity present within the Hebrew phrase. Indeed, in contrast with Ruth’s first husband, Mahlon, whose name meant sickness or sickly, Boaz’s name very likely means strength.
The narrator is saying to us: Keep your eye fixed on Boaz, because it may be (as a good author he does not tell you yet that it will be), that he is God’s answer to Naomi’s prayer–possibly in ways you would not expect, and certainly these women would never expect. After all, the Old Testament God is the New Testament God who ‘is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think’ (Ephesians 3:20). (46)
After this brief introduction to Boaz, the narrative turns back to Ruth and Naomi: And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.”
Notice the initiative of Ruth. She knows that her and Naomi need food, and she is not going to wait for it to fall into their laps. Neither does she intend to beg for food. Whether Naomi has explained Israel’s laws about gleaning to her or not, Ruth sets out to gather grain from anyone who will be kind enough to allow her to collect from their field. Indeed, she is fully aware that she is dependent upon the kindness and generosity of a stranger, which is why she says that she must find favor (or grace) in someone’s eyes.
Naomi’s terse response seems to indicate her continued state of depression. Duguid writes:
It is not clear why Naomi did not also go out and glean. She was perhaps in her fifties at this point in the story and evidenced no obvious crippling disability that made her unable to go out and work. Was there nothing she could have done in the field to help in their need? Two certainly would have been safer than one and might have expected to bring home at least a little more food. It is tempting to imagine that her bitterness caused her to sink into depression and despair. (157)
Of course, we cannot know that for certain, but it very much fits the pattern of depression. John Bunyan rightly envisioned despair as an iron cage within a dark dungeon that seems impossible to escape from. Yet in the Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian was able to escape by remembering the key of promise that he had with him the entire time. Although we will not encounter Naomi again until the end of the chapter, we will do so with Ruth unknowingly reminding Naomi of just such a key.
So she set out and went and gleaned in the fields after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.
Remember that repetition in Scripture means to pay attention. By calling our attention again to Boaz being of the tribe of Elimelech, the author is signaling that he might be able to give help to the two widows.
We should also note the phrase and she happened to come. As many commentators note, the author very much seems to be saying this with a knowing grin. Yet I think we go too far if we call it sarcasm. I believe the author is earnest about saying that Ruth just happened to come to Boaz’s part of the field, while also knowing that that is not the full story. You see, Ruth really did just happen upon the field. She had no idea who he was. She came by coincidence. But that is only true from her vantage point. By playfully giving us only Ruth’s point-of-view, we are invited to remember that Ruth can only see her life as a character within the story that she is living (and the same is true for our lives). But there is another perspective that must be considered: the Author. For the writer of the story, there are no coincidences, only providence.
And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The LORD be with you!” And they answered, “The LORD bless you.”
With the emphatic word behold, the author is literally saying, “Look! Here comes Boaz now!” And the first word out of his mouth is Yahweh. “The narrator has included this interchange so that we can immediately tell that Boaz honors the Lord in his work and is respected by his workers” (Duguid, 159). This is one mark of a godly man. As Piper notes:
If you want to know a man’s relation to God, it helps to find out how far God has saturated him down to the details of his everyday life. Evidently Boaz was such a God-saturated man that his farming business and his relationships to his employees was shot through with God. He greeted them with God. And we will see that these were more than pious platitudes. (42)
Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.”
While visiting his workers, Boaz immediately notices Ruth. We must remember that Bethlehem was a relatively small town, so he was likely familiar with the usual faces of those who came to glean in his part of the field. But Ruth was new. And with Boaz, through the report of his foreman, we are able to glean more of Ruth’s character. And we discover that her initiative to work is no emptier than Boaz’s invocation of Yahweh. Like the excellent woman of Proverbs 31, Ruth is industrious and hard-working. She is not afraid of breaking a sweat under the hot sun.
GRACE FOUND // VERSES 8-13
With this report, we should now be wondering how Boaz will respond. Notice that the foreman spoke of Ruth as though everyone in Bethlehem knew about Naomi’s Moabite tag-along, but he avoids her name and twice emphasizes that she is from Moab. Boaz, as a man of Yahweh, knows that he is commanded not to seek the peace or prosperity of any Moabite. Not only does he owe Ruth nothing; he very well may be breaking God’s law by blessing her with food. That is the tension with which we ought to read the following exchange:
Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn.”
Notice, first, after learning that the young woman is Ruth, Boaz goes straight to her. She is very likely the one whom everyone in the town is talking about, but no one wants to talk to. Yet Boaz will have none of that. Second, he tells her to stay in his field, working behind his young men and keeping close to his young women. He immediately addresses what Naomi was apparently too depressed to worry about: Ruth’s safety. This is the time when the judges ruled after all. And more than just giving Ruth grain, he also urges her to drink from his well.
Can you see the kingliness in Boaz? In the time of the judges, there was no king in Israel, so Boaz is not king. However, in a kingless age, he is kingly. Although Boaz is a land-owner, we do not know how much wealth Boaz actually had, and it doesn’t matter. He is clearly a competent steward over what he has. One godly man cannot fix a godless society, but he can build a godly home and business. Israel as a whole is in chaos and moral decay, but in Boaz’s field, a young widow like Ruth is both protected and provided for.
Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?”
Ruth is overcome by the grace of Boaz’s words to her, and her response is to ask how a foreigner (a Moabite, particularly) could possibly be shown such grace. Piper notes that:
[Ruth] is different from most people today. We have a sense of entitlement. We expect kindness and are astonished and resentful if we don’t get our “rights.” But Ruth expresses her sense of unworthiness by falling on her face and bowing to the ground. Proud people don’t feel amazed at being treated well. They don’t feel deep gratefulness. But humble people do. In fact, they are made even more humble by being treated graciously. They are so amazed that grace came to them in their unworthiness that they feel even more lowly. But they receive the gift. Joy increases, not self-importance. Grace is not intended to replace lowliness with pride. It’s intended to replace sorrow with joy. (44)
But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be give you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”
While Ruth was likely the gossip and scandal of Bethlehem, Boaz heard the stories and immediately recognized Ruth’s excellent character. Indeed, the saying is quite true here: it takes character to notice character. Everyone else saw a destitute Moabite, but Boaz saw chesed, steadfast love and covenantal faithfulness. Like a baby eagle flees for safety under its mother’s mighty wings, Ruth, in her distress, had come to Yahweh for refuge and security. As a servant of Yahweh, Boaz is pleased to be an instrument of Yahweh’s provision and protection for Ruth.
Then she said, “I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.”
Again, Ruth recognizes the utter grace that Boaz is showing to her. Indeed, Boaz is showing the loving-kindness of Yahweh to her, which is sufficient to save even Moabites. Here again we ought to imitate Boaz. Barry Webb writes that:
Applying the Word of God to the messy business of life requires great wisdom. All of it is inspired by God and carries the stamp of his authority. So all of it must be honored and obeyed. However, treating it as a set of absolute rules that must all be applied in the same direct way in every situation, regardless of the intention behind them or the complexities of particular cases, simply will not do. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees of his day for failing to distinguish between the lesser and greater matters of the Law, magnifying the former and neglecting the latter (Matthew 23:23). The result was a harsh legalism that failed to express the divine concern for justice and compassion that was the real heart of the Law and lay behind all the commandments. The truth is the ban on Moabites was given to prevent Israel from ever again being harmed by Moab, or seduced into worshiping its gods. It was never intended to exclude someone like Ruth who had abandoned those gods and taken refuge in the Lord, any more than the ban on the Canaanites was intended to exclude the harlot Rahab, who was in awe of Israel’s God and decided to cast in her lost with him and his people. If proof is needed, it is found in the way Ruth and Rahab are both included in the genealogy of Jesus that opens the New Testament! The way the book of Ruth ends, with blessing upon blessing, leaves us in no doubt that Boaz was a lawkeeper, not a lawbreaker. (261-262)
GENEROSITY GIVEN // VERSES 14-18
And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over.
The scene jumps to lunchtime, where Boaz shows Ruth even more kindness. Notice that Boaz is not concerned about any uncleanness in Ruth as a Moabite. He shares his bread and his bowl of wine for dipping. As Douglas Stuart notes, “in the ancient world (and in many places in the modern world) people would not eat together if they were not somehow allies or family. Eating was understood to convey acceptance, to declare approval of those with whom one dined” (Exodus, 555). Thus, Boaz is now displaying with his actions that Ruth does indeed have a place among Yahweh’s people. Duguid writes:
Though Ruth had probably brought little or nothing to eat, Boaz provided her a share of his food: special treats of bread dipped in sour vinegar and roasted grain so that, heaven of heavens, for once she had enough to eat. The joy of having enough to eat is a hard concept for us to grasp in our affluence, for we are used to satisfying our appetites three times a day, with snacks in between. But for a foreign widow to be able to eat to the point where she was full and still have some left over to take home… what a feast! (160)
When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”
Having already commanded his workers not to touch Ruth, Boaz now commands them to not reproach or rebuke her, which is probably best interpreted as forbidding them from mocking and jeering at her. Notice that Boaz is using his voice to speak for the oppressed (Proverbs 31:8-9). Here Boaz also commands workers to purposefully leave behind grain for her to glean. This is godly generosity that joyfully goes beyond what is merely commanded in God’s law. Boaz surely knows the favor of God toward him and finds delight in showing such favor to others.
So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied.
Not only did Ruth save some of her lunch for Naomi, who probably had not eaten, but Ruth brought home a large amount of grain. Block notes that “depending on the quality of the grain and the standard measurement used, an epha of barley probably weighed between thirty and fifty pounds” (143). And Ruth carried it back to her home! Sinclair Ferguson reflects:
Perhaps in the days of the judges women did a good deal more weight training than is normal today! But it is also possible that while the details are historically reliable, the author’s real purpose is to give us a moment of light relief from the heightening emotion of this story. Most of us can only sustain tension only so long. We need a moment or two to relax. Perhaps, then, we ae meant to enjoy a quiet smile at this scene. Here is the young widow who emigrated with probably little more than the clothes on her back. That morning she left the bare cupboards in the home of her Jewish mother-in-law. Now, only hours later, she staggers home with thirty pounds of grain over her shoulders! (54)
Indeed, I believe it is also subtly showing us that Ruth quite literally is dressing “herself with strength and makes her arms strong” (Proverbs 31:17).
HOPE REKINDLED // VERSES 19-23
And her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” Naomi’s embittered heart is clearly stirred by the sheer abundance that Ruth carries through the door. Indeed, she immediately knows that someone did, in fact, show grace to Ruth. Someone noticed her and responded with great generosity.
So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” The lumbering language of the ESV reflects the pace of the Hebrew. Block comments:
The repetition also slows the narrative, setting the stage for the climatic announcement of Boaz’s name, and drawing hearers’ attention to the blessing that follows. Ruth’s quoted statement, “The name of the man was Boaz,” does not answer Naomi’s question precisely. Although she asked “where” Ruth had worked, Ruth answered “with whom” she had worked. This switch intentionally focuses on the man who has dominated this Act. (144)
Ruth clearly sees the same excellent character in Boaz that he sees in her.
And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” At the mention of Boaz’s name, a crack begins to form in the bitterness of Naomi’s heart. She prays for Boaz to be blessed by Yahweh and then rejoices in God’s chesed toward both the living and the dead. Duguid notes that “the word ‘living’ is plural, encompassing both Naomi and Ruth. For the first time since leaving Moab, Ruth is included in the family of Naomi to whom the Lord will show his faithfulness” (162). God’s faithfulness to the dead is hinted at in Naomi’s next statement: Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours [notice her inclusion of Ruth again], one of our redeemers.” We will explore the importance of familial redemption in the next two chapters, for now it is sufficient to say that Boaz’s kindness to Ruth has rekindled hope in Naomi. Indeed, Ruth likely does not know the implications of that statement yet either, so she goes on:
And Ruth the Moabite said, “Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.'” And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.” So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Having gleaned hope from Ruth’s report of Boaz, Naomi can evidently think more clearly and recognize how dangerous it was for Ruth to go off on her own to a stranger’s field. Ruth is overjoyed at the grace she has already received and at the pledge of receiving more throughout the time of the harvest, and our text ends by telling us that she did just that. Ruth continued working in Boaz’s field throughout the barley and wheat harvests.
Iain Duguid points out that “in the background of the Book of Ruth, a clock is ticking.” He explains for us what the ordinary Jewish reader would have likely already known. The beginning of barley harvest coincides with the time of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven weeks later came the Feast of Harvest, the time of the first fruits, which was called in Greek Pentecost. He goes on to say:
Ruth not only experiences the first fruits of God’s grace, but in a profound sense, she is the first fruits. In the fullness of time, Pentecost, which was the harvest festival par excellence in Israel, was the day that God chose to pour out his Spirit on Jews and Gentiles alike, bringing them together into the one new people of God (Acts 2:1-39). Ruth’s incorporation by faith into God’s people was a foreshadowing of the much greater harvest that God one day would reap among the Gentiles as his grace extended more fully to the nations. Focused in as they were on their own needs, Naomi and Ruth probably didn’t hear the redemptive clock ticking, but the narrator wants us to hear that sound and reflect on the perfection of God’s timing. (165)
Indeed, while we hopefully have gleaned much spiritual grain from the characters and their actions in this text, the great purpose of God’s Word is ultimately to reveal Christ to us. Thus, the most important question is what can we glean of Christ our Lord from this passage?
The most evident answer is to see that Jesus is the true and better Boaz. Though Boaz was kingly, Jesus is the King of kings. And while we only glimpse the underlying strength of Boaz, the four Gospels vividly portrait Christ’s strength to us, strength to withstand the direct assault of temptation of Satan, strength perfectly obey the Father’s will, strength to restrain His divine power while enduring the scorn of those He created and sustained, strength to have the fullness of God’s righteous wrath swallow Him like a flood, strength to trampled upon the grave from within the grave, and strength to uphold and maintain His church through two thousand years of sin and folly.
Indeed, before this perfect Boaz, we are all widowed Moabites. We are strangers and outcasts who have no right to be numbered among the people of God. What Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1-3 is true of us all:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Thus, when Christ looks upon us with grace, we should each respond like Ruth: Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” Consider these final words from John Piper:
This is the message of the biblical gospel. God will have mercy on anyone who humbles himself, like Ruth, and takes refuge under the wings of God. Jesus said,
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. (Luke 13:34-35)
All the Pharisees had to do was to take refuge under the wings of Jesus. Stop trying to justify themselves. Stop relying on themselves. Stop glorifying themselves. But they would not. Ruth was not their model. No falling on their faces before Jesus. No bowing down. No astonishment at grace. Don’t be like the Pharisees. Be like Ruth. (47-48)
May we indeed be astonished at such grace that has been extended to us as we come the Table before us. Just as Boaz’s giving of bread and wine at meal to Ruth was an act of inclusion and acceptance, so too is the Lord’s Supper. Like Ruth, let our taking of this bread and cup be a visible sign that we seek refuge only under the wings of Christ, that we look to Him alone for all our hope and salvation. And as we do so, let us rejoice that in His sight we receive grace upon grace.
B. C. Newton 