Ruth 2

Boaz Meets Ruth

¹Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a prominent man of noble character from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.

²And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go into the fields and glean heads of grain after someone in whose sight I may find favor.”

“Go ahead, my daughter,” Naomi replied.

• RUTH 2:2[NOTE]GLEANING. God's law told farmers to leave the edges of the field and the grain they dropped for the poor, the foreigner and the widow, Leviticus 19:9 to 10 and Deuteronomy 24:19. Ruth was all three.

³So Ruth departed and went out into the field and gleaned after the harvesters. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.

• RUTH 2:3[NOTE]She happened to come to the field of Boaz. The writer is smiling here. In this book nothing just happens.
• RUTH 2:3[FIELD NOTES]A real harvester's letter, written on a piece of pottery about 630 BC, begs an official to give back his cloak. See The Harvester's Complaint Field Notes page.

⁴Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, “Yahweh be with you.”

“Yahweh bless you,” they replied.

⁵And Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “Whose young woman is this?”

⁶The foreman answered, “She is the Moabitess who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab. ⁷She has said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the harvesters.’ So she came out and has continued from morning until now, except that she rested a short time in the shelter.”

⁸Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go and glean in another field, and do not go away from this place, but stay here close to my servant girls. ⁹Let your eyes be on the field they are harvesting, and follow along after these girls. Indeed, I have ordered the young men not to touch you. And when you are thirsty, go and drink from the jars the young men have filled.”

¹⁰At this, she fell on her face, bowing low to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me, even though I am a foreigner?”

¹¹Boaz replied, “I have been made fully aware of all you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and how you came to a people you did not know before. ¹²May Yahweh repay your work, and may you receive a rich reward from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have taken refuge.”

• RUTH 2:12[NOTABLE]Boaz prays that God will reward Ruth for hiding under His wings. Then Boaz becomes the answer to his own prayer, when Ruth asks him to spread the corner of his garment, the same Hebrew word as wings, over her, 3:9.

¹³“My lord,” she said, “may I continue to find favor in your eyes, for you have comforted and spoken to the heart of your maidservant, though I am not like one of your servant girls.”

• RUTH 2:13[HEART]Ruth says Boaz spoke to her heart. In Hebrew that means he comforted her tenderly, the same words used for God's comfort to His people in Isaiah 40:2 and Hosea 2:14.

¹⁴At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here; have some bread and dip it into the vinegar sauce.” So she sat down beside the harvesters, and he offered her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left over.

¹⁵When Ruth got up to glean, Boaz ordered his young men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, do not insult her. ¹⁶Rather, pull out for her some stalks from the bundles and leave them for her to gather. Do not rebuke her.”

¹⁷So Ruth gathered grain in the field until evening. And when she beat out what she had gleaned, it was about half a bushel of barley. ¹⁸She picked up the grain and went into the town, where her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. And she brought out what she had saved from her meal and gave it to Naomi.

¹⁹Then her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today, and where did you work? Blessed be the man who noticed you.”

So she told her mother-in-law where she had worked. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

²⁰Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by Yahweh, who has not withdrawn His kindness from the living or the dead.” Naomi continued, “The man is a close relative. He is one of our kinsman-redeemers.”

• RUTH 2:20[NOTE]KINSMAN REDEEMER is the Hebrew word goel, a close relative who buys back what a family lost, Leviticus 25:25. See the Big Question pages The Kinsman Redeemer.

²¹Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “He also told me, ‘Stay with my young men until they have finished gathering all my harvest.’”

²²And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “My daughter, it is good for you to work with his young women, so that nothing will happen to you in another field.”

²³So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean grain until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.