Ruth 3 Footnotes

3:1-4 It is not clear whether Naomi was following a marriage custom of her time when she told Ruth to lie down secretly at Boaz’s feet in the middle of the night. She does, however, appear to be applying a variation of the law by which a surviving brother was to marry his deceased brother’s wife who had no children in order to beget a son to continue his deceased brother’s family’s line (Dt 25:5-10). Naomi’s tactics were morally questionable, since the term “his feet” could have been understood as a euphemism for Boaz’s private parts (see 1Sm 24:3, where the Hb is lit “cover his feet”; also Is 6:2). Despite the risky situation, Ruth and Boaz acted in an upright manner.

3:9 When Ruth told Boaz to spread his cloak (lit “wings”) over her, she was not asking him to have sexual relations with her, since nowhere in Scripture do those words indicate sexual intercourse (Ezk 16:8, in fact, would suggest the opposite).

3:13 Why did Boaz tell Ruth to remain with him that night, potentially compromising her virtue, rather than sending her home immediately? In view of the general lawlessness and social disruption that characterized the period of the judges (see Jdg 21:25), sending Ruth home alone late at night would have placed her life in danger. The term translated “stay [here]” is never used in Scripture in the context of a sexual situation.