Ruth 2:16-23

16 In fact, pull some ears of grain out from the sheaves on purpose. Leave them for her to glean, and don't rebuke her."

17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. When she beat out what she had gathered, it came to about a bushel of barley.

18 She picked it up and went back to the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, and Rut brought out and gave her what she had left over after eating her fill.

19 Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where were you working? Blessed be the one who took such good care of you!" She told her mother-in-law with whom she had been working; she said, "The name of the man with whom I was working today is Bo'az."

20 Na'omi said to her daughter-in-law, "May he be blessed by ADONAI, who has never stopped showing grace, neither to the living nor to the dead." Na'omi also told her, "The man is closely related to us; he's one of our redeeming kinsmen."

21 Rut the woman from Mo'av said, "Moreover, he even said to me, 'Stay close to my young men until they've finished my harvest.'"

22 Na'omi said to Rut her daughter-in-law, "It's good, my daughter, for you to keep going out with his girls; so that you won't encounter hostility in some other field."

23 So she stayed close to Bo'az's girls to glean, until the end of the barley and wheat harvests; and she lived with her mother-in-law.

Ruth 2:16-23 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO RUTH 2

In this chapter we have an account of Ruth's gleaning corn in the fields of Boaz, a relation of Naomi, Ru 2:1-3, and of Boaz coming to his reapers, whom he saluted in a very kind manner; and observing a woman gleaning after them, inquired of them who she was, and they informed him, Ru 2:4-9, upon which he addressed himself to her, and gave her leave to glean in his field, and desired her to go nowhere else, and bid her eat and drink with his servants, Ru 2:8-14 and gave directions to his servants to let her glean, and to let fall some of the handfuls on purpose, that she might gather them up, Ru 2:15-17 and then an account is given of her returning to her mother-in-law with her gleanings, to whom she related where she had gleaned, who was owner of the field, and what he had said to her, upon which Naomi gave her advice, Ru 2:18-23.