Ruth 2:18

18 Which she took up, and returned into the city, and shewed it to her mother in law: moreover, she brought out, and gave her of the remains of her meat, wherewith she had been filled.

Ruth 2:18 Meaning and Commentary

Ruth 2:18

And she took it up
The ephah of barley, into her arms, or on her shoulders:

and went into the city;
the city of Bethlehem;

and her mother in law saw what she had gleaned:
she set it down before her, and she looked at it with admiration, that she should glean so much in one day:

and she brought forth;
not Naomi, as Josephus ^F11 represents it, who understood it as if she brought forth some food her neighbours had brought her, part of which she kept for Ruth, though he takes it in the other sense also; but the meaning is, that Ruth brought forth out of a scrip, as the Targum adds; besides the ephah of barley she set before her, she brought some victuals out of a bag:

and gave to her, that she had reserved after she was sufficed;
not that she ate of the barley, and her mother-in-law also; and then she gave her the rest to lay up against another time, as some interpret it; but the remainder of the food which Boaz gave her at dinner time, which she could not eat, ( Ruth 2:14 ) she reserved for her mother, and now gave it to her; an instance of that piety commended by the apostle, ( 1 Timothy 5:4 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F11 Antiqu l. 5. c. 9. sect. 2.

Ruth 2:18 In-Context

16 And let fall some of your handfuls of purpose, and leave them, that she may gather them without shame, and let no man rebuke her when she gathereth them.

17 She gleaned therefore in the field till evening: and beating out with a rod, and threshing what she had gleaned, she found about the measure of an ephi of barley, that is, three bushels:

18 Which she took up, and returned into the city, and shewed it to her mother in law: moreover, she brought out, and gave her of the remains of her meat, wherewith she had been filled.

19 And her mother in law said to her: Where hast thou gleaned today, and where hast thou wrought? blessed be he that hath had pity on thee. And she told her with whom she had wrought: and she told the man’s name, that he was called Booz.

20 And Noemi answered her: Blessed be he of the Lord: because the same kindness which he shewed to the living, he hath kept also to the dead. And again she said: The man is our kinsman.