And Boaz said, at mealtime come thou hither
This looks as if she was now in the booth, or house in the field,
where the reapers used to retire to eat their food, or rest
themselves, or take shelter from the heat of the sun. This meal
was very likely dinner, the time of which was not yet come, but
would soon, and to which Boaz invited Ruth:
and eat of the bread;
his servants did, that is, partake of the provisions they should
have; bread being put for all. So Homer F1 speaks
of a large ox slain for such a meal for the reapers, besides the
"polenta" afterwards mentioned, which the women prepared, and who
uses the same word for it the Septuagint does here: "to dip thy
morsel in the vinegar"; which was used because of the heat of the
season, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra remark, for cooling and
refreshment; and such virtues Pliny F2 ascribes to vinegar, as
being refreshing to the spirits, binding and bracing the nerves,
and very corroborating and strengthening; and it is at this day
used in Italy, it is said, in harvest time, when it is hot; where
they also use wine mixed with vinegar and water, as Lavater says
F3; and who from a learned physician
F4 observes, that reapers, instead of
wine, use vinegar mixed with a great deal of water, which they
call household wine, allayed with water; to which if oil and
bread be put, it makes a cooling meal, good for workmen and
travellers in the heat of the sun; and the Targum calls it
pottage boiled in vinegar. The Romans had an "embamma", or sauce,
made of vinegar, in which they dipped their food {e}; and
Theocritus F6 makes mention of vinegar as used by
reapers: in the Syriac version it is bread dipped in milk; and in
the Arabic version milk poured upon it. The Midrash F7 gives
an allegorical sense of these words, and applies them to the
Messiah and his kingdom, and interprets the bread of the bread of
the kingdom, and the vinegar of the chastisements and afflictions
of the Messiah, as it is said, "he was wounded for our
transgressions" ( Isaiah 53:5 ) which, by
the way, is a concession that the prophecy in that chapter
relates to him:
and she sat beside the reapers;
the women reapers; she did not sit along with them, or in thee
midst of them, in the row with them, as ranking with them, but on
one side of them, which was an instance of her great modesty:
and he reached her parched corn;
either Boaz himself, or he that was set over the reapers. This
parched corn seems to be the new barley they were reaping, which
they fried in a pan and ate. Galen says F8, the
parched corn which is best is made of new barley moderately dried
and parched; and that it was the custom of some to drink the same
with new sweet wine, or wine mixed with honey, in the summertime,
before they went into the bath, who say they feel themselves by
this drink freed from thirst. But this seems to be a kind of
food, what is sometimes called "polenta", which is barley flour
dried at the fire, and fried after it hath been soaking in water
one night; so Lavater says, they dry the barley, having been
soaked one night in water, the next day they dry it, and then
grind it in mills; some dress new barley beaten out of green
ears, and make it while moist into balls, and being cleansed,
grind it; and thus dressed with twenty pound of barley, they put
three pound of linseed, half a pound of coriander seed, and of
salt, all being dried before, are mingled in a mill; and if to be
kept, are put into new earthen vessels with the meal and bran:
but a later writer F9 takes this "Kali", rendered parched
corn, not to be anyone certain species, but something made of
corn and pulse, as lentiles, beans and especially fried or
parched vetches, of all which together was this kali or pulse;
and he refutes the notion of some, who take it to be "coffee",
since that has only been in use since the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and at first in Arabia; and is not of the kind
of pulse, but is the fruit of a certain tree, of which a liquor
is made, something to drink; whereas this was food, and was ate,
as follows, see ( 2 Samuel
17:28 )
and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left;
she had such a plentiful share given her, that she had more than
she could eat, and was obliged to leave some, and which it seems
she carried home to her mother-in-law, ( Ruth 2:18 ) .