Ruth 2:8-22

8 So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me.

9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.

12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

13 “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”

14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.” When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.

15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her.

16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.^[a]

18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

19 Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

20 “The LORD bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.^[b] ”

21 Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’ ”

22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”

Ruth 2:8-22 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.

Cross References

• 1. S Genesis 19:1; S 1 Samuel 20:41; 1 Samuel 25:23
• 2. ver 19; Psalms 41:1
• 3. S Genesis 31:15; S Deuteronomy 15:3
• 4. S Ruth 1:14
• 5. S Ruth 1:5
• 6. Isaiah 55:5
• 7. Ruth 1:16-17
• 8. 1 Samuel 24:19; 1 Samuel 26:23,25; Psalms 18:20; Proverbs 25:22; Jeremiah 31:16
• 9. S Joshua 24:15
• 10. Psalms 17:8; Psalms 36:7; Psalms 57:1; Psalms 61:4; Psalms 63:7; Psalms 91:4
• 11. Ruth 1:16; Psalms 71:1
• 12. S Genesis 18:3
• 13. S Genesis 3:19
• 14. S ver 3
• 15. S Leviticus 23:14
• 16. ver 18
• 17. S Genesis 37:7; S Leviticus 19:9
• 18. S Genesis 37:10
• 19. S Judges 6:11
• 20. S Leviticus 19:36
• 21. ver 14
• 22. S ver 10; Psalms 41:1
• 23. S Judges 17:2; S 1 Samuel 23:21
• 24. S Genesis 11:31
• 25. S Genesis 19:19; Ruth 3:10; 2 Samuel 2:5; Proverbs 17:17
• 26. S Leviticus 25:25
• 27. Ruth 3:9,12; Ruth 4:1,14
• 28. S Ruth 1:22

Footnotes

• [a] That is, probably about 30 pounds or about 13 kilograms
• [b] The Hebrew word for "guardian-redeemer" is a legal term for one who has the obligation to redeem a relative in serious difficulty (see Lev. 25:25-55).