Ruth 2:14-23 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
In the last lesson, Ruth went to glean, and “she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech” (Ruth 2:3). Boaz had heard how she treated her mother-in-law, and he said to her: “May the LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given to you from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (Ruth 2:12).
That was a blessing. This lesson reads what came after it: a meal, a day’s grain, and a name Naomi heard at home.
14At meal time Boaz said to her, “Come here, and eat some bread, and dip your morsel in the vinegar.” She sat beside the reapers, and they passed her parched grain. She ate, was satisfied, and left some of it.
15When she had risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and don’t reproach her.
16Also pull out some for her from the bundles, and leave it. Let her glean, and don’t rebuke her.”
17So she gleaned in the field until evening; and she beat out that which she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.
18She took it up, and went into the city. Then her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned; and she brought out and gave to her that which she had left after she had enough.
19Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where have you gleaned today? Where have you worked? Blessed be he who noticed you.” She told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, “The man’s name with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
20Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, who has not abandoned his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Naomi said to her, “The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen.”
21Ruth the Moabitess said, “Yes, he said to me, ‘You shall stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’”
22Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maidens, and that they not harm you in any other field.”
23So she stayed close to the maidens of Boaz, to glean to the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and she lived with her mother-in-law.
A meal. “At meal time” Boaz calls Ruth: “Come here, and eat some bread, and dip your morsel in the vinegar” (v. 14). “She sat beside the reapers,” ate, was satisfied, and had some left over (v. 14). A foreign widow who came to glean is now sitting with the reapers.
Leaving a little more. Boaz tells his young men, “Let her glean even among the sheaves” (v. 15), and also, “pull out some for her from the bundles, and leave it” (v. 16). Twice he says ‘don’t’: “don’t reproach her” (v. 15) and “don’t rebuke her” (v. 16). The passage does not say that Ruth heard these orders.
An ephah of barley. Ruth gleans until evening, beats out what she has gathered, and “it was about an ephah of barley” (v. 17). She carries it into the city, her mother-in-law sees what she has gleaned, and Ruth gives her what was left from the meal (v. 18).
A name. Naomi asks, “Where have you gleaned today? Where have you worked? Blessed be he who noticed you” (v. 19). Ruth says the name Boaz. Naomi says, “May he be blessed by the LORD” (v. 20), and also, “The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen” (v. 20). Since coming back to Bethlehem, this is the first word of blessing the passage records from Naomi.
Near kinsman. This term appears for the first time in the book of Ruth here (v. 20). What it means and what duty it carries, the passage will spell out step by step only in chapters 3 and 4. For now, this lesson simply notes the term.
Staying together. Following the words of Boaz and Naomi, Ruth “stayed close to the maidens of Boaz, to glean to the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest” (v. 23). The last words of the chapter are: “and she lived with her mother-in-law” (v. 23). The harvest season is over, and the two widows are still together.
The law gave this instruction: “When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow” (Deut 24:19); and also, “you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest” (Lev 19:9).
Ruth was a foreigner, and a widow. Gleaning in the fields was exactly the way the law left open for people like her. What Boaz told his young men went one step further than the law: not only not going back for what was left, but also to “pull out some for her from the bundles” (v. 16).
Naomi said she had come home empty; in this lesson she speaks a blessing. What changed her was not an explanation, but a meal, an ephah of barley, and a name.
Perhaps you, too, are in ‘someone else’s field’ right now, living on the little that others leave. This lesson does not promise that things will soon get better. It only lets you see that in days like those, the passage still recorded, one by one, the things that came into Ruth’s hands.
This week: Write down one kindness you received from someone this week, however small. Pray for that person, and if you can, say thank you to them.
Scripture: World English Bible.