one of your servants!” 14At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and have something to eat; dip your bread in the sauce.” Then as she sat near the harvesters, he handed her some roasted grain and she ate her fill and had some left over. 15As she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young people: “Let her glean among the sheaves themselves without scolding her, 16and even drop some handfuls and leave them for her to glean; do not rebuke her.”
17She gleaned in the field until evening, and when she beat out what she had gleaned it came to about an ephah* of barley, 18which she took into the town and showed to her mother-in-law. Next she brought out what she had left over from the meal and gave it to her. 19So her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you go to work? May the one who took notice of you be blessed!” Then she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked. “The man at whose place I worked today is named Boaz,” she said. 20e “May he be blessed by the LORD, who never fails to show kindness to the living and to the dead,” Naomi exclaimed to her daughter-in-law. She continued, “This man is a near relative of ours, one of our redeemers.”* 21“He even told me,” added Ruth the Moabite, “Stay with my young people until they complete my entire harvest.” 22“You would do well, my daughter,” Naomi rejoined, “to work with his young women; in someone else’s field you might be insulted.” 23So she stayed gleaning with Boaz’s young women until the end of the barley and wheat harvests.
* [2:1] Kinship ties and responsibilities now become very important. Boaz is introduced as one of a group surrounding Naomi through her husband’s kin who are expected to extend care. The particular term used here (moda‘, “relative”) is picked up in 3:2; otherwise, most of the terminology about this responsibility to care will use the vocabulary of redeeming (go’el, “redeemer”).
* [2:2] Israelite custom made provision for the poor, the widow, the stranger and the orphan to gather what was left behind by the harvesters, and instructed farmers not to cut to the edges of their fields, for the sake of these marginalized; Lv 19:9–10; 23:22; Dt 24:19–22.
* [2:4] The story brings Boaz upon the scene quickly, but he moves among his workers with the grace of a man of prominence, greeting them and being received with courtesy. The Hebrew blessing formulas used are frequent in Jewish and Christian liturgies.
* [2:7] The verse is somewhat garbled, but the points are clear that Ruth has been appropriately deferential in seeking permission to glean, and has worked steadily since arriving. Or perhaps she has waited patiently until Boaz arrives to gain permission.
* [2:13] Servant: only here is the language of servanthood used. Ruth has spoken with very deferential words to Boaz, but then seems to think that she has assumed too much.
* [2:20] For the first time, the story uses the Hebrew word go’el, “redeemer,” for the responsibilities of the circle of kinship surrounding Naomi and Ruth and their deceased relatives. Involved are the recovery or retention of family land (Lv 25:25; 27:9–33; Jer 32:6–25), release of a relative from voluntary servitude to pay debts (Lv 25:47–55), and “redeeming blood” or vengeance, attested in passages which regulate such vengeance. No explicit connection is made elsewhere in the Bible between marriage responsibilities and redeeming.
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