Naomi's plan for the threshing floor

Ruthchapter 3

18 verses · BSB78 cross-references outward · 39 inwardRuth book hub →

Speaks with:Ruth 2×5 Ruth 1×2 1 Timothy 5×2 Proverbs 31×2 Ruth 4×2 Deuteronomy 25×1

Chapter summary

Naomi seeks rest for Ruth and sends her, washed and anointed, down to the threshing-floor at night.

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Naomi seeks rest for Ruth and sends her, washed and anointed, down to the threshing-floor at night. When Boaz has eaten and drunk and lies down at the end of the heap of grain, Ruth uncovers his feet and lies down; at midnight the man is startled and turns himself. Her request is legal as much as personal: spread thy skirt over thy handmaid, for thou art a near kinsman — she asks him to be the redeemer he already blessed her for trusting. Boaz answers that all the city knows she is a worthy woman and that her latter kindness exceeds the first, but names a nearer kinsman with first refusal. Six measures of barley go home with her before dawn.

Drawn from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary and John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament.

Context

History · Samuel — Ruth overview

A. 1–5 Naomi's plan for the threshing floor
B. 6–13 Spread thy skirt over thy handmaid
C. 14–18 Six measures of barley before daylight

1 One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek a resting place for you, that it may be well with you?

2 Now is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been working, a relative of ours? In fact, tonight he is winnowing barley on the threshing floor.

3 Therefore wash yourself, put on perfume, and wear your best clothes. Go down to the threshing floor, but do not let the man know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

4 When he lies down, note the place where he lies. Then go in and uncover his feet, and lie down, and he will explain to you what you should do.”

5 “I will do everything you say,” Ruth answered.

6 So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had instructed her to do.

7 After Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then Ruth went in secretly, uncovered his feet, and lay down.

8 At midnight, Boaz was startled, turned over, and there lying at his feet was a woman!

9 “Who are you?” he asked. “I am your servant Ruth,” she replied. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, for you are a kinsman-redeemer.”

10 Then Boaz said, “May the LORD bless you, my daughter. You have shown more kindness now than before, because you have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.

11 And now do not be afraid, my daughter. I will do for you whatever you request, since all my fellow townspeople know that you are a woman of noble character.

12 Yes, it is true that I am a kinsman-redeemer, but there is a redeemer nearer than I.

13 Stay here tonight, and in the morning, if he wants to redeem you, good. Let him redeem you. But if he does not want to redeem you, as surely as the LORD lives, I will. Now lie here until morning.”

14 So she lay down at his feet until morning, but she got up before anyone else could recognize her. Then Boaz said, “Do not let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.”

15 And he told her, “Bring the shawl you are wearing and hold it out.” When she did so, he shoveled six measures of barley into her shawl. Then he went into the city.

16 When Ruth returned to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked her, “How did it go, my daughter?” Then Ruth told her all that Boaz had done for her.

17 And she said, “He gave me these six measures of barley, for he said, ‘Do not go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”

18 “Wait, my daughter,” said Naomi, “until you find out how things go, for he will not rest unless he has resolved the matter today.”

Continue: Ruth 4 →

Study this chapter

The five questions

Who

Joshua Deborah Samson Samuel Saul David

What

Israel crosses the Jordan and takes the land, stumbles through the judges, demands a king, and rises to a golden age under David and Solomon — then splits, slides into idolatry, and is carried into exile. Ruth overview →

Where

Jericho Jerusalem Samaria Babylon Susa

Kingdom and exiles, mapped →

When

c. 1406–430 BC — conquest, kingdom, exile, and return.

Why

A thousand years of proof that God keeps covenant even when His people don't — and the stage on which the promise narrows to David's line, waiting for David's greater Son. More on History →

Featured studies1

Studies that draw on this chapter

The Kinsman-Redeemer — Boaz and the Shadow of Christ — Ruth 2–4

Top cross-references

Ruth 22 verses
- Ruth 2:1Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a prominent man of noble character from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
- Ruth 2:20Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, who has not withdrawn His kindness from the living or the dead.” Naomi continued, “The man is a close relative. He is one of our kinsman-redeemers.”
- Read Ruth 2 →
Ruth 12 verses
- Ruth 1:8Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
- Ruth 1:9May the LORD enable each of you to find rest in the home of your new husband.” And she kissed them as they wept aloud
- Read Ruth 1 →
1 Timothy 52 verses
- 1 Timothy 5:8If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
- 1 Timothy 5:14So I advise the younger widows to marry, have children, and manage their households, denying the adversary occasion for slander.
- Read 1 Timothy 5 →
Proverbs 312 verses
- Proverbs 31:10A wife of noble character, who can find? She is far more precious than rubies.
- Proverbs 31:29“Many daughters have done noble things, but you surpass them all!”
- Read Proverbs 31 →
Ruth 42 verses
- Ruth 4:1Meanwhile, Boaz went to the gate and sat down there. Soon the kinsman-redeemer of whom he had spoken came along, and Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down.
- Ruth 4:5Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi and also from Ruth the Moabitess, you must also acquire the widow of the deceased in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance.”
- Read Ruth 4 →
Deuteronomy 251 verse
- Deuteronomy 25:5When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.
- Read Deuteronomy 25 →
2 Samuel 141 verse
- 2 Samuel 14:2So Joab sent to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He told her, “Please pretend to be a mourner; put on clothes for mourning and do not anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has mourned for the dead a long time.
- Read 2 Samuel 14 →
1 Timothy 21 verse
- 1 Timothy 2:9Likewise, I want the women to adorn themselves with respectable apparel, with modesty, and with self-control, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,
- Read 1 Timothy 2 →

78 outbound · 39 inbound

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.

The world behind this chapter

Ruth 3

When

The end of the harvest · c. 1120–1100 BC, on a night at the close of the threshing season

Where

The threshing floor above Bethlehem, where the men slept beside the winnowed grain

Who first heard it

Israelites who understood the duty of a family redeemer

The history

A threshing floor was a flat, hard-packed circle on high ground where the evening breeze could be used. The cut grain was spread out and trodden or dragged over with a sledge, then tossed into the air with a fork so the wind carried the chaff off and the heavy kernels fell back. Winnowing happened at evening because that is when the wind rose, and the men slept there afterward guarding the heap against theft. This was ordinary, public, seasonal work, not a secret place.

The Hebrew word behind kinsman-redeemer is go'el, and it named a real legal office in the extended family. The nearest able relative was obliged to buy back land a poor relative had sold, to buy a relative out of debt-slavery, and to avenge a killing. A related but separate custom, the levirate, required a dead man's brother to father a son who would carry the dead man's name and inheritance. Naomi's plan combines both duties in one man.

Ruth's approach is a formal claim in symbolic form. Uncovering the feet and lying down there is a petition, and her words — spread your garment over your servant, for you are a redeemer — use the same word for garment corner that means wing. Spreading a garment over a woman was a recognized gesture of taking her under one's protection as a wife. She is not seducing him; she is proposing marriage under the redeemer law, and Boaz answers her as a legal petitioner, praising her for not going after younger men.

The six measures of barley he pours into her cloak before dawn are a pledge and a message — a load heavy enough to prove intent, sent so Naomi would know he had not sent her back empty.

What it meant to them

The first hearers had just come out of Judges, where a Levite pushed a woman out of a door at Gibeah and where men seized wives from the vineyards at Shiloh. Here a man finds a woman at his feet at midnight and his first act is to protect her reputation and follow the law exactly.

The night ends with the honest obstacle stated aloud: there is a redeemer nearer than I. Boaz will not take by preference what belongs to another man by right, and the hearers are left to wait for the gate to open in the morning.

Sources cited

Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth

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