Ruth3chapter 3

Ruth 3:1-2

Naomi goes after the same thing she prayed over both women on the road at 1:9, rest, each of you in the house of her husband, and this time she works for it instead of asking for it. Boaz is described by his relation before he is named, of our kindred, which is the fact the whole chapter turns on. Winnowing was done in the evening because the wind off the hills carried the chaff away then, so the hour named in verse 2 belongs to the harvest rather than to secrecy.

Ruth 3:3-5

Washing, anointing and a change of clothes are what 2 Samuel 12:20 records a man doing when mourning ends, so the instruction has Ruth lay down the widow before she asks to stop being one. Naomi times every step around Boaz, after he has eaten and drunk, at the place he lies down, and out of his sight until then. Ruth's whole reply is verse 5, and the text records no question from her about a plan that puts her alone on a threshingfloor at night.

Ruth 3:6-8

The narrator says she did according to all that her mother in law bade her rather than repeating the four instructions, which is how this book handles obedience. Boaz sleeps at the end of the heap of corn because the owner stayed with the grain through the night while it lay in the open. What wakes him at midnight the text does not say, and older writers divide over the scene itself: Matthew Henry writes that it had such an appearance of evil that he knows not well how to justify it, while Adam Clarke reads it as a customary approach that only a man of Boaz's character could safely have been met with.

Ruth 3:9

The word behind skirt is kanaph, the wing, and it is the same word Boaz used over her at 2:12 when he blessed her as one come to trust under the wings of the God of Israel. She asks him to be the answer to his own blessing, and Ezekiel 16:8 uses the identical action of God with Jerusalem, I spread my skirt over thee, followed by a covenant. Near kinsman occurs here for the first time in the whole Bible and again at verse 12 and nowhere else in Scripture, and the Hebrew behind it is goel, the redeemer whose right over land is set out at Leviticus 25:25.

Ruth 3:10-11

Kindness here is chesed, the covenant loyalty word, and this is its third turn in the book: Naomi prays it over the two Moabite women at 1:8, names it of Boaz at 2:20, and now Boaz names it of Ruth. He reads her approach as loyalty to the dead rather than as a woman seeking a husband, since young men were available and she went to the kinsman instead. Virtuous woman at verse 11 is eshet chayil, which the Hebrew Bible uses three times, here and at Proverbs 12:4 and Proverbs 31:10, and the same word stands behind the mighty man of wealth said of Boaz at 2:1 and the do thou worthily spoken over him at 4:11.

Ruth 3:12-13

The nearer kinsman is introduced in a single clause and the whole of chapter 4 exists to get past him, though the text never gives his name. Boaz answers with an oath, as the Lord liveth, the second oath in the book after Ruth's own at 1:17, and both are sworn by the name of Israel's God. What she asked of him joins two separate laws: the duty of Deuteronomy 25:5 falls on a brother who lives with the dead man, and the right of Leviticus 25:25 falls on a kinsman over land, and no statute puts the widow and the field into one man's hands. Boaz takes both up as one obligation.

Ruth 3:14-16

She leaves in light too thin for recognition and Boaz orders that it not be known a woman came into the floor, which guards the name verse 11 says the whole city already honours. The six measures are six of something the text never names, and the readings run from six omers to six seahs, Barnes reckoning the larger figure a load heavy enough that Boaz had to lift it onto her. Naomi's question at verse 16 is the same three words Boaz used at verse 9, Who art thou, and Ruth answers this one by telling the whole of it.

Ruth 3:17-18

These six measures of barley: Boaz sends the barley with a word for Naomi, go not empty, and empty is the same Hebrew word Naomi used of herself at 1:21 when she said the Lord had brought her home again empty. Her own summary of her life is answered by a gift of grain before it is answered by a child in chapter 4. Naomi's last line hands the matter to a man, sit still until thou know how the matter will fall, and the woman who argued at 1:11-13 that the law could not reach her now waits on somebody who will make it reach.