Ruthchapter 3
18 verses · BSBRuth book hub →
Key verse
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?
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 5.
The chapter
Chapter summary
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.
Context
History · Samuel · Ruth overview
Where the chapter sits
Ruth 3 falls in Threshing floor (chapters 3). Ruth's bold approach at night; Boaz's pledge to redeem if the nearer kinsman refuses.
The threshing floor. ‘Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.’
Before it: Gleaning, chapters 2. After it: Filling, chapters 4.
The whole shape of Ruth→The world behind this chapter
Ruth 3The 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 rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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
A. Naomi's plan for the threshing floor
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.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 3:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ruth 3:1
“Shall I not seek rest for thee - That is, Shall I not endeavor to procure thee a proper husband? See Rth 1:9, and the observations at the end of that chapter.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 3:2, 3 voices
Ruth 3:2
“He winnoweth barley tonight - It is very likely that the winnowing of grain was effected by taking up, in a broad thin vessel or sieve, a portion of the corn, and letting it down slowly in the wind; thus the grain would, by its own weight, fall in one place, while the chaff, etc., would be carried to a distance by the wind.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 3:2
“The threshing-floor, which was commonly on the harvest-field, was carefully leveled with a large cylindric roller and consolidated with chalk, that weeds might not spring up, and that it might not chop with drought.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ruth 3:2
“As Nabal and Absalom had feasts at their sheep-shearing, so Boaz at his winnowing. Naomi thought Ruth the most proper person to do it herself; and perhaps it was the usage in that country that in this case the woman should make the demand; so much is intimated by the law, Deut. xxv.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 3-5)
a.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 3:3, 1 voice
Ruth 3:3
“And upon this occasion she would have an easier access to him in private than she could have at his own house. And thus far was well enough. Her coming to lie down at his feet, when he was asleep in his bed, had such an appearance of evil, was such an approach towards it, and might have been such an occasion of it, that we know not well how to justify it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ruth 3:4, 1 voice
Ruth 3:4
“Uncover his feet, and lay thee down - It is said that women in the East, when going to the bed of their lawful husbands, through modesty, and in token of subjection, go to the bed’s foot, and gently raising the clothes, creep under them up to their place. See Calmet. On the whole, we must say, had not Boaz been a person of extraordinary piety, prudence, and continence, this experiment might have been fatal to Ruth. We cannot easily account for this transaction, probably Naomi knew more than she revealed to her daughter-in-law.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Spread thy skirt over thy handmaid
1. (vv. 6-8)
a.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 3:7, 1 voice
Ruth 3:7
“When Boaz had eaten and drunk - The Targum adds, “He blessed the name of the Lord, who had heard his prayer, and removed famine from the land of Israel.” Went to lie down - As the threshing-floors of the Eastern nations are in general in the open air, it is very likely that the owner or some confidential person continued in the fields till the grain was secured, having a tent in the place where the corn was threshed and winnowed. Boaz seems to have acted thus.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 3:8, 1 voice
Ruth 3:8
“The man was afraid, and turned himself - The verb ילפת yillapheth, which we render he turned himself, has puzzled even the Targumist, who translates the clause thus: “The man trembled, and his flesh became like a (boiled) turnip through fear.” It is fully evident Boaz had no intimation of the present proceedings.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (v. 9)
a.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 3:9, 2 voices
Ruth 3:9
“Spread therefore thy skirt over thine hand maid - Hebrew, Spread thy wing. The wing is the emblem of protection, and is a metaphor taken from the young of fowls, which run under the wings of their mothers, that they may be saved from birds of prey. The meaning here is, Take me to thee for wife; and so the Targum has translated it, Let thy name be called on thy handmaid to take me for wife, because thou art the redeemer; i.e., thou art the גאל goel, the kinsman, to whom the right of redemption belongs.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 3:9
“To spread a skirt over one is, in the East, a symbolical action denoting protection. To this day in many parts of the East, to say of anyone that he put his skirt over a woman, is synonymous with saying that he married her; and at all the marriages of the modern Jews and Hindus, one part of the ceremony is for the bridegroom to put a silken or cotton cloak around his bride.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 10-11)
a.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 3:10, 2 voices
Ruth 3:10
“He praised Ruth's deed and, moreover, he did not betray temperance, but he kept to the law of nuptial congress. "You show by your deed," he said, "that this was not done out of voluptuousness. In fact, you might have gone to those who are …”
Theodoret of Cyrus· written before 458· QUESTIONS ON RUTHpatristic
Ruth 3:10
“She received not the addresses of young men (much less did she seek them) whether poor or rich, but was willing to marry as the divine law directed, though it was to an old man, because it was for the honour and interest of the family into which she had matched, and for which she had an entire kindness.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
4. (vv. 12-13)
a.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 3:12, 2 voices
Ruth 3:12
“And now it is true, that I am thy near kinsman,.... Her husband and he being brothers' sons, so own cousins: howbeit, there is a kinsman nearer than I, who was, the Jews say (w), the brother of her husband's father, and so his uncle, which was a nearer relation than an own cousin. (w) Midrash Ruth, ut supra. (31. 4. & 34. 2) Jarchi in loc.”
Ruth 3:12
“There is a kinsman nearer than I - It is very likely that Naomi was not acquainted with this circumstance. Some have supposed that there was a brother of Elimelech remaining, who was nearer than Boaz, who is supposed to have been only a nephew; the former, therefore, must have a prior right.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 3:13, 1 voice
Ruth 3:13
“Tarry this day,.... Or lodge here tonight, where she was; this he said not from any design upon her, but for her own safety and honour, that she might not be exposed to danger or disgrace, by returning home at such an unseasonable time of night.”
C. Six measures of barley before daylight
1. (vv. 14-16)
a.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 3:15, 2 voices
Ruth 3:15
“The vail - Quite a different word from that rendered “vail,” in Gen 38:14. It seems rather to mean a kind of loose cloak, worn over the ordinary dress (see the margin). Six measures - i. e. six seahs, in all two ephahs, twice as much as she gleaned Rth 3:17, and a heavy load to carry; for which reason he laid it on her, probably placed it on her head. It is well known that women can carry great weights when duly positioned on their heads.”
Ruth 3:15
“Bring the veil that thou hast upon thee, and hold it--Eastern veils are large sheets--those of ladies being of red silk; but the poorer or common class of women wear them of blue, or blue and white striped linen or cotton. They are wrapped round the head, so as to conceal the whole face except one eye.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ruth 3:16, 2 voices
Ruth 3:16
“Who art thou, my daughter? - In the dim twilight Rth 3:14 her mother was not sure at first who the young woman was, who sought admittance into the house.”
Ruth 3:16
“Who art thou? - This is not a question of doubting, but of wonder, as if she had said, Art thou in very deed my daughter? How camest thou hither in this manner, and thus early?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 17-18)
a.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.
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ruth 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth; Matthew Henry and Theodoret of Cyrus, QUESTIONS ON RUTH.
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