Ruth 3

Ruth 3 is the third chapter of the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.^[1][2] This chapter contains the story of how by Naomi’s advice, Ruth lieth at Boaz’s feet, Ruth 3:1-7; Boaz awaking commendeth what she had done, and acknowledgeth the right of a kinsman; tells her there was a nearer kinsman, to whom he would offer her, who refusing, he would redeem her, Ruth 3:8-13; Boaz sends her away with six measures of barley, Ruth 3:14-18.^[3] It is a part of the Ketuvim ("Writings").^[4][5]

Text

• The original text is written in Hebrew language.
• This chapter is divided into 18 verses.
• A large letter נ, a majuscula, occurs in the first word of Ruth 3:13 - לִינִי (lî-nî; "tarry, stay, lodge, pass the night") - which the smaller Masora ascribes to the Oriental or Babylonian textualists.^[6][7]

Textual versions

Some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter in Hebrew language:

• Masoretic Text (10th century)
• Dead Sea Scrolls: (2nd century BC)^[8][9]
  • 2Q16 (2QRuth^a): extant: verses 1‑2, 4‑8^[8]
  • 2Q17 (2QRuth^b): extant: verses 13‑18^[8]

Ancient translations in Koine Greek:

• Septuagint (3rd century BC)
• Theodotion version (~AD 180)

Structure

NKJV groups this chapter into:

• Ruth 3:1-18 = Ruth’s Redemption Assured

Verse 1

Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her,

My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee,

that it may be well with thee?^[10]

• "My daughter, shall not I seek out for thee a rest": When Ruth had nothing more to do on the harvest-fields, where Boaz appeared daily, and was unremittingly gracious to her, she may have fallen into a pensive mood. Naomi was quick to note the varying 'nuances of feeling', and said "My daughter, shall I not seek out for thee a rest?" The expression "rest", or "resting-place", though in itself of generic import, was, when used in such circumstances as environed Ruth, quite specific in application, and would be at once understood. It was a "home" to which Naomi pointed, a home for her daughter's heart. In such a home, if warm and pure, there would be repose for the affections.^[6]
• "That it may be well with thee," or, "which shall (or may) be good for thee." Either translation is warrantable and excellent. The latter is the most simple, and is given by Carpzov and Rosenmüller; but the former is in accordance with a frequent idiomatic use of the expression, in which there is a change "from the relative in result to the relative in aim", so that אֲשֶׁר יִיטַב ’ă-sher yî-ṭaḇ "that it may be well" is equivalent to לְמַעַן יִיטַב lə-ma-‘an yî-ṭaḇ; "to the end (that) it may be well" (see Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 6:3, 18; Deuteronomy 10:11, 25, 28).^[6]

Verse 2

And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast?

Behold, he winnoweth barley to night in the threshingfloor.^[11]

• "Is not Boaz of our kindred": Naomi opens her case. She had been studying Boaz all through the harvest season. She had been studying Ruth too. She saw unmistakable evidence of mutual responsiveness and attachment. And now she had a matured scheme in her head. Hence she brings up Boaz's name at once, and says, "Is he not our relative?" מודַעַת (mō-w-ḏa‘-at) an abstract term used concretely, meaning literally "acquaintance," but here "relative," or "kinsman" (see Ruth 2:1).^[6]
• "Behold he winnoweth barley" - The simple manners of Boaz and his times are here before us. This "mighty man of wealth" assists personally in the winnowing of his barley, which lies in a great heap on the floor Ruth 3:15, and sleeps in the open threshing-floor to protect his grain from depredation.^[12]
• "Winnow": The winnowing process is performed by throwing up the grain, after being trodden down, against the wind with a shovel. 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. The farmer usually remained all night in harvest-time on the threshing-floor, not only for the protection of his valuable grain, but for the winnowing. That operation was performed in the evening to catch the breezes which blow after the close of a hot day, and which continue for the most part of the night. This duty at so important a season the master undertakes himself; and, accordingly, in the simplicity of ancient manners, Boaz, a person of considerable wealth and high rank, laid himself down to sleep on the barn floor, at the end of the heap of barley he had been winnowing.^[3]
• "Tonight in the threshingfloor": which afforded a fit opportunity of meeting with him, being at night, and out of the city, from his own house, and alone, and after a feast for his reapers and threshers of corn, seems, from Ruth 2:7^[13] It was usual to have threshingfloors in an open place without the city, so to winnow at them, whereby the chaff was more easily separated from the corn, and that, in the evening, when in those countries there were the strongest breezes of wind to carry it off; hence the Targum here has it, "behold, he is winnowing the barley floor with the wind, which is in the night." For before the invention and use of fans in winnowing, it was only done by the wind carrying off the chaff, as the oxen trod the corn, for it was done in the threshingfloor, as here: hence Hesiod^[14] advises that the threshingfloors should be, "in a place exposed to wind"; and so Varro^[15] observes, the floor should be in the higher part of the field, that the wind might blow through it; to this manner of winnowing Virgil^[16] has respect. Nor was it unusual for great personages, owners of farms and fields, to attend and overlook such service. Pliny^[17] reports, that Sextus Pomponius, father of the praetor and prince of the hither Spain, presided over the winnowing of his reapers; so Gideon, another judge Israel, was found threshing wheat, Judges 6:11.^[13]

Verse 4

[Naomi said to Ruth:]

And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie,

and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down;

and he will tell thee what thou shalt do.^[18]

• "Uncover his feet": Rather, "the place of his feet;" the foot of his bed, as we should say. So also Ruth 3:7-8.^[12] The denominative word מַרְגְּלֺלתָיו - freely rendered in King James's version "his feet" - could be rendered "the parts about his feet." Simply means "the places occupied by the feet."^[6]
• "Uncover his feet and lay thee down": Singular as these directions may appear to us, there was no impropriety in them, according to the simplicity of rural manners in Beth-lehem. In ordinary circumstances these would have seemed indecorous to the world; but in the case of Ruth, it was a method, doubtless conformable to prevailing usage, of reminding Boaz of the duty which devolved on him as the kinsman of her deceased husband. Boaz probably slept upon a mat or skin; Ruth lay crosswise at his feet—a position in which Eastern servants frequently sleep in the same chamber or tent with their master; and if they want a covering, custom allows them that benefit from part of the covering on their master's bed. Resting, as the Orientals do at night, in the same clothes they wear during the day, there was no indelicacy in a stranger, or even a woman, putting the extremity of this cover over her.^[3]
• "He will tell thee what thou shalt do": This may seem to us to be strange advice, and not consistent with the character of pious and virtuous women, which they both bore, and with that modesty they otherwise seem to be possessed of; to clear this, let it be observed, that this man was, as Naomi thought, the next kinsman, and so in right of the law in Deuteronomy 25:5, was the husband of Ruth, and therefore might take such a freedom with him as she did; and it seems by the same law as if the woman was to make the demand of marriage, which may serve to reconcile the carriage of Ruth to her character: besides, what things in one age, and in one nation, are reckoned immodest, are not so accounted in another age, and in another nation; add to this the age and gravity of Boaz, and the well known virtue of Ruth to Naomi, she might think herself quite safe in the advice she gave.^[13]

Verse 8

And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself:

and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.^[19]

• "Turned himself": - Rather, "bent forward," so as to feel what it was which was at his feet. The same word is translated "took hold of," in Judges 16:29.^[12]

Verse 13

Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning,

that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part:

but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee,

as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning.^[20]

• "Tarry this night": 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.^[13] The Hebrew letter נ "nun"^[7] in the word ליני lî-nî for "tarry" is larger than usual in the Hebrew text; which may be done to raise the attention of the reader, to observe it as a thing very singular, that a widow should lodge with a man without any diminution of her chastity; so Buxtorf^[21] says, that hereby attention is noted, even the honesty of Boaz ordering Ruth to lodge without a man, and wait until a nearer kinsman, according to the law, should come, and promising that on failure thereof he would be the lawful redeemer. But Dr. Lightfoot^[22] observes, that as there is a special mark over a word in the story of Lot's eldest daughter lying with her father (a dot above the letter י "yod"^[7] of last Hebrew word in Genesis 19:33; Lot's eldest daughter gave birth to Moab, the progenitor of Ruth's tribe) and a special mark on this word here, in the story of Ruth going to Boaz his bed, seems to relate one to the other, and both together to point at the great providence of God in bringing light out of darkness, Ruth, a (fore)mother of Jesus Christ, out of the incest of Lot.^[13]
• "If he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well, let him do the kinsman's part": By marrying Ruth, and redeeming her husband's estate, which if he did, it would be all very well, and right according to law; and it would be very well for Ruth, as Aben Ezra and Abendana interpret it; seeing, as they observe, that kinsman was a very respectable man, a man of great esteem and worth, a man of wealth and authority, and she would be well matched to him. Some think, as the same writers observe, that the word "Tob", translated "well", is the name of the kinsman, the same with Tobias; so R. Joshuah says,^[23] that Salmon (who was the father of Boaz), and Elimelech (the father of Ruth's husband), and Tob (this near kinsman), were brethren.^[13]
• "As the Lord liveth": that is, he swore he would marry her, and redeem the inheritance, if the other would not; for the phrase, "as the Lord liveth", is the form of an oath, it is swearing by the living God; so the Targum, "I say with an oath before the Lord, that as I have spoken unto thee, so will I:do:"^[13]

Verse 16

And when she came to her mother in law, she said,

Who art thou, my daughter?

And she told her all that the man had done to her.^[24]

• "Who art thou, my daughter?": The first possibility is in the dim twilight (Ruth 3:14) her mother-in-law was not sure at first who the young woman was, who sought admittance into the house.^[12] The address, "My daughter," shows that she had no difficulty in determining who the visitor was. But there is "something arch" intended. "Art thou Boaz's betrothed?"^[6] Rather therefore the particle may be rendered, "what" or "how",^[25] instead of "who"; and the sense be, "what had befallen her?" "what success had she had?" "how had things gone with her?" "was she married or not?" or rather, "had she got a promise of it?" or "was it likely that she should be married?"^[13] Geneva Study Bible notes: "Believing by her returning home that he had not taken her as his wife, she was astonished."^[26]

See also

• Related Bible parts: Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 10, Deuteronomy 25, Ruth 1, Ruth 2

Notes and references

Bibliography

External links

Jewish

• Ruth 3 Hebrew with Parallel English
• Ruth 3 Hebrew with Rashi's Commentary

Christian

• Ruth 3 English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate