Naomi’s Reality: 2:1 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz. Jewish tradition is full of fables about Boaz. The Talmud identifies him as the minor judge Ibzan (Judg. 12:8) and reveres him as a patriarchal figure on the level of a Kirta or a Danil in Canaanite myth (b. B. Bat. 91a). According to the Talmud, he becomes a widower on the very day Ruth arrives in Israel and is rich enough to throw lavish wedding parties for every one of his sixty children (b. B. Bat. 91a). Christian tradition similarly conventionalizes him. Spurgeon sees him as a type of Christ, often referring to Jesus as “our glorious Boaz” or “our bounteous Boaz” (Morning by Morning, March 19 p.m.; Till He Come: Communion Meditations and Addresses [London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1896], p. 116).
Here, however, Boaz’s character is merely sketched in broad strokes. First, he is a “relative” (lit. a known one, moda’, Qere), a term found only once elsewhere (Prov. 7:4). The Greek equivalent chosen by LXX, gn?rimos, means “well-known,” even “famous.” Second, he is “from the clan of Elimelech” (i.e., Elimelech’s extended village/kinship-protection group). “Clan” is not an adequate translation of Hebrew mishpakhah, for on one hand mishpakhah connotes much more than a mere grouping of blood relatives; on the other, mishpakhah is less significant sociologically than the bet ’ab (lit. house of the father). Third, he is a “man of standing,” a “noble man” (gibbor khayil), a rather stock epithet for famous men like Jephthath (Judg. 11:1), Saul (1 Sam. 9:1), and David (1 Sam. 16:18).
This same adjective (khayil, “noble”) also denotes the Danite party of spies (Judg. 18:2), the 43,000 Benjamites who die in battle, and the 12,000 hired assassins who slaughter Jabesh Gilead (Judg. 18:2; 20:44, 46; 21:10). Introducing Boaz via this same adjective therefore raises an important question: How is Boaz like or unlike these 55,005 men? Is his nobility to be understood solely in military terms? Or does the narrator have another kind of nobility in mind?
2:2a Hunger drives Ruth to ask Naomi for permission to go to the fields. The NIV does not overtly translate it, but MT uses an untranslatable particle (nah’) to signify that Ruth is formally asking Naomi for permission (inexplicably, NIV translates nah’ as “please” in 2:7 but not here). Her goal is to pick up the leftover grain (lit. ears of grain, shblt). In Israelite society the poor have a legal right to glean at harvest time (Lev. 19:9–10; Deut. 24:19). To the average U. S. citizen, this might seem to be a quaint tradition. The problem of hunger, however, is central to the plot of this story.
In the Canaanite myth of Aqhat, for example, Danil (a Boazlike figure) inspects his famine-stricken land and finds upon it a single, blighted “ear of grain” (shblt). Dismounting from his donkey, he kisses it hungrily and cries out,
Oh please (án) may this ear of grain (šblt) shoot up in the devoured land. (Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, p. 116)
Note the parallel use of the term shblt alongside a particle for “permission.” The difference between these stories is that Ruth asks permission of Naomi to glean from a land already visited. Danil, however, asks the gods to replenish a land still unvisited. Ruth’s world, like Danil’s, is a fragile place.
Ruth’s Ministry
2:2b Ruth’s goal, however, is not just to find favor in the eyes of someone with enough economic wherewithal to save her life. Keats inimitably expresses the greater depth of her pain in his Ode to a Nightingale:
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears among the alien corn.
Ruth seems to be coming to a theological realization, however unfocused, of a need for grace. Whether it is a need for human or divine grace is impossible to say. Whether this is the first or the hundredth time she has sensed this need is also impossible to say. We have no evidence for imagining overt religious activity in her life (in contrast to, say, Micah in Judg. 17). We only know that what she requests is not hesed but khen (“favor,” a derivative of the same root in Judg. 21:22). Unlike the Mizpah leaders arrayed against Benjamin, however, Ruth asks for favor to serve, not to manipulate.
Naomi responds to Ruth’s request with two short words: leki bitti, Go ahead, my daughter. With these words, Naomi does more than just give Ruth permission. She confesses her willingness to change. Elimelech, Mahlon, and Kilion, her previous sources of sustenance, are all dead. Whether she likes it or not, she has a different life now, a harder life. Granting permission to Ruth to glean alongside the rest of the institutionalized poor is the point where Naomi hits rock bottom.
2:3 So she went out and began to glean. Rabbi Eleazar interprets the chain of verbs in this verse (“she came,” “she went,” “she gleaned”) as a sequence of back-and-forth trips over several days (b. Shabb. 113b). As it turned out is NIV’s translation of a rather rare verb (qarah) plus its cognate noun (miqreh; cf. the similar doubling of the root shpt in 1:1). A morphologically faithful translation might be something like “her chance chanced” or “her fate fated.” Perhaps the emphasis here on coincidental randomness is a subtle response to the mechanical dependence on divination in Judges 20:18, 23, 28.
2:4 The LORD be with you! The LORD bless you! Harvest is a time of celebration, especially after a famine. “The valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing” (Ps. 65:13). “Bless” (barak) links Boaz to a number of other international blessers in the Hebrew Bible (Melchizedek, Balaam, and Jethro). Later liturgists adopt this greeting as a model for all greetings, especially those intended for synagogue worship (b. Ber. 63a).
2:5 Upon seeing Ruth, Boaz immediately asks his foreman, Whose young woman is that? Boaz is surprised or at least bemused that Ruth is unprotected—not because he is oppressively paternalistic but because he is responsibly patriarchal (see 15). Like Naomi, he takes his leadership responsibilities seriously. Later rabbis, fearful that he might be perceived as a little too interested in Ruth, fall all over themselves to explain Boaz’s intentions:
He perceived a wisdom in her behavior. She gleaned two ears of corn, but not three. . . . He perceived a modesty in her, the standing ears [she gleaned] standing; the fallen ears [she gleaned] sitting. (b. Shabb. 113b)
At least one rabbi, however, sees her entrance as erotically arousing (Ruth Rab. 4.4).
2:6 She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. (lit. a young woman [na’arah], a Moabitess is she). With this response, placed in the mouth of the foreman, the narrator quickly communicates three things: by calling her a na’arah, he deftly positions her near the middle of the Israelite social continuum; by calling her a Moabitess, he has Boaz learn of her status as a foreigner; and by calling her “the returnee” (hashabah; NIV translates “who came back”), he underlines the themes of wandering and returning.
2:7 Vital character information is often conveyed through dialogue. By listening in on the foreman’s dialogue we learn bits and pieces about Ruth, but only from a distance. The effect of this technique is to bring Ruth close, yet still keep her at arm’s length, veiled and mysterious. From the foreman we learn, first, that Ruth respects his authority: Please let me glean. This is the second time Ruth asks for permission to glean (first from Naomi [2:2], now from Boaz’s foreman). Second, we see her wait patiently until this permission is granted. MT puts the place of her gleaning as the already harvested grain stacks, the sheaves, but this is problematic. P. Joüon rightly points out that Boaz does not give her permission to glean from the sheaves until 2:15 (Ruth: Commentaire Philologique et Exégétique [Rome: Institut Biblique Pontifical, 1953], p. 49). “Stalks” therefore seems to be the better reading, especially since this involves no emendation of the text but only a slight revocalization (’amirim, “stalks,” instead of ’omarim, “sheaves”).
NIV translates the next line as she went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, but this too is problematic. First, “into the field” is not in MT. There is no indication that Ruth has yet entered a field. Second, the second verb in the line is “she has stood” (ta’amod), not “has worked steadily.” MT says only, “She has come and she has stood.” It is important to be precise here because otherwise we cannot decide whether Ruth starts to glean before or after the giving of Boaz’s permission. I am inclined to think that it is Ruth’s dignified patience (waiting while others work) that so impresses Boaz’s foreman, not her strong work ethic.
The final words of 2:7 constitute a major textual problem (Campbell does not even translate the last fourteen words of 2:7). Several readings have been proposed. D. Lys catalogues some nineteen of them under four headings: “Ruth takes a little rest”; “Ruth does not take a little rest”; “Ruth takes only a little rest” (NIV); and “Ruth scarcely takes any rest.” I am inclined to follow Lys’s translation of 2:7’s final clause and read: “This [waiting area] has been her dwelling. The house [shady shelter?] means little.”
Should this translation be plausible, the portrait would contrast sharply with the one in Judges 18. Here a hungry foreigner waits patiently for permission; there a gaggle of well-fed Israelites jockeys for power. The Danites roam the countryside looking for an inheritance upon which “to settle” (lashebet, Judg. 18:1). Ruth, however, refrains from “settling” (shibtah) until she is given permission. In Judges, the Danites desperately seize an entire town as their “rightful” inheritance. Ruth, by contrast, patiently trusts that things will work out in their own good time.
Boaz’s Character
2:8 When Boaz calls Ruth my daughter, he is assuming Elimelech’s place as the responsible patriarch of the family. He does not merely raise up children for the deceased, however. He also protects, nourishes, and restores two displaced widows whose connection to the kinship structure has been severed. Fleshing out this role, Boaz uses a series of action verbs over the next few verses, each an unexpected gift delicately laid at the feet of a surprised Moabitess: Listen to me . . . Don’t go . . . Don’t glean elsewhere . . . Don’t go away . . . Stay here . . . Watch the field . . . Follow along . . . Go and get a drink . . . Come over here . . . Have some bread . . . Dip it in the vinegar . . . Stay with my workers.
MT has a question: “Will you not listen, my daughter?” NIV closely follows Syr and translates as an imperative command, Listen to me, preceded by a particle of permission (n’), “my daughter, please listen to me” (brty n’ shmy’ lky).
From the outset Boaz makes it clear to this widow that her wandering days are over: Don’t go away from here (lit. “you shall not wander,” ’abar). One can only imagine the impact these words must have had on Ruth’s heart.
The verb translated stay is the same verb translated “cling” in 1:14 (dabaq). Boaz wants Ruth to cling to him as tightly as she now clings to Naomi. To hyperegalitarians this undoubtedly sounds patronizing, but Boaz is under no obligation to do a thing for this foreign widow. To shepherd Ruth into the fold of his servant girls is an act of grace. Boaz is trying to help Ruth, not manipulate her. His intention is to move Ruth away from the precarious role of “foreign woman” (nokriyyah) toward the more socially centrist role of “young (servant) girl” (na’arah). Boaz is no Gibeahite gangster.
2:9 Boaz explains his actions by assuring Ruth, I have told (lit. Have I not commanded?) the men not to touch you. Apparently Boaz has the authority to enforce such commands, in contrast to Nabal’s relationship with his employees (1 Sam. 25:17). He warns the na’arim (“young men”) not to touch the new na’arah (“young girl”). The word for “touch” (naga’) can refer to criminal assault as well as other kinds of touching (contrast Deut. 21:5 and 1 Sam. 10:25). Here it refers to sexually inappropriate touching. It cannot refer to touching in general because Ruth is later instructed to drink from the community water jars.
From a canonical-historical perspective, Boaz stands out against an uninspiring crowd. His is the only male character in Judges 17–Ruth 4 who consistently demonstrates compassion, integrity, and moral courage in the face of challenge. Others pretend to such traits but uniformly fail to incarnate them. Micah, for example (Judg. 17:1–13), takes his mother’s money under strange circumstances and uses it to finance a “house of the gods” (bet ’elohim). His intentions seem noble, but his methods are suspect. His response to the Danites, moreover, is to whine and sulk. The Bethlehem Levite agrees to serve Micah as priest but abandons his post as soon as a better offer comes along (Judg. 17:7–13; 18:20). The Danites are dutifully labeled “noble” men (bene khayil, Judg. 18:2), but are more interested in enticing employees than in helping widows (Judg. 18:1–31). The Ephraimite Levite says he is “going to the house of the LORD” (Judg. 19:18) but soon surrenders his own wife to a gang of murderers (Judg. 19:1–30). Boaz stands head and shoulders above all the men in the canonical-historical context.
2:10 At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. Ruth, like the Levite’s concubine, “falls down” (see this same word, napal, in Judg. 19:25), but not in forced submission to a violent male. Ruth falls before this male out of deep respect, much like Abigail, the wise woman of Tekoa, the Shunammite, and the Syrophoenician woman (1 Sam. 25:23, 41; 2 Sam. 14:4; 2 Kgs. 4:37; Mark 7:25; Eph. 5:25–28).
With the question, Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner? the narrator resolutely keeps our attention focused on two themes. The first is favor. Ruth wants to know (as do we) why Boaz lavishes upon her such undeserved favor. The narrator uses here the same word used by the narrator of Judges in describing the “favor” (khen) sought by Israel’s leaders (Judg. 21:22). There seems to be a subtle wordplay here involving the synonyms khen and hesed. At the outset of the chapter Ruth dreams predominantly of human favor (2:2). Boaz, however (as will become clear in 2:12) wants to extend to her a “grace” (hesed) far deeper than anything she has ever yet experienced.
The second part of Ruth’s response also involves wordplay. The word for “notice” (nakar) and the word for “foreigner” (nokriyyah) share the same consonantal root in Hebrew (nkr). In Israel, a foreigner is someone who is noticeable. This root is common to several Semitic languages. An Akkadian inheritance text, for example, allows the passing down of inheritance rights “to any of my children . . . but not to a foreigner” (na-qa-ri). An Aramaic text discussing funerary details carefully distinguishes between the corpse of a son and the corpse of a “foreigner” (nkry).
Apart from the sheer joy of writing great literature in a wonderfully flexible language, the narrator’s point is that Ruth is grateful. Ruth knows who she is—a foreigner, a stranger, a person easily recognized by her speech, her customs, and her beliefs. She also knows that foreigners, widows, and sojourners are usually forced to live on the fringes of society. Thus she is grateful that Boaz’s behavior contrasts so sharply with, say, the behavior of the Levite from Ephraim:
When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.” His master replied, “No. We won’t go into an alien city (’ir nokri), whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.” (Judg. 19:11–12)
There are several levels of irony here. First, it is ironic that the city deemed foreign by this Ephraimite is the same city later transformed into Israel’s capital by the great-grandson of the nokriyyah Ruth. Indeed, the interplay between Israel and non-Israel is a subject of endless fascination in the Bible, the Targumim, the Talmud, and the midrashim. Second, how ironic it is that Jebus proves, if only by default, to be more Yahwistic in its morality than is Gibeah, presumably an ethnically purer city. Third, the genuine compassion of Boaz contrasts sharply with the hypocritical nativism of the concubine’s husband. To illustrate this in contemporary language, it is much easier for a white male judge, John B. Scott, to fine a poor black woman, Rosa Parks, for disorderly conduct (refusing to give up her seat to a white man) than it is to challenge the evils of a racist legal system. Likewise is it easier for a Levite to look down his nose at Jebusite foreigners than it is to protect his concubine from Israelite harm.
2:11 I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law. The book’s characteristically emphatic grammar (hugged huggad) might well be translated, “It has been explained and reexplained to me.” Boaz has done his homework. Evidently he has gathered information about this Moabitess from a number of sources, not just his foreman. Fully aware of her non-Hebrew origins, Boaz demonstrates a broader vision of community than do the majority of his peers. He has already determined in his heart to welcome her into the Bethlehemite community. He is impressed by the fact that Ruth has left her father and mother and her homeland to live with a people she did not know before. He knows that Ruth is serving Naomi at great personal risk. He knows how dangerous it is to leave (’azab, 1:16) one’s “homeland” (moledet).
2:12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded. The word translated “repay” in NIV is the verbal form of the well-known noun shalom, usually translated “peace” in English Bibles. In its verbal form (shalem) it can be rendered “to complete,” “to make whole,” “to restore,” “to make good,” or “to pay back.” Thus the versions vary significantly. LXX, for example, uses a contractual term from the world of economics (apotino) to explain Boaz’s repayment. Vulgate translates shalem with reddere, a term which can sometimes be translated “to render” or “to translate” (“May the Lord ‘translate’ your foreignness”).
Syriac, however, uses a word (pr’) which goes in a different direction altogether. In some contexts pr’ can mean “to spring up, to bud (like a flower).” There is a more precise cognate to MT shalem in Syriac (shlm), but the Syr translator of Ruth still chooses pr’, evidently to focus more on Ruth’s spiritual growth than the legalities of her agreement with Boaz.
Boaz attributes this to the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. Boaz wants Ruth to understand that the ’elohim to whom she has bravely yet ignorantly pledged her allegiance (1:16) is a deity unlike any other. Ancient Near Eastern deities are often given the epithet “rewarding god” (’lh’ shkr). Boaz, however, wants Ruth to know that Yahweh is more than this. Yahweh’s “wings” provide “refuge.” The Canaanite goddess ’Anat, for example, has wings which “lift up” and “vibrate” whenever she takes to flight, yet ’Anat cares little about refuge. Perhaps Boaz’s speech is rooted in a childhood memory of the wings of the cherubim solemnly enfolded over the ark of the covenant (Exod. 37:9).
What makes Yahwism so different from other ancient Near Eastern religions is its proven ability to transform human character. Boaz does more than just talk about Yahweh’s protection; he becomes Ruth’s protector. He does more than just visualize hesed; he incarnates it.
Ruth’s Introduction to Bethlehem
2:13 For the third time (see 2:2, 10) Ruth mentions “favor”: May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord. Though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls is a sensitive political statement acknowledging the reality of a delicate situation. Not only does she address Boaz as “lord” (’adon), she also refers to herself, in spite of Boaz’s earlier suggestion, as “servant girl” (shipkhah) instead of “young woman” (na’arah, 2:5).
This situation is similar to the one in the Gibeahite square (Judg. 19). In Ruth, an older man takes a young female stranger under his wing. In Judges 19, an older man shelters a young female stranger out of what looks to be fatherly concern for her safety. In Ruth, Boaz gathers information from several sources before speaking to Ruth. In Judges 19, the old Gibeahite immediately and frantically interrogates the Levite and his concubine, even before he finds out who she is (19:17). In Ruth, the house means little (2:7). In Judges 19, the house means everything (the Levite complains, “No one has taken me into his house,” 19:18). In Ruth, Boaz promises and delivers a “reward” (shalem). In Judges 19, the old Gibeahite promises but fails to deliver “peace” (shalom, 19:20).
2:14 Boaz continues his litany of grace-filled imperatives: Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar. These are not mere dining instructions. Boaz wants to introduce Ruth to Bethlehem society, starting with his own workers. He insists that Ruth be treated no differently from any other worker. Wesley sees compassion for the poor here: “It is no disparagement to the finest hand to be reached forth to the needy” (Notes on the Bible: Ruth, p. 832). But this is not a text about the nobility of serving the poor. What Boaz gives to Ruth is justice (see 1:1). Doubtless aware that nativistic segregation is a problem (Judg. 19:11–12), Boaz wants his fellow Bethlehemites to rise above passive toleration and actively accept Ruth.
2:15–16 After this first meal together, Boaz leaves further instructions for his workers: Don’t embarrass her. . . . Pull out some stalks for her . . . leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her. Two of these commands—“Pull out some stalks . . . leave them for her”—are positively framed. Two others—“Don’t embarrass . . . don’t rebuke”—are prohibitive. There would be no need for Boaz to be so direct were the potential for abuse not so pervasive. When the Danites find the sleepy village of Laish, for example, they realize that there is “no one in the land to ‘molest’ them” (kalam; NJPS; NIV softens this to “embarrass”). For men like this, tolerance is often taken as a license to abuse. Boaz realizes this. Thus he uses this same word (kalam) to warn anyone who molests Ruth that there will be a price to pay.
2:17–18 The action shifts back to Ruth. Earlier she insists on accompanying Naomi back to Judah. Lingering beside Boaz’s field, she waits respectfully for permission to glean. After meeting Boaz, she gleaned, gathered, threshed, carried, brought out, and gave of her harvest to Naomi, gladly and gratefully. This string of verbs echoes Boaz’s string of verbs.
2:19 Whereas Boaz uses imperatives and Ruth uses declaratives (1:16–17), Naomi continues to rely on interrogatives. Questions bubble out of her pell-mell: Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Finally learning of Ruth’s meeting with Boaz, Naomi pronounces a blessing, the first of several in the book: Blessed be the man who took notice of you!
Naomi’s Surprise
2:20 After Naomi finds out the identity of this “man” (well after the sneak preview given to the reader in 2:1), she joyfully pronounces another blessing, this time directly invoking Yahweh’s name: The LORD bless him! This blessing compares readily with the blessing pronounced by Micah’s mother:
Naomi: The LORD bless him! (Ruth 2:20) Micah’s mother: The LORD bless you! (Judg. 17:2) Whereas Micah’s mother blesses the recovery of her silver so that it can be used to build “a carved image and a cast idol” (Judg. 17:3), Naomi blesses Yahweh for revealing to her that God has been at work all along, even in her darkest hour. Both mothers desire to bless the accomplishments of their children. The difference is in their theologies. One sees Yahweh as God. The other sees the ’elohim as God. Micah’s mother desires only to make sure that her son has the resources necessary to construct a “house of the gods” (bet ’elohim). Mahlon’s mother surrenders herself to Yahweh.
Yahweh has not stopped showing his kindness (hesed). Though she may be tempted to believe otherwise, Naomi still believes in a God of hesed. Perhaps it’s been decades since she’s heard the name Boaz, yet she recognizes it. Hearing it enables Yahweh’s hesed to steal quietly back into her heart. Josephus sees God’s hesed as something only intermittently revealed to Israel (Antiquities of the Jews 2.7.1). Origen sees it as divine “condescension,” the incarnation being the best example (Against Celsus 5.12). Calvin imagines hesed as something against which “sinners . . . have no defense” (Institutes 27). Augustine sees it as something “better than life,” referring to it often as the reason for his own conversion (Confessions 11.29).
It is important to see that Naomi includes the dead family members (Elimelech, Mahlon, Kilion) as well as the living (Ruth, Orpah). In spite of everything that has happened, her convictions about family remain unshakeable. Like all Syro-Palestinians, Naomi believes in an innate, mysterious connection between kin, cult, land, and the unseen world. Outside of the prophetic and apocalyptic texts, this statement is about as close to a resurrection faith as one can find in Scripture. The locus of this faith is the family. The means for reigniting it comes from family. Thus the corollary exclamation: That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers.
2:21 He even said to me, “Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.” Literally, Boaz instructs Ruth to cling to his young men. This is the third appearance of the verb “cling.” Ruth clings to Naomi while Orpah returns to Moab (1:14). Boaz instructs Ruth to cling to his young girls, subtly moving her away from the fringes toward the center of Bethlehemite society (2:8). Now Ruth reports Boaz’s words to Naomi, repeating this word a third time (2:21). Like all patriarchs, Boaz’s instinct is to shelter those who are most vulnerable. Jacob does the same thing when he takes his family to meet Esau, carefully sheltering Rachel at the back of the caravan (Gen. 33:1–3). One Canaanite patriarch, Pabil, even tries to protect his family via economic payoffs to their enemies:
Take silver and yellow metal, gold fresh from the mine, And perpetual slaves, triads of horses and chariots. . . .
Take . . . the peace-offerings . . . and go away . . . from my house. Stay far away from my court. (Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, p. 85)
2:22 It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed. Naomi understands what Boaz is trying to do and supports him wholeheartedly. Ruth’s long-term welfare stands behind her own desire for Ruth to find a home (1:9; 3:1). Like Boaz, Naomi knows what the world is like, a violent place filled with “hot-tempered men” (Judg. 18:25).
2:23 So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law. Ruth 1 and 2 end with Ruth and Naomi seemingly alone against the world and a summary reference to harvest time in Bethlehem.
Additional Notes
2:1 Whose name was Boaz: On Boaz’s patriarchal “equivalence” to Kirta and Danil, see Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, pp. 82–122. D. M. Gunn and D. N. Fewell, “Boaz, Pillar of Society: Measures of Worth in the Book of Ruth,” JSOT 45 (1989), pp. 45–59, reconceptualize Boaz as a weakling reluctant to take initiative.
From the clan of Elimelech: N. Gottwald discusses the sociological significance of mishpakhah in Tribes of Yahweh (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979), pp. 257–94. N. P. Lemche discusses the primacy of the bet ’ab in Early Israel (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), p. 269.
2:2a Pick up the leftover grain: On the global dynamics of hunger see R. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1977); G. Riches, First World Hunger: Food Security and Welfare Politics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997).
2:2b Go ahead, my daughter: Ambrose gives Ruth the credit for much of Naomi’s new attitude in Concerning Widows in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Albany, Ore.: Sage, 1996) 785. P. Hiebert emphasizes widowhood’s awful finality in “ ‘Whence Shall Help Come to Me?’ The Biblical Widow,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (ed. P. L. Day; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), p. 130.
2:5 Whose young woman: R. L. Maddox (“The Word of God and Patriarchalism: A Typology of the Current Christian Debate,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 14 [1987], pp. 197–216) examines whether patriarchalism is structured into or challenged by Scripture.
2:7 She said, “Please let me glean”: On the various functions of dialogue in Hb. narrative, see S. Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (Sheffield: Almond, 1989), pp. 64–77.
On gleaning among the sheaves Joüon’s opinion is followed by Rudolph, Das Buch Ruth, p. 46.
Into the field: On the textual problems in 2:7 see Campbell, Ruth; D. Lys, “Résidence ou repos? Notule sur Ruth ii 7,” VT 21 (1971), p. 498; Moore, “Two Textual Anomalies in Ruth,” pp. 238–40.
2:8 My daughter: A. Phillips (“The Book of Ruth: Deception and Shame,” JJS 37 [1986], pp. 1–17) believes that one of this book’s primary intentions is to chastise societies who ignore their widows.
2:10 Foreigner: Informed discussions of nokriyyah appear in C. Maier, Die “fremde Frau” in Proverbien 1–9: Eine exegetische und sozialgeschichtliche Studie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1995), pp. 252–69; and L. Stager, “Archaeology, Ecology and Social History: Background Themes to the Song of Deborah,” in Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986 (ed. J. Emerton; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), pp. 229–30. Fred Gray, Rosa Parks’s attorney, tells her story in his memoir, Bus Ride to Justice (Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt, 1995), p. 56. The Akkadian inheritance text is cited from CAD N, 191. The Aramaic text is cited from DNWSI 732.
2:12 May the Lord repay: On shalem, see BDB 1022. On Syr pr’, see PSSD 463.
Under whose wings: The epithet “rewarding god” (’lh’ shkr) is found at Palmyra (DNWSI 1135). F. I. Andersen, “Yahweh, the Kind and Sensitive God,” in God Who Is Rich in Mercy: Essays Presented to Dr. D. B. Knox (ed. P. T. O’Brien and D. G. Peterson; Homebush West, Australia: Lancer, 1986), p. 82, sees Yahweh as much more than a “rewarder of good deeds.” Anat’s wings are described in Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, p. 132.
2:19 Where did you glean? Peterson (“The Pastoral Work of Story-Making: Ruth,” in Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, pp. 97–105) argues that Naomi’s mode of speech is primarily interrogative.
2:20 To the living and the dead: On the connection between kin, cult, land, and afterlife, see H. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex,” HUCA 44 (1973), pp. 1–54.
2:21 On the Kirta myth, see the commentary on 1:3a.
2:22 You might be harmed: R. Girard has given a great deal of thought to the problem of violence in the Bible, especially in La Violence et le Sacré (Paris: B. Grasset, 1972).
Insight #1: Yahweh, God of Grace
Boaz’s speech records something rather rare in ancient Israelite literature. Here an Israelite bears witness to a non-Israelite about the very character of God. If Ruth is like most other Syro-Palestinians, she is a polytheist. Presumably what she knows about Yahweh is the direct result of her husband’s family’s influence. Perhaps it is the evidence of this influence that encourages Boaz to be so direct with her. Predictably, some rabbis overinterpret this encounter and attempt to transform Boaz, as they do many other biblical characters, into a messianic “prophet” (b. Shabb. 113b). Careful attention to the canonical-historical context, however, shortcircuits such extremism.
Judges 17–18, for example, preserves a story about a typical cult center in Iron Age Palestine. The narrator of Judges calls it a “house of the gods” (bet ’elohim, Judg. 17:5). The icons inside this house are themselves called ’elohim (18:24), The magicoreligious specialists who use them are called kohanim and ’abot (“priests” and “fathers,” 18:19). Recent research on these ’elohim-icons affirms that the best way to understand their cultural role is to view them holistically, as part of a much larger socioreligious network involving kinship, cult, land, and afterlife beliefs. That varying beliefs about the ’elohim are anchored deep in Syro-Palestinian culture well explains why so many Israelites, in spite of attempts to police them, go on worshiping these deities at high-place sanctuaries (1 Kgs. 3:2; 12:31; 13:2).
In 1967, a team of Dutch archaeologists found the remains of a sanctuary very much like Micah’s only twenty miles east of Shechem. Its present-day Arabic name is Deir ’Alla (probably ancient Succoth). Inside the Dutch found plaster fragments containing an oracle of Balaam, presumably the same Balaam who speaks in Numbers 22–24. The first line of this inscription identifies Balaam as “a seer of the gods” (khzh ’lhn). Subsequent lines record the sinister plans of a group of ’elohin who are intent on destroying Balaam’s people. The Deir ’Alla texts shed a great deal of light on Ruth’s polytheistic world.
Another archaeological discovery sheds even more light. In Moab, Ruth’s homeland, the Mesha inscription (see above on 1:1) describes Chemosh as a god who “gets angry” (’np), who “returns” land (shwb), who “replenishes” himself (ryt), who “speaks” (’mr), who shares power with a female consort (’Ishtar), who receives “devoted things” from worshipers (khrm), and who “drives away” enemies (grsh). In other words, Ruth’s national god looks very much like the Yahweh who is worshiped in popular Israelite circles, even down to the detail of having a goddess-consort (as on the inscriptions found at Kuntillet ’Ajrud and Khirbet el Qôm).
These inscriptions tell us a great deal about the substance and context of Ruth’s religious world. Doubtless Ruth learns from her husband’s family that Yahweh is the imageless deity responsible for humbling Egypt under Moses (Exod. 12:33), the God who leads Israel safely through the sea (Exod. 14:29), the God who confounds the plans of Balak the Moabite (Num. 24:10). Boaz, however, wants to emphasize a side of Yahweh that even Naomi seems to have forgotten: that Yahweh is a God of kindness as well as judgment, a God of refuge as well as war.
Insight #2: The Redeemer as Cultural Gyroscope
The word translated “kinsman-redeemer” in 2:20 (NIV) is the participial form of the verb ga’al, some form of which is repeated no fewer than twenty-one times in Ruth. This alone makes it one of the book’s most important concepts. Some lexicographers divide it into separate semantic categories: ga’al I (“to redeem”) and ga’al II (“to defile”). Others see a common root, “to cover,” in the sense of “to cover positively” or “to protect/redeem” versus “to cover negatively,” in the sense of “to stain/defile.” This dispute remains unresolved because there is little cognate evidence outside of the Hebrew Bible to which we might profitably turn for lexicographical perspective. Syr consistently translates go’el (“redeemer”) as “the one who asks for the inheritance” (tb’ yrtwt’) in Ruth, preferring to put more emphasis on the product than the agent of redemption.
In the Bible, there are at least five basic functions of the go’el-redeemer: he acquires the alienated property of a kinsman (Lev. 25:25); he purchases property in danger of being lost to a stranger (Jer. 32:6–15); he redeems relatives who have been reduced to slavery (Lev. 25:47–55); he avenges relatives’ wrongful deaths (Num. 35:17–34); and he is obligated to support a relative’s widow (Ruth 4:4–10).
Anthropologically, the function of the go’el is to restore societal equilibrium. In ancient Israel, where internal tribal controls are stronger than external legal constraints, the go’el functions as a cultural gyroscope (L. J. Luzbetak). Whenever and wherever there is a breach in the cultural fabric, the go’el serves as the restorative agent.
Reading Ruth anthropologically goes a long way toward resolving one of the book’s most celebrated problems, namely, whether Ruth’s marriage to Boaz is better defined as “redemption” (Hb. ge’ullah) or as “levirate” (from the word levir, “husband’s brother,” the Latin translation of Hb. yabam, Deut. 25:5). L. M. Epstein sees only the ge’ullah here (“redemption marriage”), dismissing all allusions to the levirate as later interpolation. J. G. Frazer hypothesizes a continuum in which Canaanite polygamy and polyandry slowly evolve into the Israelite institutions of levirate and ge’ullah, positioning Ruth’s marriage somewhere in the middle. M. Burrows sees here “a transitional stage between redemption-marriage as an affair of the clan and levirate-marriage as an affair of the family.” J. Sasson argues for disentangling ge’ullah from Ruth’s marriage because the ge’ullah, in his opinion, is of interest to the narrator of Ruth only insofar as it pertains to Naomi’s fate.
None of these solutions is completely satisfying. Some conclude too much from too little evidence; others make antiquated distinctions between clan and family (see the discussion on mishpakhah at 2:1). Very few approach the problem from an anthropological perspective. Manslaughter, murder, war, death, widowhood, slavery, and poverty are all agents, indications, or results of disequilibrium. The go’el is the agent of (re)equilibrium. Sociolinguistic debates over terminology (levirate versus ge’ullah) will continue to remain irresolvable as long as they fail to get at what H. H. Rowley calls “the wider duties devolving on the next-of-kin” (“The Marriage of Ruth,” in The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays on the Old Testament [Oxford: Blackwell, 1965], p. 179).
Boaz is the cultural gyroscope of Elimelech’s family. “Redeemer” can still appropriately translate the Hebrew go’el as long as it is adequately defined. The English word “redeem” comes from a Latin verb, reddere, which means “to give/buy back” and is a term fundamentally rooted in law and economics. Ga’al, however, is a Hebrew word designed to denote the process of restoring the created order, including, but not limited to, the legal, socioeconomic, and theological aspects of that order. Thus Yahweh himself is the quintessential go’el, the compassionate Redeemer who delivers Israel from every distress (Ps. 78:35; Isa. 52:3).