Ruth 2:1-7
She Happened Upon the Field
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.
2And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go into the fields and glean heads of grain after someone in whose sight I may find favor.” “Go ahead, my daughter,” Naomi replied.
3So Ruth departed and went out into the field and gleaned after the harvesters. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.
4Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and said to the harvesters, “The LORD be with you.” “The LORD bless you,” they replied.
5And Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, “Whose young woman is this?”
6The foreman answered, “She is the Moabitess who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab.
7She has said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the harvesters.’ So she came out and has continued from morning until now, except that she rested a short time in the shelter.”
Berean Standard Bible
Before anybody in the chapter says a word, the writer leans over and tells the reader something none of them know. Naomi has a relative on her husband's side, well off and well thought of, from the clan of Elimelech, which is the family she married into and buried. His name is Boaz. Then the writer sets him down and goes back to the two women.
Ruth asks her mother-in-law for permission to go out and work.
Please let me go into the fields and glean heads of grain after someone in whose sight I may find favor.
Gleaning was neither begging nor theft. God had written it into the law of Israel: leave the edges of a field standing, leave whatever the harvesters drop, and let the poor and the foreigner come in afterward and take it. Ruth is using a provision built for people in her exact position, and she asks Naomi first.
The second half of her sentence is what costs her something. She hopes to find favor in somebody's sight, which means she knows the law arrives without a welcome attached. A foreign widow on a stranger's land depends entirely on the man who owns it, and she cannot learn what he is like until she is standing on it. Naomi tells her to go ahead.
And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.
The writer files it as an accident, and we have had Boaz's name since before Ruth left the house. Nobody standing in that field knows any of it. Nobody standing in that field knows any of it.
Boaz comes out from Bethlehem and greets his harvesters, and God's name is in the greeting and in what they call back. We meet him greeting the people who work for him. Then he asks his foreman whose the young woman is.
The foreman gives him two facts. The first is that she is the Moabitess who came back with Naomi, which is what the town sees first about her.
So she came out and has continued from morning until now, except that she rested a short time in the shelter.
The second fact is her work. She asked, she was allowed, and she has been at it since morning with one short rest in the shelter. The foreman is not praising her. He is answering a question, and the answer turns out to be a character reference.
How We Know
Ruth's request is not improvised. It follows a written provision.
Leviticus 19:9 tells a landowner not to reap to the very edges of his field and not to gather the gleanings, and Deuteronomy 24:19 says that a sheaf forgotten in the field is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.
Deuteronomy names the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Ruth is two of those three. The law had her in mind by description long before she arrived.
The book never quotes either verse. It has her ask to glean and moves on. A request landing exactly on a written provision that names her circumstances strongly supports that provision standing behind it. That the first readers would recognize it is a further step, and the silence alone cannot carry that.
Questions
1 What is the most ordinary thing somebody here has done today?
AnswerWhatever it is, nobody will remember it by Friday. Ruth's day was that kind of day. She walked out to find a field, found one, and worked in it until the foreman had something to report. The whole book turns on it and she has no idea while it is happening.
2 What does the writer tell us about Boaz before anybody in the chapter knows it?
AnswerHis name, that he is well off and well thought of, and that he is a relative on Naomi's husband's side from the clan of Elimelech. All of that is handed to the reader in the first verse, before Ruth has even asked to go out.
3 What is gleaning, and why is Ruth allowed to do it?
AnswerGathering the grain left standing at the edges and dropped by the harvesters. God wrote it into the law of Israel so the poor, the foreigner and the widow could feed themselves. Ruth is not begging and she is not stealing. She is using something set up for people in her exact position.
4 Ruth hopes to find favor in somebody's sight. What does that tell us about how safe she is?
AnswerThat the law did not come with a welcome attached. A foreign widow walking onto private land is at the mercy of whoever owns it. She knows the rule exists and she also knows it can be honored grudgingly, or made unpleasant enough that she leaves on her own.
What This Means for Us
She happened to come. The writer says it flatly, and he has already put Boaz on the page so that we cannot read it as luck. Nobody inside the scene has the faintest idea. Ruth walked until she found somewhere to work. Boaz came out to look at his own harvest. From inside it, nothing happened at all.
So the question is not whether God is at work in this house today. The question is whether we would know it if he were, given that neither of the two people it was happening to did.
Prayer
Father, most of our days feel like nothing. Thank you that Ruth's did too, and that you were already in the field. Help us do the next ordinary thing well without needing to see what it is for. Amen.