Ruth 3:1-6
A Resting Place for You
1One 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?
2Now is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been working, a relative of ours? In fact, tonight he is winnowing barley on the threshing floor.
3Therefore wash yourself, put on perfume, and wear your best clothes. Go down to the threshing floor, but do not let the man know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.
4When he lies down, note the place where he lies. Then go in and uncover his feet, and lie down, and he will explain to you what you should do.”
5“I will do everything you say,” Ruth answered.
6So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had instructed her to do.
Berean Standard Bible
The harvests are over. The barley is in, the wheat is in, and the gleaning that has been feeding the two of them has stopped. Naomi starts working out what happens next, and what she is working out is not for herself.
My daughter, should I not seek a resting place for you, that it may be well with you?
A resting place. Back on the road out of Moab she had prayed that the LORD would give each of her daughters-in-law rest in the home of a husband, and then she sent them away because she had nothing of the sort to offer. This time she means to arrange it herself.
She names the relation before she says anything else about the plan. Is not Boaz, whose servant girls Ruth has been working with, a relative of theirs? Then comes the piece of news she has been holding: tonight he is winnowing barley on the threshing floor. Winnowing is throwing the threshed grain up so the wind carries off the chaff and the grain falls back down in a heap. Verse 7 has Boaz lying down at the end of the heap of grain when he is finished.
The instructions come in order, and Naomi has thought about each one. Ruth is to wash, put on perfume, and wear her best clothes. She is to go down to the floor and keep out of sight until Boaz has finished eating and drinking.
When he lies down, note the place where he lies. Then go in and uncover his feet, and lie down, and he will explain to you what you should do.
The plan reads the way it reads, and the book does not soften it. It is night. A woman washes and perfumes herself, waits for a man to eat and drink, and then goes to where he is sleeping and lies down at his feet. Every part of it rests on the character of the man at the other end.
Naomi is betting on him, and she has her reasons. She has watched him feed Ruth at his own table, order his young men not to touch her, and keep her safely employed right through two harvests. She is not sending her out to a stranger.
Ruth answers in one line.
I will do everything you say.
No questions, no argument, nothing held back for later. The woman who could not be talked out of leaving Moab, who met Naomi's reasoning with a vow, has nothing to say back here at all. She goes down to the threshing floor and does what she was told to do.
How We Know
Naomi's word in verse 1 is one she has used before, and the book puts it in her mouth twice on purpose.
In 1:9 she prayed that the LORD would enable each of her daughters-in-law to find rest in the home of a husband, and then sent them home because she could not provide it. In 3:1 she says she will seek that resting place for Ruth herself.
The plan also rests on a fact the reader was handed in 2:20 and Boaz has not been told. Before Naomi says a word about the threshing floor she repeats the relation: is not Boaz a relative of ours. What she is building is not a romance. It is a claim on a legal office, and she names the office first.
Questions
1 The harvests are finished. Why does that set Naomi thinking?
AnswerBecause the gleaning that has been feeding them is over. The arrangement they have been living on has run out, and she is looking ahead to what becomes of Ruth once the food stops coming in.
2 What is a resting place, and where has Naomi used that idea before?
AnswerA secure home, which in her world meant marriage. On the road out of Moab she prayed the LORD would give each of her daughters-in-law rest in the home of a husband. She had nothing to offer them then. Now she means to arrange it.
3 If somebody you trusted handed you a plan like this one, would you go? Say what Naomi's plan actually is first.
AnswerRuth is to wash, put on perfume and her best clothes, wait until Boaz has eaten and drunk and lain down, and then lie down at his feet in the dark. It is risky, and all of it depends on the man being who Naomi thinks he is.
4 Why does Naomi think it is safe, and what does Ruth say back?
AnswerBecause she has been hearing about him all through the harvest. Ruth came home each evening with the grain and the account of where it came from: fed at his own table, his men ordered not to touch her, kept working in his field through two seasons. Ruth says she will do everything Naomi says, and asks nothing.
What This Means for Us
Naomi is acting on something she said out loud earlier. When Ruth first came home with Boaz's name, Naomi blessed him by the LORD, who has not withdrawn his kindness from the living or the dead. That sentence at 2:20 is the ground this whole plan stands on.
She is not gambling on a good man. She has already named where the kindness is coming from, and Boaz is the place it has been arriving. What she risks tonight she risks on a God she has just said is still keeping faith with her family, including the members of it who are dead.
So think about where you have seen that kindness arriving lately, and through whom. Then consider what you would be willing to act on if you took it as seriously as Naomi took hers.
Prayer
Father, make us the kind of people others can safely count on when nobody is looking. Thank you for a man whose character was steady enough that a widow staked her daughter on it. Guard our homes, and make our word worth something in the dark. Amen.