And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, Let me, I pray, go to the field and glean among the ears of corn after [him] in whose sight I shall find favour. And she said to her, Go, my daughter.
Naomi and Ruth have reached Bethlehem with nothing, just as the barley harvest begins. It is Ruth, the foreigner, who speaks first and asks to go out and work. Her words raise two questions that shape the chapter. What claim does a Moabite widow have in an Israelite field? And who decides which field she ends up in?
The two women were poor, and gleaning was the relief open to them. One writer points out which of them moved first.
The two women, pressed by poverty, looked for relief through the national poor law. But it was not Naomi, the older woman, an Israelite by birth and upbringing, who took the first step. It was Ruth, the younger, a convert from idol worship to the service of Jehovah. Barley harvest had begun, so she volunteered to glean in the barley fields, even though she was a "stranger" in Bethlehem. Her mother-in-law agreed.
Ruth was not begging. God had written her portion into Israel's harvest law, and that law stopped landowners taking everything for themselves.
When someone harvested his crops, he might leave a sheaf behind in the field. He was not to go back for it. He was to leave it for a stranger, a fatherless child, or a widow. This comes on top of the command in Leviticus 19:9-10: owners were not to reap the corners of the field, but to leave them for the poor. Ruth was blessed by taking advantage of this law in the field of Boaz. … So God showed His gracious care for people who were oppressed. Israel had to remember that they themselves were once in the land of Egypt.
She does not ask for a field she has a right to. She asks for the field of a man in whose sight she will find favor.
Until now Ruth's faith rested on the work of grace God had done for His people. But her faith needs an object, a personal object, and she cannot fail to find it. Ruth does not yet know the mighty man spoken of in verse 1, but she hopes to meet him on the ground of grace. … Although she is poor and without rights, she knows she can count on the Lord's resources.
Gleaning was humble work. Ruth saw the one door open to her and went through it.
Nothing proves energy of soul more clearly than this. In any difficulty we are not only resigned, but ready to take up any small opening offered to us. We can humble ourselves to it. We can tell everyone, and our own souls too, that God has not forgotten us, and that what is right in front of us is quite enough to meet our needs. … Ruth sees there is no opening for her but gleaning, and to gleaning she gives herself; and this was the Lord's opening for her.
Ruth does not act on her own idea. She brings it to Naomi and waits for the word "Go, my daughter."
Her path is clear, as faith's path always is, but she does not choose her path by her own will. We often treat the result of our own thinking, or what our natural hearts want, as the path of faith. But faith never acts except in full dependence on the Word of God.
She set out with no particular field in mind.
Early in the morning she went out humbly as a poor stranger. She would gather a gleaner's portion of grain wherever the chance came. Yet she went with firm trust that the God of Israel, under whose wings she had come to take refuge, would guide and protect her. … To outward appearance, Ruth by "chance" chose the field of Boaz, but to faith it was by God's arranging and directing.
Gleaning also carries a picture for the believer. One writer ties it to blessings that are already ours but still have to be taken up.
In a spiritual sense, gleaning is the believer taking hold of the blessings to which God has given him a title. … Paul can say with complete confidence that believers are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Yet this did not stop him praying for a special work by the Holy Spirit in the inner man, so that the saints might grasp the breadth and length and depth and height of all these blessings.
- Need starts it. Poverty pushed the two women toward the poor law, and Ruth, the foreigner, moved first.
- Grace supplies it. She asked for favor, not wages. Poor and without rights, she counted on the Lord's resources.
- Law guards it. God had already told owners to leave the corners and the dropped sheaves for the stranger, the fatherless and the widow.
- Humility positions it. She took the smallest opening offered, and that opening was the Lord's own door for her.
- God directs it. What looked like chance was His arranging — she came to the field of Boaz.
And she went; and she came and gleaned in the fields after the reapers; and she chanced to light on an allotment of Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.
Ruth goes out to glean, and she ends up in the one field that could change her life. Everything in the verse hangs on one word: "happened."
Older translations read "her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz." A Bible dictionary gives the plain sense of that old word:
"Happen"; if it should so happen; it happened to Ruth that she gleaned in the field of Boaz.
One writer gives the words we would use for a day like that, and then what lay under them:
We should have called it "a chance happening," "a coincidence" perhaps, but it was in reality one of those Divine over-rulings which alter the very course of our lives. They come to all of us, to reader and writer alike.
Ruth was not looking for the field of Boaz. What the day means depends on who is watching:
Early in the morning she went out humbly, as a poor stranger, to gather a gleaner's portion of grain wherever she found the chance. Yet she went with a firm trust that the God of Israel, under Whose wings she had come to take refuge, would guide and protect her. … To all appearances, Ruth chose the field of Boaz by "chance." But to faith it was God's own devising and directing that sent her to the field of a godly and gracious man. He was her mother-in-law's kinsman by marriage, and she soon found favour in his eyes.
One writer draws a firm line between God arranging our circumstances and God guiding us:
Providence does not guide believers; it controls circumstances and enemies. The Holy Spirit is the One who graciously guides Christians. We still deal with outward things, and there the providence of God works.
Gleaning was the only opening Ruth had, and it was lowly work. She took it:
When we are in a tight place, the clearest proof of spiritual energy is this: we are not only resigned, but ready to take any little opening offered to us, and to humble ourselves to it. … Ruth sees that gleaning is her only opening, and she gives herself to gleaning. This was the Lord's opening for her. Very humble, unnoticed work, no doubt. But He does not see as man sees, and He led her by the right way. For He "teaches the humble His way," and so "her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz." … Unless we take the humble opening put in front of us, we shall never reach the place of satisfaction.
The verse names the owner of the ground. One writer weighs what that ownership means:
It was not rented out to anyone else, thank God. It belonged to Boaz. It was a place where Boaz got his rights, where he was everything. It is the place where Christ's claims are fully acknowledged. There was a chief reaper too, and I have no doubt he pictures the One who carries on the work down here now — the Holy Spirit. But the field belonged to Boaz, and Ruth is among his reapers now.
The verse ends by placing Boaz in Elimelech's family. He shared Elimelech's blood, but not his choices:
He was a blood relation of the man who left Bethlehem in Judah for a foreign country. But though he was a kinsman by birth, he had no part with Elimelech in his disastrous choice to go down to Moab. Boaz did not leave the land. He stayed in it and kept his inheritance whole, while Elimelech forfeited his. These two marks were the essential qualifications of a Kinsman-redeemer under the law of the Lord.
That field grew out of Ruth's choice to stay with Naomi, and the man who owned it mattered as much as the grain:
Ruth lost nothing by holding to Naomi. Because of it, "her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz." And he was a man of tender heart, for he spoke kindly to Ruth and comforted her. But not only that: he was a mighty man of wealth, and the field he had power over was fully enough to satisfy her need.
- Happened. The old word "hap" means "it so happened." The story reports the day as an onlooker saw it, not as heaven saw it.
- Over-ruled. What looks like coincidence is a divine over-ruling. Such moments change the whole course of a life, and they come to everyone.
- Guided. Providence controls circumstances. The Spirit guides the believer. The two are not the same.
- Humbled. Ruth took the one lowly opening she had, and that road led straight to the field of the man who could redeem her.
- Owned. The field belonged wholly to Boaz. He was a kinsman by birth who never forfeited his inheritance, and his wealth was more than enough for her need.