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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ruth 2:17 - 2:17
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Thus Ruth gleaned till the evening in the field; and when she knocked out the ears, she had about an ephah (about 20-25 lbs.) of barley.
Rth 2:18
This she brought to her mother-in-law in the city, and “drew out (sc., from her pocket, as the Chaldee has correctly supplied) what she had left from her sufficiency,” i.e., of the parched corn which Boaz had reached her (Rth 2:14).
Rth 2:19-20
The mother inquired, “where hast thou gleaned to-day, and where wroughtest thou?” and praised the benefactor, who, as she conjecture from the quantity of barley collected and the food brought home, had taken notice of Ruth: “blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee!” When she heard the name of the man, Boaz, she saw that this relative of her husband had been chosen by God to be a benefactor of herself and Ruth, and exclaimed, “Blessed be he of the Lord, that he has not left off (withdrawn) his favour towards the living and the dead!” On חַסְדֹּו עָזַב see Gen 24:27. This verb is construed with a double accusative here; for אֵת cannot be a preposition, as in that case מֵאֵת would be used like מֵעִם in Gen. l.c. “The living,” etc., forms a second object: as regards (with regard to) the living and the dead, in which Naomi thought of herself and Ruth, and of her husband and sons, to whom God still showed himself gracious, even after their death, through His care for their widows. In order to enlighten Ruth still further upon the matter, she added, “The man (Boaz) is our relative, and one of our redeemers.” He “stands near to us,” sc., by relationship. גֹּאֲלֵנוּ, a defective form for גֹּאֲלֵינוּ, which is found in several MSS and editions. On the significance of the goël, or redeemer, see at Lev 25:26, Lev 25:48-49, and the introduction to Ruth 3.
Rth 2:21
Ruth proceeded to inform her of his kindness: כִּי גַּם, “also (know) that he said to me, Keep with my people, till the harvest is all ended.” The masculine הַנְּעָרִים, for which we should rather expect the feminine נְעָרֹות in accordance with Rth 2:8, Rth 2:22, Rth 2:23, is quite in place as the more comprehensive gender, as a designation of the reapers generally, both male and female; and the expression לִי אֲשֶׁר in this connection in the sense of my is more exact than the possessive pronoun: the people who belong to my house, as distinguished from the people of other masters.
Rth 2:22
Naomi declared herself fully satisfied with this, because Ruth would be thereby secured from insults, which she might receive when gleaning in strange fields. “That they meet thee not,” lit. “that they do not fall upon thee.” בְּ פָּגַע signifies to fall upon a person, to smite and ill-treat him.
Rth 2:23
After this Ruth kept with the maidens of Boaz during the whole of the barley and wheat harvests gleaning ears of corn, and lived with her mother-in-law, sc., when she returned in the evening from the field. In this last remark there is a tacit allusion to the fact that a change took place for Ruth when the harvest was over.