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Rth_2:4 And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD [be] with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee.
Ver. 4. And, behold, Boaz came from Beth-lehem.] To look to his country business, as a good economist: his eyes are on the servants, on the reapers, on the gleaners. Maiores fertilissimum in agro oculum domini esse dixerunt; { a} our ancestors were wont to say, that the master’s eye maketh the ground most fruitful. The master’s footsteps, saith one in Aristotle, are the best manure for the farm. {b} And, Procul a villa sua dissitus iacturae vicinus, said Cato: The farther from thy business, the nearer to loss. Boaz had a bailiff of his husbandry, Aãñïíïìïí , as Josephus calleth him, careful and painful; and yet we find him not only looking to, but even lodging in the midst of his hinds. {Rth_3:7; Rth_3:14}
The Lord be with you … The Lord bless thee.] Piety not only stands with humanity and civil courtesy, but also exacteth and requireth it. {Mat_10:11 1Pe_3:8 Luk_10:5} God hath his ethics, and commandeth good manners as well as good conscience. Affability and courtesy is the way to win upon others; men’s minds are taken with it, as passengers’ eyes are with fair flowers in the spring-tide; whereas a harsh, sullen, sour, churlish conversation is very distasteful to all, galleth the best, {witness David, 1Sa_25:10-13} and openeth bad men’s mouths to speak evil of religion, as if it were an enemy to comity and courtesy - as if it removed it, whereas it only rectifieth it, and prescribeth to it, by restraining flattery and treachery.
The Lord bless thee.] Courtesy must be paid in the same coin. The Turk’s salutation is Salaum aleek, Peace be to thee; the reply is, Aleek salaum. They which salute are to be re-saluted. Note this against some Anabaptists and the Quakers. Those places, 2Ki_4:29 Luk_10:4, make nothing for them, as enjoining only haste to be made in matters so weighty. Nor that, 2Jn_1:10, as meant only of desperate heretics, such as was Marcion, to whom Polycarp, Agnosco te primogenitum diaboli. As for others, "Charity hopeth all things," and if they be not sons of peace, our peace returneth to us.
{a} Plin., lib. viii. cap. 6.
{b} Domini vestigia stercus optimum. - Arist. Oecon., lib. i.