Biblion Bible Commentary
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Under Whose Wings
Ruth 2:11-13
11 Boaz answered her, “I have been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father, your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people that you didn’t know before. · WEB
Boaz answers her question with her own history, and then prays a prayer that chapter 3 will hand back to him.
I have been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law. Her reputation had preceded her, which is the answer to why a stranger took notice — Bethlehem is small, and what she did was worth repeating.
His summary is precise: you left your father, your mother, and the land of your birth, and came to a people you did not know. The phrasing is close to what was said to Abram, told to leave country, kindred and father's house for a land he would be shown Genesis 12:1. A Moabite widow is described in the vocabulary of the patriarch's own call.
Then the prayer. May Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given to you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings — kanaph H3671 — you have come to take refuge. The image is a bird sheltering its young, used in the psalms of God's protection Psalms 91:4.
That word occurs exactly twice in this book. Boaz prays it here over a woman he has just met. In Ruth 3:9 Ruth will use the same word to ask Boaz to spread his own over her — asking him, in his own vocabulary, to become the answer to his own prayer.
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