Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ruth · About this commentary
Let Her Glean Among the Sheaves
Ruth 2:14-16
14 At meal time Boaz said to her, “Come here, and eat some bread, and dip your morsel in the vinegar.” She sat beside the reapers, and they passed her parched grain. She ate, was satisfied, and left some of it. · WEB
Boaz seats a foreigner at the workers' meal, and then quietly instructs his men to rig the harvest in her favor.
At meal time Boaz said to her, come here, and eat some bread. The invitation crosses two lines at once — she is a foreigner and she is a gleaner, and gleaners did not eat with reapers. He hands her parched grain himself.
Three details in verse 14 are worth keeping. She ate. She was satisfied. And she left some over — which chapter 2 will show her carrying home to Naomi Ruth 2:18. The woman with nothing ends the meal with a surplus.
Then verses 15 and 16, spoken to his young men rather than to her. Let her glean among the sheaves — which is not gleaning at all but access to the harvest itself. Do not reproach her. Pull out some from the bundles on purpose and leave it for her. Do not rebuke her.
The instructions are given out of her hearing, and that is the point of them. Boaz arranges for her to gather far more than the law required while letting her believe she earned it by working. The law obliged him to leave the corners; nothing obliged him to have his men drop grain deliberately in front of her.
settled What this mark means