Biblion Bible Commentary
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To the End of Harvest
Ruth 2:21-23
21 Ruth the Moabitess said, “Yes, he said to me, ‘You shall stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’” · WEB
Two harvests pass in a single verse, and nothing happens — which is itself the situation Naomi will decide to change.
Ruth reports the rest of what Boaz said: stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest. Naomi adjusts it in the retelling — go out with his maidens — and gives her reason: that they not harm you in any other field. The concern of Ruth 2:9 is now the mother-in-law's too, and the correction is protective rather than pedantic.
Verse 23 closes the chapter by covering months in one sentence. She stayed close to the maidens of Boaz, gleaning to the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest, and she lived with her mother-in-law.
Barley harvest ran into wheat harvest, so this is most of a season. In all that time Boaz does nothing further, and neither does Ruth. The provision continues and the situation does not move.
That stalled interval is what the next chapter answers. Naomi has learned there is a redeemer; nothing has come of it; and the last clause — she lived with her mother-in-law — leaves both women exactly where chapter 1 left them, fed now but still without the rest Naomi had prayed for Ruth 1:9.
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