Whose Young Lady Is This?
4 Behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, “May Yahweh be with you.” They answered him, “May Yahweh bless you.” 5 Then Boaz said to his servant who was set over the reapers, “Whose young lady is this?” 6 The servant who was set over the reapers answered, “It is the Moabite lady who came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab. 7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.’ So she came, and has continued even from the morning until now, except that she rested a little in the house.”
Boaz arrives greeting his workers by God's name, and the first thing said about Ruth in his field is that she is a Moabite who has not stopped working.
Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, may Yahweh be with you. They answered, may Yahweh bless you. Four words each way, and they establish the man before he does anything: an owner who greets laborers, and laborers who answer without fear.
His question is oddly phrased. Whose young lady is this? Not who is she but whose — the ordinary way of asking about a person in a world where women were identified by household, and a question with no good answer in Ruth's case, since she belongs to no one.
The foreman's reply gives the answer available. It is the Moabite lady who came back with Naomi. Her nationality comes first, as it will five times in this book, and the narrative never lets the reader forget it.
But the rest of his report is a compliment he did not have to make. She asked permission, and she has continued from the morning until now, resting only a little. He is describing a foreigner exercising a legal right politely and working past the point anyone required. That is the first testimony to Ruth from an Israelite who owed her nothing.
settled What this mark means