Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ruth · About this commentary
Why Have I Found Favor?
Ruth 2:8-10
8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Don’t go to glean in another field, and don’t go from here, but stay here close to my maidens. · WEB
Boaz's protection is specific about a danger the story otherwise leaves unspoken.
Listen, my daughter. The address grants her standing before anything else does — she is neither servant nor stranger in the way he speaks to her.
What he offers is a series of practical safeties. Do not glean in another field. Stay close to my maidens. Keep your eyes on the field they reap and follow them. Drink from the vessels the young men have drawn — which reverses the ordinary order, since drawing water was women's work and a foreign widow would have been last in line for it.
One clause names what the arrangements are for: haven't I commanded the young men not to touch you? The danger to a woman gleaning alone in a field, in the period of the judges, is stated plainly and then dealt with by an order to his own workers. Naomi will repeat the concern in Ruth 2:22.
Ruth's response is to fall on her face, and her question is the honest one: why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take knowledge of me, since I am a foreigner? She names her own disqualification. The Hebrew has a play on it — she asks why he recognized one who is unrecognized.
settled What this mark means