Biblion Bible Commentary
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Spread Your Garment Over Me
Ruth 3:6-9
6 She went down to the threshing floor, and did everything that her mother-in-law told her. · WEB
Ruth follows the plan and then departs from it — she was told to wait for instructions and instead makes a proposal.
She did everything her mother-in-law told her. Boaz ate and drank, his heart was merry, and he lay down at the end of the heap of grain. She came softly, uncovered his feet, and lay down.
At midnight the man was startled and turned, and there was a woman at his feet. His question is two words in the Hebrew: who are you?
Naomi had said he would tell her what to do Ruth 3:4. He does not, and Ruth does not wait. She answers the question and then adds a request of her own: spread the corner of your garment over your servant, for you are a goel H1350, a near kinsman.
The word for corner is kanaph H3671 — wing — and it is the second and last time the book uses it. Boaz had prayed that she would find refuge under the wings of the God of Israel Ruth 2:12. She now asks him to spread his own over her, in his own vocabulary. It is a marriage proposal from a foreign widow to a landowner at midnight, and it is also a request that he stop praying and act.
And she gives him the legal ground in the same breath. He is a redeemer, and she is asking him to redeem.
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