Ruth 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Naomi tells Ruth to wash, put on perfumed oil and her clothes, and go down to the threshing floor where Boaz is winnowing barley, then uncover his feet and lie down. Ruth does this, and at midnight Boaz wakes to find a woman at his feet; she names herself and asks him to spread his garment over her, since he is a close relative who can redeem. Boaz blesses her and promises to do what she asks, but says a nearer relative comes first: if that man will act as redeemer, let him, and if not, Boaz will. Before it is light enough to recognize anyone, Ruth gets up; Boaz measures out six measures of barley for her, and she returns to Naomi, who tells her to wait until she knows how the matter will fall out.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Naomi was Ruth's mother-in-law.
   • Naomi spoke to Ruth.
   • Naomi called Ruth her daughter.
   • Naomi asked whether she should not seek a settled home for Ruth.
   • Naomi said the purpose of seeking that home was that it might go well with Ruth.
2. 3:2
   • Naomi asked whether Boaz was not a relative of theirs.
   • Ruth had been with the young women who worked for Boaz.
   • Naomi said Boaz was winnowing barley at the threshing floor that night.
3. 3:3
   • Naomi told Ruth to wash herself.
   • Naomi told Ruth to anoint herself with oil.
   • Naomi told Ruth to put on her garment.
   • Naomi told Ruth to go down to the threshing floor.
   • Naomi told Ruth not to make herself known to the man.
   • Naomi said Ruth was to stay unknown until he had finished eating and drinking.
4. 3:4
   • Naomi said that when Boaz lay down, Ruth was to note the place where he lay.
   • Naomi told Ruth to go in.
   • Naomi told Ruth to uncover his feet.
   • Naomi told Ruth to lie down.
   • Naomi said Boaz would tell Ruth what she should do.
5. 3:5
   • Ruth answered Naomi.
   • Ruth said she would do everything Naomi told her.
6. 3:6
   • Ruth went down to the threshing floor.
   • Ruth did everything her mother-in-law had commanded her.
7. 3:7
   • Boaz ate and drank.
   • Boaz's heart was merry.
   • Boaz went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain.
   • Ruth came quietly.
   • Ruth uncovered his feet.
   • Ruth lay down.
8. 3:8
   • At midnight the man was startled.
   • The man turned over.
   • A woman was lying at his feet.
9. 3:9
   • Boaz asked who she was.
   • Ruth said she was Ruth, his servant.
   • Ruth told him to spread the corner of his garment over his servant.
   • Ruth gave as the reason that he was a kinsman-redeemer.
10. 3:10
    • Boaz said Ruth was blessed of the LORD.
    • Boaz called Ruth his daughter.
    • Boaz said Ruth's later kindness was greater than her first.
    • Boaz said Ruth had not gone after the young men.
    • Boaz said this was so whether the young men were poor or rich.
11. 3:11
    • Boaz told Ruth not to fear.
    • Boaz said he would do for Ruth all that she asked.
    • Boaz said all the town of his people knew that Ruth was a woman of worth.
12. 3:12
    • Boaz said it was true that he was a kinsman-redeemer.
    • Boaz said there was a redeemer nearer of kin than himself.
13. 3:13
    • Boaz told Ruth to stay the night.
    • Boaz said that in the morning, if the nearer redeemer would redeem her, that was well.
    • Boaz said to let the nearer redeemer redeem her.
    • Boaz said that if the nearer redeemer would not redeem her, Boaz himself would redeem her.
    • Boaz swore by the life of the LORD.
    • Boaz told Ruth to lie down until morning.
14. 3:14
    • Ruth lay at his feet until morning.
    • Ruth rose before one person could recognize another.
    • Boaz said it should not be known that the woman had come to the threshing floor.
15. 3:15
    • Boaz told Ruth to bring the cloak she was wearing.
    • Boaz told Ruth to hold it out.
    • Ruth held it.
    • Boaz measured six measures of barley.
    • Boaz placed the barley on her.
    • She went into the city.
16. 3:16
    • Ruth came to her mother-in-law.
    • Naomi asked her, Who are you, my daughter?
    • Ruth told Naomi all that the man had done for her.
17. 3:17
    • Ruth said Boaz had given her the six measures of barley.
    • Ruth said Boaz had told her not to go to her mother-in-law empty-handed.
18. 3:18
    • Naomi told Ruth to sit still.
    • Naomi called Ruth her daughter.
    • Naomi said to wait until Ruth knew how the matter would turn out.
    • Naomi said the man would not rest unless he had settled the matter that day.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"Rest" here does not mean sleep. It is a settled, secure place in a household, which for a widow in this society meant marriage. Naomi is saying plainly that she intends to find Ruth a husband.

3:2

A threshing floor was a flat, hard patch of open ground, usually on a rise outside the town, where the cut grain was beaten or trodden to knock the kernels loose. Winnowing was the next step: the crushed mass was tossed into the air with a fork so the evening breeze blew the light chaff away while the heavier grain fell back down. It was done in the late afternoon and evening when the wind was steady, and the owner would often sleep beside the piled grain to guard it.

3:3

Washing, rubbing on perfumed oil (ordinary grooming in a hot, dry climate) and putting on clean clothes was the standard way of making oneself presentable in public, and specifically of laying aside mourning. It is also how a bride prepared. The Hebrew does not say which is meant, and readers have argued about it for centuries.

3:4

The Hebrew word rendered "feet" can mean the feet themselves, the legs and lower body, or, in some passages, be a polite substitute for the genitals. Uncovering a sleeping man's "feet" is not a custom known from anywhere else, and the narrator never explains it. The wording is deliberately open: it may be a modest signal, a bold one, or a sexually suggestive one. What the text then reports is a conversation.

3:7

"His heart was happy" is a stock Hebrew phrase for the contentment that follows a good meal with wine. It does not state that he was drunk. Lying down at the end of the grain pile was normal practice: the owner slept beside the threshed harvest to protect it from theft.

3:8

"The man was afraid" means he was startled, jolted awake by something he could not immediately identify, rather than that he was living in fear.

3:9

Two things need unpacking here. First, "spread the edge of your garment": the Hebrew word means both the corner or skirt of a robe and the wing of a bird, and spreading a garment corner over a woman was a recognized gesture of claiming her as a wife and taking her under one's protection. Ruth's phrasing picks up Boaz's own words in 2:12 about taking shelter under the LORD's wings. Second, a "redeemer" (Hebrew go'el) was the nearest male relative, who carried defined family obligations: buying back land a relative had been forced to sell, buying a relative out of debt-slavery, and pursuing the case of a murdered kinsman. Ruth is asking him to extend that role to marrying her, so that her dead husband's name and his family's land stay together, the go'el's duty combined with the levirate custom by which a dead man's nearest kin fathered an heir for him.

3:10

The word translated "kindness" is hesed: loyal, generous action towards someone you are bound to, going beyond what could be demanded. "The beginning" is Ruth's decision to leave Moab and stay with Naomi. The "more" is that she has approached an older relative on the dead family's behalf instead of looking for a husband among the young men for her own sake.

3:11

The Hebrew phrase is eshet hayil. Hayil covers strength, capability and standing, used of soldiers it means valor, used of property it means wealth. The same phrase opens the description of the woman in Proverbs 31. It is a word about public reputation and worth, which is why Boaz grounds it in what the whole town knows, not in his own opinion.

3:12

Redemption duties fell to relatives in a fixed order of closeness. The nearest man held both the first right and the first obligation, so Boaz cannot simply step past him; the closer relative has to be given the chance to accept or refuse.

3:13

"As surely as the LORD lives" is the standard Hebrew oath formula, calling on the living God as witness. It turns Boaz's promise into a binding vow rather than an intention.

3:14

Leaving before dawn protects both of them. A woman found at a threshing floor at night would be assumed to be a prostitute (harvest celebrations had that reputation) and gossip of that kind would have poisoned the public negotiation Boaz is about to open the next morning.

3:15

The shawl is a large outer wrap, the same garment used as a cloak, a blanket and a carrying cloth. "Six measures" is a real puzzle: the Hebrew says only "six," with no unit attached. If the unit is the seah, this is roughly sixty to ninety pounds of grain, a very heavy load; if it is the smaller omer, something like ten pounds. Translators simply choose. Also note that in the Hebrew the last verb is masculine, "he went into the city", while many old manuscripts and versions read "she went," which is the sense most English Bibles follow.

3:16

Naomi's question is literally "Who are you, my daughter?" (odd, since she can hardly fail to recognize Ruth in her own house. In Hebrew "who" can ask after a person's standing rather than their identity, so the question is probably "what are you now) still a widow, or a promised wife?" Some translations render it "how did it go?"

3:17

"Empty-handed" deliberately picks up Naomi's own complaint when she came back to Bethlehem: that she went away full and the LORD had brought her home empty (1:21).

3:18

"Sit still" means stay put and wait, not sit down. "How the matter will fall" is an idiom for how things turn out. And "the man will not rest" uses the same Hebrew root as the "place of rest" Naomi set out to find in verse 1, the chapter ends on the word it began with.