READING RUTH · 5 OF 9
From field to home
Follow the food and the news. Ruth’s day brings a shared meal, grain for home and a conversation in which Naomi recognizes a family connection. The chapter’s ending matters as much as its generous encounter.
In this lesson
A place at the meal
In In Boaz’s field, Ruth went to glean, gathering grain left during harvesting. Boaz provided a place near his women workers, commanded the young men not to touch her, offered water and blessed her. Ruth has come from Moab with Naomi, her widowed mother-in-law. Naomi is not present in the field.
וַתֹּאכַל וַתִּשְׂבַּע וַתֹּתַר
14. At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread, and dip your piece in the vinegar.” She sat beside the reapers, and he handed her roasted grain. She ate, was satisfied and had some left over.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The reapers are the people cutting the crop. Ruth sits beside them, and Boaz gives her roasted grain, grain prepared by heating. Keep three actions in order: she eats, has enough, and has something remaining. The last detail will matter when she returns home.
1. Which detail makes this more than “Ruth ate lunch”?
Boaz invites her to the shared meal and hands her grain; she sits beside the reapers. The narrator also says that after eating her fill she has some left over. Both the welcome and the remaining food belong in the account.
Added provision, without humiliation
15. When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not put her to shame.
וְגַם שֹׁל תָּשֹׁלּוּ לָהּ מִן הַצְּבָתִים
וַעֲזַבְתֶּם וְלִקְּטָה
וְלֹא תִגְעֲרוּ בָהּ16. Also deliberately pull some out for her from the bundles and leave it for her to glean. Do not rebuke her.”
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Sheaves are bundles of cut stalks. Boaz’s instructions make extra grain available deliberately. This is different from ordinary leket, the ears that fall during reaping, or shikhechah, a sheaf left through forgetfulness. Those Torah gifts already have their own rules, as we learned in Return at harvest.
Our commentator Rashi on Ruth 2:16 explains the unusual verb through deliberately acting as though one had forgotten, and also gives a reading connected with letting something fall. The deliberate extra provision is clear in either explanation.
2. Why is “The workers happened to drop some grain” an incomplete account of verse 16?
Boaz tells them to leave extra grain for Ruth intentionally. Ordinary gleanings are not the whole story. His instructions also say not to shame or rebuke her; how the workers treat her matters alongside what they leave.
Distinguishing added food from specified harvest gifts does not make freedom from harm or humiliation an optional favor. The scene joins provision with dignified treatment. It does not teach that a person receiving help must accept mistreatment.
Two kinds of food reach home
17. She gleaned in the field until evening. She beat out what she had gleaned, and it came to about an ephah of barley.
וַתּוֹצֵא וַתִּתֶּן לָהּ
אֵת אֲשֶׁר הוֹתִרָה מִשָּׂבְעָהּ18. She carried it into the town, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took out and gave her what she had left over after eating her fill.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
To beat out the grain is to separate it from the gathered heads and stalks. An ephah is an ancient measure for dry goods. The verse says about an ephah, preserving approximation. Ruth’s gathering and preparation remain visible even after Boaz’s generous instructions.
A worked method: trace the object
Consider the claim, “Boaz handed Ruth an ephah of cooked grain to take home.” It combines details that belong to different actions.
- Start at the meal. Verse 14 gives roasted grain, eating, satisfaction and a remainder.
- Follow the harvest work. Verse 17 gives gleaning until evening, beating out the grain and the measured barley.
- Follow the return. Verse 18 mentions the gleaned produce Naomi sees and then the meal remainder Ruth gives her.
3. Correct the claim while preserving both Boaz’s provision and Ruth’s work.
Boaz gives Ruth roasted grain at the meal and tells the workers to leave extra grain for her. Ruth continues gleaning, beats out the harvest and carries about an ephah of barley home. She also gives Naomi the food remaining from her meal. The two food streams are related, but they are not the same object or action.
The name changes the conversation
19. Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? May the one who took notice of you be blessed.” She told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”
בָּרוּךְ הוּא לַיהוָה
אֲשֶׁר לֹא עָזַב חַסְדּוֹ אֶת הַחַיִּים וְאֶת הַמֵּתִים20. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by Hashem, who has not abandoned his steadfast kindness to the living and to the dead.” Naomi said to her, “The man is a relative of ours. He is one of our redeemers.”
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Hashem, “the Name,” is our customary way of referring to God. Naomi first blesses the person who took notice of Ruth, before Ruth names him in this conversation. Once she hears “Boaz,” she supplies his family connection. The reader learned that connection at the chapter’s opening; now it enters the women’s dialogue.
4. What does Ruth tell Naomi, and what does Naomi tell Ruth?
Ruth identifies the man with whom she worked as Boaz. Naomi identifies him as their relative and one of their redeemers. Information moves in both directions. Naomi’s first blessing in verse 19 precedes the spoken name, rather than being introduced only after she names a relative.
Hesed, חֶסֶד, is steadfast kindness. The Hebrew in verse 20 does not repeat a name after “who” or “his kindness”: readers can understand the kindness as Hashem’s or Boaz’s. The rendering keeps the pronouns visible. Malbim, Rabbi Meir Leibush, on Ruth 2:20 reads Naomi as blessing Boaz’s care for the living members of his family.
Notice what is clear across the wording: Naomi blesses Boaz in Hashem’s name, speaks of kindness that includes the living and the dead, and identifies a family connection. Her dead family members have not disappeared from the conversation just because food has arrived.
5. Compare Naomi’s words here with “Hashem has brought me back empty” in 1:21. What change can you support without inventing an end to grief?
Her earlier speech emphasized loss and trouble. Here she blesses, names steadfast kindness and recognizes a family connection. Those are real changes in what she says. The continued mention of the dead does not support claiming she has forgotten her losses or that every difficulty is over.
One of our redeemers
A go’el, “redeemer,” can act to recover a family’s ancestral property. This Torah example gives the word concrete content:
וּבָא גֹאֲלוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו
וְגָאַל אֵת מִמְכַּר אָחִיו25:25. If your kinsman becomes poor and sells some of his holding, his redeemer, his nearest relative, shall come and redeem what his kinsman sold.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
A holding here is ancestral land, property belonging to the family. To redeem it is to recover what was sold. The surrounding chapter explains this provision in the life of Israel in our land.
Naomi’s phrase is mi-go’aleinu, מִגֹּאֲלֵנוּ, “one of our redeemers.” It introduces a family role whose significance the story will develop. It does not announce that Boaz is the nearest possible relative, that he has already redeemed property, or that a marriage has been arranged.
6. Why is “redeemer means the man Ruth must automatically marry” not an adequate definition?
The Torah example concerns recovering family property, while Ruth 2:20 identifies Boaz as one of their redeemers. Neither verse is a marriage agreement. Keep the family role clear and allow the later narrative to show which decisions are made and how.
Return tomorrow
Close the cards. Explain the two kinds of food Ruth brings home, what each woman contributes to the conversation about Boaz, and why “one of our redeemers” opens a question rather than finishing the story.
9. Check your recall.
Ruth brings the barley she has gleaned and beaten out, and gives Naomi the remainder of her meal. Ruth names Boaz; Naomi supplies his kinship and redemption role. The Torah’s property-recovery example helps explain go’el, but chapter 2 does not narrate a completed redemption or marriage.
The last scene preserves the distinction between Ruth’s report about young men, Naomi’s instruction about young women and the narrator’s account of Ruth staying with the women through barley and wheat harvests. She continues to live with Naomi.
Return to the sources
- Ruth 2:14–23: meal, gleaning, return and report.
- Rashi on Ruth 2:16: deliberate provision from the bundles.
- Malbim on Ruth 2:20: Boaz’s care for his family.
- Leviticus 25:25: a relative’s redemption of ancestral property.