It’s nearly 2:00 pm on a Tuesday, which means it’s nearly time for my first (e-)interview for a funded Ph.D. program in the Old Testament. I decided to channel my nervous energy into writing about Ruth.
I can’t think of a better way to focus my heart on what I love: reading the Bible and writing about it.
2:1
Now, to Naomi there was man known to her husband,
a mighty man of clout,
from the clan of Elimelech,
and his name was Boaz.
Elimelech knew a guy!
2:2a
Now, Ruth, the Moabitess, said to Naomi:
‘Permit me to go,
and permit me to glean among the sheaves
after one in whose eyes I find favor.’
Hard pivot back to Ruth and Naomi.
Ruth asks Naomi permission to ‘go’ do the very thing that will feed them. It is unclear why she seeks ‘permission.’ Ruth’s ‘Let me go’ (el’kah-na) recalls Moses’ ‘Let us go’ (nel’kah-na) to Pharaoh at Exod. 5:3. Naomi has already called herself ‘embittered’ (hemar) the way the Israelites work under Pharaoh had been called ‘embittered’ (vay’mareru) at Exod. 1:14. The text characterizes Naomi as part-Israel, part-Pharaoh. She belongs to the people of God, but her bitterness has made her an autocrat, telling Naomi and Orpah what to do, and projecting her downcast spirit onto the women of Israel.
‘Favor’ (chen) from a human is generosity according to torah. ‘Favor in […] eyes’ is the idiom we know as ‘favor in [their] sight.’ The phrase recurs in 2:10, 13 and relates to the heart (al-lev, v. 13). She will find this in Boaz’s eyes.
2:2b-3
And she said to her, ‘Go, my daughter.’
And she went, and she came, and she gleaned in the field after the reapers.
And she happened to happen upon a portion of the field belong to Boaz
who was from the clan of Elimelech.
But Naomi responds like later Pharaoh (Exod. 12:31-32), not early Pharaoh (5:4), letting Ruth go before any plagues hit her.
The next verbs are perfunctory and repetitive.
Then comes the providence—happened to happen—that meets her initiative, and now we know why the chapter had started with Boaz. His greatness is not mentioned here, only his family.
2:4
And—behold!—Boaz came from Bethlehem
and he said to the reapers,
‘The Lord be with you.’
And they said to him, ‘May the Lord bless you.’
My pal, Chris, laughs about Hebrew’s use of ‘Behold!’ to dramatize a narrative at any turn.
‘The Lord be with you’ has been said once before, and will be said once afterward:
At Judg. 6:15, the angel addresses Gideon while he is working with wheat: ‘Yahweh be with you, mighty man of greatness’ (yehvah ‘imeka gibor hechayil). This is interesting because Gideon is addressed as a ‘mighty man of greatness’ (gibor hechayil), and the narrator addresses Boaz as a ‘mighty man of greatness at 2:1 (gibor chayil). Boaz is a Gideon who treats his workers like Gideons. This is what the phrase, ‘a man’s man’ could mean.
At 1 Chron. 22:16, David encourages Solomon to build the temple: ‘Set to work, therefore, and the Lord be with you.’ Here, David quotes his great-grandfather, Boaz.
Sure, the phrase persists into the New Testament, and the theme of God-with-us is everywhere in the Scriptures, but don’t let the forest distract from this special tree. In his first words, Boaz resembles Gideon, and David will resemble Boaz in this respect.
2:5-6
And Boaz said to his young man, the one stationed over the reapers,
‘To whom is this young woman?’
And the young man, the one stationed over the reapers, answered and said,
‘The young woman, she is a Moabitess who returned with Naomi from the field of Moab.’
The repeated word is ‘young man’ (na’ar) which alternates lines with ‘young woman’ (na’arah). In addition to creating a cadence, it strikes me that Ruth is not called a young widow (almah), but a young woman (na’arah). It’s nice to be encountered rather than reduced to your social role.
What does Boaz mean by his ‘To whom’? He’s not a sleaze—‘Whose shawty is this?’—although the text takes no pains to quiet the romantic overtones. I read this as an open question about Ruth’s filial identity. Who’s is she? The correct answer could be a father, a husband, a clan, etc.
The young man (na’ar) calls her by a word like the one used to describe himself (na’arah). And the word ‘return’ (shuv) returns. Recall that in 1:6-15, the word appears nine times. Naomi’s idea is that she will shuv to Bethlehem and Ruth and Orpah should shuv to their own people. The surprise is that Ruth shuvs to Bethlehem with Naomi—but is it really a return if that’s not her homeland? Per this na’ar, it is. He identifies Ruth as a na’arah who shuv’d from Moab.
Boaz is the big hero, but this na’ar does a good thing to a vulnerable and courageous woman by giving Ruth a generous introduction to his boss. (Women are nodding, and men should take notes.)
I’ll stop here for two reasons.
First, stopping at an unconventional place accidentally emphasizes the small contribution of a minor character, who reminds us that even little guys like us, who aren’t ‘the main character’—Who among us is Gideon or Boaz?—can use our words to lift others up. The way that the laborers in a different vineyard (*incredulously*, ‘You have made them equal to us!’, Matt. 20:12), who also thought they were the main character, did not.
Second, because my interview starts in five minutes, ha. Pray for me.