Ruth 3

¹ Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? ² Is not Boaz our relative, with whose young women you were? See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. ³ Wash therefore and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. ⁴ But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.” ⁵ And she replied, “All that you say I will do.” ⁶ So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. ⁷ And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. ⁸ At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! ⁹ He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” ¹⁰ And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. ¹¹ And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. ¹² And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. ¹³ Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.” ¹⁴ So she lay at his feet until the morning, but arose before one could recognize another. And he said, “Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” ¹⁵ And he said, “Bring the garment you are wearing and hold it out.” So she held it, and he measured out six measures of barley and put it on her. Then she went into the city. ¹⁶ And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, “How did you fare, my daughter?” Then she told her all that the man had done for her, ¹⁷ saying, “These six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said to me, ‘You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law.’” ¹⁸ She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today.”

Oddly enough, our chapter made the news recently. On May 12, 2015, a BBC article entitled “Rare 1611 ‘Great She Bible’ found in Lancashire church” tells of a British church’s discovery of a most interesting Bible in their church.

A rare 400-year-old Bible worth about £50,000 has been discovered in a Lancashire village church.

Printed in 1611 and known as the “Great She Bible”, it is one of the earliest known copies of the King James Version (KJV) of the Christian holy book.

It will be displayed at St Mary’s Parish Church in Gisburn on Saturday.

The Reverend Anderson Jeremiah and the Reverend Alexander Baker found the old book following their appointment at the church last August.

It is called a “She Bible” because Chapter 3, Verse 15 of the Book of Ruth mistakenly reads: “She went into the city”.

Thought to be typographical mistake, this verse was changed from another KJV edition which said “He”.

The Bible has been assessed and authenticated by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association.

Only a handful of the “She Bibles” still exist. Oxford and Cambridge Universities have one, as do Salisbury, Exeter and Durham cathedrals.[1]

Strange, no? The Hebrew text says that “he” went into the city in Ruth 3:15, whereas the context clearly demands that is was “she” who went into the city. So this Great She Bible is so named because of a translation issue surrounding a particular part of a particular verse in Ruth 3. It is humorous, really, because the great scandal of the chapter is not that she left the threshing floor and went into the city but rather that she, Ruth, left the city and came to the threshing floor!

This is a rather eyebrow-raising chapter, and a profoundly important one, for in Ruth 3 Ruth does something that, if taken the wrong way, could have seriously backfired and put her in a very dangerous situation. If received, it could open the door for her and Boaz’s relationship to move to new heights. I am talking about Ruth coming to Boaz in the night and making a surprising statement of love and devotion to him in a rather surprising way.

The chapter has been subject to various interpretations over the years. Katharine Sakenfeld writes that she has talked with people who see what happens in Ruth 3 as “a steamy tryst between mutually desiring persons (in the genre of the North American soap opera or formulaic romance novel),” whereas others she has spoken with see it as “a beautiful but needy young Ruth forcing herself to relate to a rough, pot-bellied, snaggle-toothed (but rich) old man for the sake of her mother-in-law,” and still others who see it as “a wily, scheming Ruth cooperating with Naomi to compromise and thus force the hand of the most handsome and wealthy bachelor of the community.”[2]

In truth, the context and tone and details of the story would suggest that what we have here is, again, a shocking declaration of love. Ruth, to use our terminology, really puts herself out there! There is nothing sinful in what she does, though there is something very unorthodox about it. On the upper level of the story, what we have here is a plea for salvation that is met by the offered redemption of a loving God.

We will be approaching Ruth 3 with the following thesis in mind: redemption happens when desperate need leads to a radical plea for salvation and is met with saving grace. We will deal first with the nature of the radical plea.

Redemption happens when desperate need leads to a radical plea for salvation and is met with saving grace.

As chapter two ends, Ruth has recounted to her mother-in-law that is was one of their kinsman-redeemers, Boaz, who had so richly and generously blessed the women through the kindness and provision and offered her. Naomi apparently realized that this relationship could become even more.

¹ Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? ² Is not Boaz our relative, with whose young women you were? See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. ³ Wash therefore and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. ⁴ But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.” ⁵ And she replied, “All that you say I will do.” ⁶ So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. ⁷ And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. ⁸ At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! ⁹ He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.”

Let us first understand the historical setting for what happens here. The harvest has come to a conclusion and now Boaz has come to winnow the harvest on the threshing floor. J. Hardee Kennedy explains:

            The threshing floor probably was privately owned by Boaz and located on his property. In accord with general practice, however, it may have been common to the whole village (cf. 2 Sam. 24:15-25). There the ripe sheaves were brought and loosed in a circle on the smooth hard surface, possibly a flat rock floor. The grain was separated from the straw by the trampling of the oxen and the cutting of the sled or roller studded with sharp pieces of stone and metal (cr. Jer. 51:33; Mic. 4:12-13). In the winnowing process the threshed grain was tossed high in the air with shovels or forks and the chaff blown aside by the wind. Afterward the grain was gathered in a heap on the firm ground or smooth rock floor.

            Winnowing took place in the evening, usually from four or five o’clock until shortly after sunset, when a cool breeze blew in from the Mediterranean Sea. Apparently the workmen often closed their day’s labor by celebrating the harvest with considerable license, eating and drinking (v.3). Afterward they slept on the threshing floor to protect the grain.[3]

This is the situation into which Naomi sent her daughter-in-law. She first told Ruth to wash and perfume herself. Kennedy rather humorously writes that Naomi “advised Ruth to prepare for maximum impression.”[4] Indeed she did!

Naomi tells Ruth that she is looking out for Ruth’s well being. Undoubtedly that is true, but it is not the whole truth. In point of fact, the security that Boaz would offer Ruth would naturally extend to Naomi as well. This is not to say that Naomi was being manipulative per se, but one cannot help but chuckle a bit at the obvious dynamics at play in this older woman’s fairly aggressive maneuvering of her daughter-in-law toward a desired end.

It should be pointed out that many people have read into Ruth 3 an outright seduction. In point of fact, if one were to read Ruth 3 in this way it would make Boaz’s invocation of the Lord’s name once he discovered Ruth essentially nonsensical. Boaz saw Ruth’s behavior here as a chaste act of love and not as something tawdry. The 5^th century church father, Theodoret of Cyr, wrote that, “[Naomi] suggests to her that she sleep at Boaz’s feet, not that she might sell her body (for the words of the narrative signify the opposite); rather, she trusts the man’s temperance and judgment.” Furthermore, Theodoret argued that Boaz “praised Ruth’s deed and, moreover, he did not betray temperance, but he kept to the law of nuptial congress.”[5]

This is not merely a church father trying to protect Ruth’s dignity. This is the most natural reading of the text.

Ruth, we are told, slipped onto the threshing floor, approached sleeping Boaz in the night, uncovered his feet, and lay down there. When he awoke, he was understandably startled. When verse 8 tells us that Boaz was “startled” it uses a Hebrew word that carries the meaning of “seized with fear and shivering.” Some have suggested that it might be a reflection of the fear that many ancient men had of the demon, Lilith, who would allegedly seduce men during the night and steal their power.[6] Perhaps. Or perhaps it is simply the natural shock any person would feel when awakening and realizing that another human being is essentially in bed with them when there should be no other human being in bed with them!

Boaz awoke and asked Ruth who she was. “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” “Spread your wings over your servant” was an idiomatic expression that meant, “Marry me.” It “reflected the custom, still practiced by some Arabs, of a man’s throwing a garment over the woman he has decided to take as his wife.”[7]

In short, Ruth proposed to Boaz.

One cannot overstate just how risky, how dangerous, how unorthodox, and how shocking an act this was for a foreign woman or any woman at this time to do. In doing so, Ruth put herself completely at Boaz’s mercy. By lying at his feet, she was making a symbolic statement of devotion and submission to Boaz. It was a touching act, but, by any reasonable human standard, it was amazingly inappropriate.

Yet, she did it. Why? One does not feel that she was begrudgingly obeying her mother-in-law’s command in so doing. Rather, while Naomi suggested the idea, Ruth seems to have been in complete agreement, to the extent that it must be said that the act really and truly was Ruth’s.

By why? Undoubtedly she saw in Boaz the qualities of the kind of man to whom she wanted to attach herself. Futhermore, Ruth said, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” This should not be seen as coldly pragmatic or as calculatingly self-serving. We have every reason to think to Ruth felt drawn to Boaz and highly esteemed him. Yet she also realized that this man is in a position to take her into his family, to marry her, and to save her.

At this point, the lower level love story and the upper level story of salvation come very close to each other. Just as Ruth asks Boaz for loving salvation, so we too cry out to God to save us. And the scandalous audacity of Ruth’s asking must not be forgotten. Redemption happens when desperate need leads to a radical plea for salvation and is met with saving grace.

Ruth had a growing love for Boaz and she had desperate need. Thus, she offered a radical plea for salvation.

It is interesting how, when people grow truly desperate for Jesus, they forget about the maintaining their dignity and they radically reach for Christ simply because they must have Him. Mark 2 offers one of the truly beautiful examples of this kind of radical plea for salvation.

¹ And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. ² And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. ³ And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. ⁴ And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. ⁵ And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

So desperate were these men to see the Lord Jesus heal the paralytic that they ripped the roof off of a house to get him near. Behold the scandalous, risking, no-holding-back nature of the sinner’s plea for salvation! And behold the love of Christ, who looks upon such audacious efforts and says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Perhaps less dramatically, Zacchaeus’ charming and moving efforts in Luke 19 provide another example.

¹ He entered Jericho and was passing through. ² And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³ And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. ⁴ So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. ⁵ And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

See the running, climbing Zacchaeus. Anything to see Jesus! And Jesus, in turn, sees him. In fact, Jesus seems to be particularly drawn to those who are so desperate for an encounter with Him that they go to scandalous and embarrassing extents to reach him. Consider the poor woman of Luke 8.

⁴³ And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. ⁴⁴ She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

Here, too, great need leads to a radical plea. Even a quiet effort to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment in the midst of a pressing crowd is radical when merely going out of your house is a scandal because of a shameful physical debilitation. Such was the case with this woman. Yet she risked it all. Why? Because great need drove her to a radical plea for help!

Ruth’s plea for Boaz to cover her with his garment and save her was a radical plea arising from great need. When a person knows that they need the covering protection of the Lord God, they do not fear to ask, even in shocking ways. Being saved is all that they can think of! In a beautiful passage in Ezekiel 16, the Lord uses this very image to describe His salvation of His people. Speaking of Israel, the Lord said:

⁸ “When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.

This is what Ruth was crying for through her actions. This is what we must cry for as well.

Redemption happens when desperate need leads to a radical plea for salvation and is met with saving grace.

And what, we should ask, will be God’s response to the heartfelt cry for salvation? Let us behold Boaz’s response to Ruth’s audacious request.

¹⁰ And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. ¹¹ And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. ¹² And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. ¹³ Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.” ¹⁴ So she lay at his feet until the morning, but arose before one could recognize another. And he said, “Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” ¹⁵ And he said, “Bring the garment you are wearing and hold it out.” So she held it, and he measured out six measures of barley and put it on her. Then she went into the city. ¹⁶ And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, “How did you fare, my daughter?” Then she told her all that the man had done for her, ¹⁷ saying, “These six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said to me, ‘You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law.’” ¹⁸ She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today.”

I repeat: Boaz could have sounded the alarm, painted Ruth’s actions in the worst possible light, accused her of inappropriate behavior, and likely had her killed. Ruth’s life was quite literally in Boaz’s hands because of the manner in which she approached him.

But what does Boaz do?

• He called for God to bless her.
• He extoled her character and virtue.
• He told her not to be afraid.
• He announced that he would indeed save her (though there is one obstacle to overcome).
• He gave her rest.
• He protected her dignity.
• He shielded her from the wrath of those who would judge her.
• He blessed her and her mother-in-law with food.

Redemption happens when desperate need leads to a radical plea for salvation and is met with saving grace.

Once again, Boaz blessed Ruth with amazing grace! All she brought was her vulnerability, her humble spirit, her great need, and her faith and love…and it was met with saving grace!

This is how Boaz the redeemer treated Ruth. This is how Christ the redeemer treats all who similarly come to Him. He, too, meets us with saving grace! He, too, shields us from judgment! He, too, sends us back with bountiful blessings!

I wonder: do you see in Ruth’s desperate plea a picture of your own cry for salvation, for help, for healing, for life? Have you come to Christ like this: setting aside your dignity, opening your heart to Him, and demonstrating humility and submission to His gracious will?

Church, here is a powerful picture of a heart that yearned for salvation and was willing to risk all to have it!

May we do likewise.

Our Redeemer is good.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-32705720

[2] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Ruth. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1999), p.67.

[3] J. Hardee Kennedy, Ruth. The Broadman Bible Commentary. Vol. 2. Gen. Ed., Clifton J. Allen (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1970), p.474.

[4] J. Hardee Kennedy, p.474.

[5] John R. Franke, ed., Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Old Testament Vol IV. Gen. Ed., Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), p.187.

[6] Kirsten Nielson, Ruth. The Old Testament Library. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p.72.

[7] Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter H. Davids, F.F. Bruce, Manfred T. Brauch, Hard Sayings of the Bible. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p.200.