before which it was not lawful to begin the harvest (Kitto). In the next chapter (ver. 23) it is related that Ruth gleaned "until the end of barley and of wheat harvest." This book was therefore appointed by the ancient Hebrew Church to be read in the synagogues at the feast of weeks or Pentecost, when the wheat harvest began (Wordsworth) [cf. Intro., p. 1, par. 2]. They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest. Opens the way for the further course of the history (Keil). Explains the narrative in the next chapter. Keil questions whether the Bethlehem mentioned in connexion with Ibzan in Judges xii. 8-10 is the Bethlehem of the text, as Josephus affirms. VERSE 22. Theme. THE WANDERER HOME AGAIN. "I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return, and die at home at last."-Goldsmith. "We leave Our home in youth-no matter to what end- But lift that latchet, -all is changed as doom."-Bailey. So Naomi returned. .... and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest. This first chapter of the book of Ruth is in itself a perfect poem, as well as an epitome of human life and a parable of the soul's pilgrimage. The theme is that of "the wanderers." It has its prologue in the famine, and its epilogue in the return. Blow follows blow until the catastrophe is complete in the death of all who left the land of promise, save one. Then out of the dark night of sorrow hope is born and the return begins. Love lights up the picture, a love surpassing the ordinary and usual love of woman, and the chastened spirit bows at last, not to fate, but God. It is a poem complete in itself, rich with contrasting lights and shadows, and as Goethe has well said, "the loveliest thing in the shape of an epic or idyl which has come to us." Penned by inspiration, it has no equal and no second. See here then, in conclusion, I. The wanderer home again. The most friendless of human beings has a country which he admires and extols (Sydney Smith). The greatest wanderer, some place dear above all else which he thinks of as home. Even the prodigal, sitting in the far country among the swine, remembers he has a "father's house," and turns longingly towards it. So with Naomi. [For the return, see on ver. 6, 7, pp. 32-36, and on ver. 19 and 21.] Note. (a) The home ties the strongest, the home claims the most binding in human life. True friendship as well as true religion centres there. Bethlehem was Naomi's proper place, and the whole scope of the narrative is to show that in leaving it she had gone out of the way of God's providences, as well as of His ordinances. (b) Christian love begins its work at home. Christian manhood shows its best there, and the circle of genial influence spreads and widens from that centre. II. Home again in a fortunate way. Led of God; for she recognizes that the Lord had brought her home again (ver. 21). Naomi's extremity was God's opportunity. So with David (1 Sam. xxiii.). The statement of the text made in order to intimate that the help of God did not tarry long (Lange). Note. (a) When God leads, it is not ours to linger. Beware of by-paths and idle goings, keep straight on (Bernard). These came from Moab to Bethlehem; they had no idle vagaries that we read of. Old Naomi desired to see her country, and young Ruth was not wantonly disposed, but constantly kept her company (Bernard). (b) They arrive safely, whom God conducts. He neither slumbereth nor sleepeth. He led Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and landed them safely in Canaan at last. So always in lawful journeys, so especially in the heavenward Only let us see to it that we are of the same mind as Moses, "If Thy one. presence go not with us, carry us not up hence" (Exod. xxxiii. 15), and all our journeyings must come to a prosperous issue. III. Home again at a fortunate time. At the time of the barley harvest (see Crit. and Exeget. Notes). When there was at least gleaning to yield them sustenance, and the summer before them. In the beginning of the passover, saith the Chaldee Paraphrast, taking the fittest opportunity both for soul and body (Trapp). Here we see the providence of God, in ordering and disposing the journey of Naomi, to end it in the most convenient time. Had she come before harvest, she would have been straitened for means to maintain herself; if after harvest, Ruth had lost all those occasions which paved the way to her future advancement. God therefore, who ordered her going, concludes her journey in the beginning of harvest (Fuller). Note. There is a fulness and fitness of time for every event (Macgowan). The redemption from Egypt; the coming of Shiloh when the sceptre was departing from Judah ; the soul's conversion; deliverance from affliction, etc. (ibid). God's time is always the best time. IMPROVEMENT.-(a) When the heart is truly repentant, past error and sin, the humiliating experiences which have left their scars upon our inmost souls, may become to us blessed monitors urging us onward in the path that God has appointed. (b) Like the wounded hart, the bruised and troubled spirit turns homeward in its last extremity, if perchance it be only to die there. "Tender and dear memories cluster around many a spot: none so sacred, so hallowed as this; for once again she is standing in the place consecrated by a thousand memories of the sacred dead. Returns like these ought to be significant of rest and privileges restored, as well as of new consecration to God; and this, although the past has been a barren past of worldly compromise and spiritual deadness."-В. "There is a latter as well as a former rain in spiritual things; covenant mercies to be manifested in our declining years, as well as in the days when the kingdom of heaven was but newly entered. Our youth may have been given in part to folly, the more reason that old age should be consecrated unmistakably to God. And perhaps we, like Naomi, shall best find the Protector of our declining years in the Bethlehems of our youth. Understand the meaning of this place to Naomi. No dreamy haze of mysticism rests upon it, no unreal sanctity. It is a place where the heart writes bitter things against itself, where the icy fountains of the great deep within break up, a place where the past seems a failure, and the future hopeless; and yet for all this it is a place where the winter time of the soul is ending, and the new summer life of prosperity begins to dawn."-B. "The wandering of men from the perfect Home has brought with it degradation and scourging. Their return will be to find a Divine birthright restored in Christ."Pulsford. "Woe for my vine-clad home, That it should ever be so dark to me, ing tree, That I should ever come, "Perhaps this world of sorrows presents no sadder picture than that here brought before us the return of a childless widow to the spot she had left a happy wife and mother." Macartney. "Thou needest not, then, sit down in weari. ness and hopelessness, whatever of earlier years thou hast lost, whatever grace thou hast forfeited; though thou hast been in a far country, far away in affections from him who loved thee; and wasting on his creatures, nay, sacrificing on idol altars, with strange fire, the gifts which God gave thee that thou mightest be precious in His own sight." Puscy. "Landed property in Palestine is of very little value, except the possessor has the means of cultivating it; and as it was under the Jewish law unalienable, strangers could not purchase it. A landed proprietor might thus be reduced to beggary, and in times of general distress might long remain so. Such seems to have been the case with the family of Elimelech, and they were therefore forced to remain in Moab. Even upon the return of Naomi and Ruth, though the family property was still theirs, they were completely destitute. Their property was valueless, because they did not possess the means of cultivating it. This will serve to explain the peculiar position of Naomi and Ruth on their arrival in Bethlehem." -Kitto. "Many a Swiss has sunk a martyr to his longing after home. The malady is commonly brought on by hearing the celebrated national air of the 'Ranz des Vaches,' sung at an unexpected moment, or when under the influence of dejected feelings. Overcome with the recollections which it awakens, he sheds tears; and is only to be consoled by the prospects of immediately returning to that home, his exile from which he deplores. If unable to accomplish this wish of his heart, he sinks into a profound melancholy, which not unfrequently terminates in disease and death."-Percy. "It was the custom, and still may be, at the coronation of our sovereigns, that every peer of the realm should come forward, and placing his hand upon the crown, swear that he would maintain due allegiance to it in his own realm and upon his own estate. So true hearts give themselves to God-in that which is truly theirs, at least, He shall reign supreme."-B. CHAPTER II. THE GLEANER IN THE HARVEST FIELD. CONTENTS. Ruth, in her poverty, is led by seeming chance to glean in the field-portion of Boaz, Naomi's kinsman, and a great man in Bethlehem, Boaz, coming down from Bethlehem, is attracted by her, and makes inquiries concerning her. He afterwards shows her great kindness, and gives his reapers directions to favour her. She returns to Naomi to hear that he is near of kin to them, and to receive the approbation of her mother-in-law. She gleans in the field-portion of Boaz until the end of the harvest, dwelling with Naomi. VERSES 1-3. CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES. - And Naomi had a kinsman. According to Rabinical tradition, which is not well established however, Boaz was a nephew of Elimelech (Keil). Lyra saith Elimelech and Salmon-other Hebrews say Elimelech and Naason were brethren. Some more probably hold that Elimelech was the son of Salmon's brother, and so his son the kinsman of Boaz once removed, for there was one nearer (Trapp). Not the kinsman who is meant, but a kinsman, as there were several (Wright). Boaz was only a מִידֶע )Lange(; γνωριμος, a friend, a person known (LXX., Wordsworth). This not only explains a certain remoteness of Naomi from him, but it makes the piety, which, notwithstanding the distance (manifest also from iii. 12) of the relationship, perform what the narrative goes on to relate, more conspicuously great than it would appear if, according to an unfounded conjecture of Jewish expositors, he were held to be a son of Elimelech's brother (Lange). The Hebrew word is not the same as that rendered kinsman in ver. 20 and iii. 9-13. Literally, it means only an acquaintance, but it expresses more than we mean by that term. The man was not a very near relative, but one "known" to the family as belonging to it (Lange). A mighty man of wealth [a valiant hero] (Lange). Here it signifies a man of property (Kiel). These words are applied to Boaz in no other sense than to Gideon (Judges vi. 12), Jephthah (xi. 1), and others, and have no reference to his wealth and property (Lange). The phrase undoubtedly points to his valour and capacity in the field of battle (Cox). It is to be understood in the sense of "a leading man; a great man." Hence the Jewish tradition that Boaz is another name for Ibzan, the only judge connected with Bethlehem. He was a strong and able man in Israel in war and in peace (Lange). And his name was Boaz. Signifies strength (Fuerst, Wordsworth,Wright). Son of strength (Lange, Cox). Alacrity (Gesen., Keil). To be explained by reference to the name of one of the pillars erected by Solomon (Lange, Wordsworth). Cf. 1 Kings vii, 21, 2 Chron. iii. 27, in connexion with Solomon's temple. The signification alacritas would hardly be applicable to the pillar (Lange). The name Boaz found a contrast to that of Ruth's former husband, Mahlon, which signifies weakness (Wordsworth). The Chaldee reads "mighty in the law." Boaz, son of Salmon and Rachab the harlot (Matt. i. 5). Ver. 2. And glean ears. Literally, glean among the ears. Let me gather (Sc., some ears) among those that are left lying in the field by the harvesters (Lange). The right to glean was a legal privilege of the poor in Israel (cf. Lev. xiii. 22, xix. 9, and Deut. xxiv. 19). But hardhearted farmers and reapers threw obstacles in the way, and even forbade the gleaning altogether (Keil). Hence Ruth proposed to glean after him who should generously allow it (ibid). Gleaning conceded, not as a matter of right, but as a favour (Kitto). Of corn. Corn is in Syriac the generic word for grain of any kind (Steele and Terry). After him in whose sight I shall find grace. Whoever he might be. Did not mean Boaz (A. Clarke). The owner had a right to nominate the persons who might glean after his reapers (Steele and Terry). In other words, the poor applied as Ruth did (ver. 7) for permission to glean. Some think, however, that she did this only as a foreigner. Ver. 3. And she went and came. That is, she went out of the house where she was, and out of the city, and came into the field (Gill). According to the Midrash, however (vide Jarci and Alshech, in loco.), she marked the ways as she went, before she entered into the field, and then came back to the city, that she might not mistake the way (ibid). And gleaned in the field after the reapers. Still regarded by the rural poor as one of their rights, though the decision has been against them in courts of law. The popular notion probably derived from Jewish customs (see Kitto). The law of Moses directed very liberal treatment of the poor at the seasons of harvest and ingathering. The corners of the field were not to be reaped; the owner was not to glean his own field; and a sheaf accidentally left behind was not to be fetched away, but left for the poor (Kitto). As landowners were not subject to money taxes for the support of the poor, this claim was liberally construed by them (Kitto), at least by the betterdisposed among them. And her hap was to light. More literally, "And her lot met her on the field of Boaz" (Lange). Literally, her hap happened (Schaff, in Lange), her chance chanced to hit upon the field (Keil, Wordsworth). A part of the field belonging unto Boaz. "The field-portion," i.e., that part of the grain-fields about Bethlehem which belonged to Boaz (Lange). The grain-fields, unlike the vineyards, are not separated by any enclosure. The boundary between them is indicated by heaps of small stones, or sometimes by single upright stones, placed at intervals (Lange). CHAPTER II. - VERSE 1. HOMILIES AND OUTLINES. Theme. THE CLAIMS OF THE WEAK UPON THE STRONG. "Who gain their titles not by birth, "Howe'er it be, it seems to me And simple faith than Norman blood."-Tennyson. And Naomi had a kinsman [lit. acquaintance] of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth [a valiant hero (Lange)], etc. The second chapter opens up a new act, as it were, in this beautiful and touching drama; poetry of the highest order, and not the less poetry because it is fact; for far more romantic things are recorded in history, than ever yet were created in novel or romance (Cumming). Mark, too, that thus early in the narrative, what is the key to the whole story is plainly pointed to, viz., redemption, salvation, help, from one near of kin, one of the same family and blood. No wonder the old Puritans saw a spiritual suggestiveness in the character of Boaz. "My Redeemer liveth" is "my Goel liveth," and the very word is applied to Boaz (chap. iv.). My strength and my Redeemer (Ps. ix. 14), in the Hebrew is my Boaz and my Goel (Cumming). The text suggests as worthy consideration I. The relationship between the rich and the poor. Every branch of the tree is not a top branch (Matt. Henry). Must be and will be subordination, mutual dependence, and mutual responsibility, as long as the world lasts, or as long as the world is what it is. God wills that it should be so. He puts the rich and the poor side by side, and has linked them together a thousand times in this way. Beautiful when life repeats what is seen here, for the narrative goes on to show how Boaz came to respect Ruth and Naomi, first for kindred and then for virtue's sake. Note. (a) A wealthy man may be a good and godly man, ready to meet the responsibilities which come to him. Riches neither further nor hinder salvation, but as loved and trusted in. Not money, which is "the root of all evil," but the love of money. It is rare that religion and riches meet, yet Boaz was both rich and religious (Macgowan). Not many rich, etc. (b) Poverty a thing not to be despised in and for itself. The poor may be virtuous and attractive, as Ruth and Naomi evidently were. Boaz had "a poor relation," a most uncomfortable fact, as many respectable people know (Braden). And yet they neither begged of him nor thrust themselves unduly on his notice. They were an example to all the world of that quiet self-respect which feels the claim, and yet waits the opportunity when that claim is to be presented by circumstances and providential leadings rather than by themselves. Note. (c) It is not in the outward estate to alter blood and kindred, or the claims which come from thence. Poor Naomi and rich Boaz were of the same stock after all. Joseph, though governor of Egypt, had poor Jacob for his father, and plain shepherds for his brethren (Fuller). Mark the frailty and vanity of worldly dignity. However parents provide for their posterity, these contrasts are common enough in family life. The posterity of the righteous are brought into poverty, that they set not their minds on temporal glory (Topsell). II. The relationship between the strong and the weak. A link here between the two extremes. Boaz, whose very name signifies strength, a hero and a great man, perhaps a judge in Israel; and this poor bankrupt widow, forced to live upon another's gleanings. Naomi could say as does the Psalmist, "Thou hast put my kinsman far from me" (Lange). But Boaz had other qualities besides his strength. He shows himself morally brave in every relationship (Lange). All the claims which came to him in life are recognized and responded to, (1) as master; (2) as servant of God; (3) as a man of action; (4) as one not insensible to worth, hiding itself under the garb of poverty, he is an example of what is meant by the godly and righteous man. He stooped from his high estate, as Christ Himself humbled Himself to rescue the poor from their lot of ignominy and poverty; and he clothes them with his own dignity. His strength like the Saviour's strength to compare human things with Divine-is shown in his works. Note. Jesus is our near kinsman and Goel (Macgowan), a mighty man of wealth in a natural and in a spiritual way (Col. i. 19, ii. 3). IMPROVEMENT. - Learn from the whole narrative, as shadowed forth here, (1) The nobleness of strength nourishing weakness, true greatness recognizing the claims of those beneath it, where many would pass by and despise. "We that are strong," etc. (Rom. xv. 1). (2) Recognize the claims, which make the whole family of God as one. We are all of the same blood. Go back far enough, and you will find relationship. Remember the words of that noble Roman, received even then with tumultuous applause, “I am a man; nothing that concerns man can be a matter of indifference to me." "The improvement of the ground is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's blessing, the earth's; but it is slow. And yet, when men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly."-Lord Bacon. "It is not the having of wealth, but the having confidence in wealth; not the possessing it, but the relying on it, which makes rich men incapable of the kingdom of heaven : otherwise, wealth well used is a great blessing, enabling the owner to do God more glory, the Church and commonwealth more good."-Fuller. "Naomi, though a poor, contemptible widow, had rich relations whom yet she boasted not of, nor was burdensome to, nor expected anything from, when she returned to Bethlehem in distress. Those that have rich relations, while they themselves are poor, ought to know that it is the wise providence of God that makes the difference (in which we ought to acquiesce), and that to be proud of our relation to such is a great sin, and to trust to is a great folly." - Matt. Henry. "How came it to pass, then, that a man so bold and generous and pious left Naomi unhelped and uncomforted in the time of her penury and grief? We cannot altogether tell. He may have been absent on military service when she returned from the field of Moab, and have only got leave of absence, as soldiers then commonly did, during harvest. He may only just have heard the tale of Naomi's sorrow when he met Ruth in the harvest-field." - Cox. "One would suppose that to the proud heart of man anything would be preferable to beggary; but so inconsistent are its workings, that more are led to beggary by pride than poverty, as people imagine that a certain distinction attaches to dependence on relatives, or even on friends, while they regard the lower kinds of industry as disgraceful.... It would be well for all classes to remember that meanness is not humility; it is the miserable resource by which disappointed pride seeks to steal that distinction which has been denied it, and to avoid the humiliating and correcting lessons which Providence sends; it is the crouching to man of those who will not bow to God. In proportion as pure religion enters the soul, this hateful spirit leaves it, and a love of independence takes possession of it, a love of independence arising not from pride, but from the genuine desire not to encroach on human kindness, not to forget the Divine declaration, "That if any would not work, neither should he eat.”—Macartney. "Behold therefore as in a glass the perfect image of temporal felicity, the father a king, the children beggars, the father honourable, |