Ruth 3:14-15 – “Walk With the Wise”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁴And she lay down from his feet until the morning and she arose before a man notices his friend and he said, “Do not let it be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” ¹⁵And he said, “Give the cloak which upon you and grasp to it,” and she grasped to it and he measured six of barley and he set upon her and he came to the city.

From reading commentaries, people put a lot of spins on Boaz’s warning, “Do not let it be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” Some suggest he’s actually talking to his workers who may have been nearby. Others suggest he’s actually talking to himself. The obvious understanding would be that he’s talking to Ruth. But no matter what, the question is also asked why is that important? Again, many views are offered. Since I think that is what is actually important, and just to confuse the world, I’ll offer my opinion: Somewhere over the years I have read that it was very common for prostitutes to hang around the threshing floors. The end of the harvest was a time of celebration for the men, the workers perhaps got paid their wages, they all had a feast, the men were all away from their wives and families and I think it obvious that would be a prime opportunity for prostitutes to cash in. Again, somewhere in my memory banks I have read that was in fact the case.

Here is what I suspect: Boaz is a good man – a very good man. This is his threshing floor and these are his workers. I think he had a hard fast rule that no prostitutes were allowed anywhere near his threshing floor, and everyone knew it. For Ruth, a woman, to be seen near the threshing floor, especially in the wee hours of the morning, would immediately suggest she’d been playing the prostitute and it would malign Boaz’s good reputation that he did not allow such things. I would suggest, understanding these aspects of their culture, it is obvious why Boaz did not want her presence known. He’s just being a good man, again.

Another interesting observation from the Hebrew text is that at the end of verse 13, Boaz had told Ruth to “lie here till morning.” Immediately after that it says, “So Ruth lay there till morning.” The Hebrew verb in Boaz’s command to “lie down” in verse 13 is exactly the same verb describing Ruth’s response in verse 14. Then in verse 15, he tells her to “hold out” her shawl and, in Hebrew, her response is to “hold out” her shawl – again exactly the same verb from his command. I can’t help but think the Hebrew is deliberately highlighting how compliant Ruth is. She does exactly what she is told to do and she does it immediately. Ruth’s response to Naomi earlier in the chapter was, “All that you command me, I will do.”

Now I don’t believe for a minute that Ruth was stupidly obedient to just anyone who issued her a command. I rather suspect the exact opposite – that she is very intelligent and very aware of every action she takes. But with Naomi, again, this Moabite girl Ruth is smart enough to let this older wiser Jewish woman give her specific directions how to conduct herself in this Jewish culture. And Boaz is now a man who may be her husband in just a few hours. Given that Ruth is a very wise and virtuous young woman, in the right times and the right places, she knows how to be very humbly compliant. I would suggest the very fact that she is so immediately compliant probably only made Boaz all the more hopeful she’d soon be his wife. It’s a wonderful thing to have a wife who is very smart, very talented, very capable of independent thinking, but who also knows when it’s time to simply “do as she’s told.” The same of course applies to husbands – there are times when clearly our wife knows better than us or perhaps it’s her project and we’re the ones helping. Then real faith will make us humbly pleasantly compliant people. A submissive spirit is a beautiful thing – not a stupidly submissive spirit, but rather a wise and capable person humbly acquiescing at the right time and in the right place. That’s our girl Ruth! She’s just a good young woman.

Another point in the text that gets a lot of discussion is the “six measures of barley” which Boaz gave to Ruth. What generates all the discussion is that actually there is no “measures” in the Hebrew. As my literal translation above indicates, it was simply “six of barley.” So everyone has to ponder, six what of barley? Depending on what measure people choose, Ruth could be carrying a small amount or 200 lbs! Here’s what I think: the Lord doesn’t tell us what “measures” Boaz used because that isn’t important. What is important is that he gave her six. Once again, just as he used words for “redeem” six times in verses 12 & 13, now he measures out for her six “somethings” of barley. I would suggest they were probably just handfuls, as Boaz would unlikely have some specific measuring device just lying there ready to use. And again, I think what was important was that it was six. In their culture, as he counts out the handfuls, “One, two, three, four, five, six,” he is communicating to Ruth. He didn’t give her the 7^th, and she knows it. Six is the number of incompletion. I think he is saying to her again that he himself will be #7, that he fully intends to redeem her. He’s already communicated it very deliberately using the word redeem six times in only two verses, then he says, “Oh, before you leave, here … and scoops out six handfuls of barley. Six. “I’m not done," he is saying, “But I will be. You can count on me.” I would even suggest that Naomi’s response in v18 supports this understanding. When Ruth tells her he gave her six measures of barley, Naomi responds, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.” Naomi got the point. He won’t rest until there is completion, and he obviously hopes (and Ruth too) that he himself will be that completion.

Once again, to me it is just pleasant to watch these very godly people interact. As I’ve said before, I wish we had volumes written about them. But I’ll have to be content to learn what I can from these four little chapters. Certainly what we do see is enough to keep us all growing for a long, long time! It’s always a blessing to “walk with the wise.”