Ruth 2:16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let fall also some of the handfuls What an amiable picture of piety and virtue in private life have we here in Boaz! In the midst of riches he is laborious, diligent in husbandry, plain without luxury, delicacy, sloth, or pride. How affable, obliging, and kind to his servants! The Lord be with you, says he, even to his reapers. What an obliging humanity, as well as generosity, does he show when he desires Ruth not to go into any other field to glean, but to abide fast by his maidens, to eat and drink with them; and in the order he gives his reapers to let her glean even among the sheaves, and to let fall some of the handfuls on purpose for her, that she might gather them without being ashamed! What a noble pattern have we here to instruct us in what manner to bestow benefits, namely, so as to spare those whom we oblige the confusion of receiving, and ourselves the temptation of vain glory in giving.