“Now when I passed by you and looked on you, behold your time was the time for love. And I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord Yahweh, and you became mine.”
The time moves on and Israel was maturing. The Great Deliverer again passed by and recognised that it was time to take Israel as His wife because she had reached ‘the time for love'. The spreading of the skirt of his long cloak over her indicated taking her under his protection and an acceptance of her as His betrothed (Ruth 3:9). Thus she who had been naked was no longer naked. She was His, and covered by Him. This incident almost certainly refers to the Sinai covenant, and Sinai made provision to deal with the problem of Israel's sin And this is confirmed by the words that follow.
‘Yes, I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord Yahweh, and you became mine.' While the covenant represents marriage in the story (compare Proverbs 2:17; Malachi 2:14), the use of the term ‘covenant', rather than ‘married you', confirms that it refers to Yahweh's covenant with His people. Compare Exodus 19:4-6 together with Deuteronomy 28:9; Exodus 24:8. These were precisely the promises of the Sinai covenant.