‘ Then she said, “Let me find favour in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me, and because you have spoken kindly to your handmaid, although I am as one of your handmaidens.”
Ruth responds to the words of the great man with true humility. Basically she is saying, ‘let me continue to find favour in your sight', for she has previously stated that she has found favour in his sight (Ruth 2:10). And she is grateful for the comfort that he has given her, which she may well have found lacking in some people in Bethlehem, and appreciates the fact that he has ‘spoken kindly' towards her. ‘Your handmaid' is in fact a typical way in which a woman, even one of some importance, speaks to someone important. There are any number of examples in Scripture (e.g. 1 Samuel 25:24). Thus Ruth is not literally seeing herself to one of his handmaids. What she is seeing is that she is not more important than they, which makes the kindness and gentleness of Boaz appear to her even more important. She is appreciating the comfort and the kindliness of a man of some importance.