CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.— Ruth 2:15. And when she was risen up. Evident from this and the previous phrase that Boaz said, “Come thou hither,” as he himself sat among his reapers at the mid-day meal. So that a pause may be understood between the first conversation, ending with Ruth 2:13, and the invitation itself, during which Ruth goes on with her gleaning. Then there is the rest lasting throughout the hour of meals, in the tent or house for the reapers, followed by fresh toil until the evening. Commanded his young men. He had charged them already not to touch her (Ruth 2:9). Let her glean even among the sheaves. She may also glean between the sheaves (Keil). A rare privilege, not allowed to ordinary gleaners (Steele and Terry); and a still greater concession than that in Ruth 2:9—“after the reapers.” And reproach her not. (Heb. shame her not); μὴ καταισχύνητε (LXX.). Ye shall not shame her [do her any injury (Judges 18:7)] (Keil). In other words, they were not to say things to her which would make her blush (Lange), not to remind her of her poverty, etc.
Ruth 2:16. And let fall also of the handfuls. Let fall also out of your armfuls that you have reaped (Vulg.). Pull out from the bundles (Lange). Ye shall also draw out of the bundles for her (Keil). It is necessary to distinguish carefully between “the sheaves” (Ruth 2:15) and the “handfuls.” The former is the sheaf already bound by the maidservants, and lying on the ground; the latter is the bundle as taken up and still held in the arm, manipulus (Lange). And leave them. Let them lie (Keil). And rebuke her not. Scold her not (Lange, Keil). These directions of Boaz went far beyond the bounds of generosity and compassion for the poor, and show that he felt a peculiar interest in Ruth, with whose circumstances he was well acquainted, and who had won his heart by her humility, etc.,—a fact important to notice in connection with the further course of the history (Keil).
Ruth 2:17. And beat out, ἐῤῥάβδισεν (LXX.). With a stick (Wordsworth). A process often witnessed by modern travellers in the East (Steele and Terry). About an ephah of barley. About a bushel and a half (ibid). About twenty to twenty-five lbs. (Keil). Impossible to ascertain the quantity, still less its weight, exactly, but it was considerable, say fifty-five pounds (Lange). About eight gallons; see Exodus 16:36 (Wordsworth). She had gleaned so much, she could not carry it home in the ear (ibid.). An ephah exactly equal to an English cubic foot (Conder). The quantity of manna contained by the ephah was sufficient for ten men (cf. Exodus 16:16, with Exodus 16:36).
Theme.—LIBERAL GIVING, LIKE GOD’S
“And the more thou spendest
From thy little store;
With a double bounty,
God shall give thee more.”
“Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!”—Pope.
And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean among, etc., and reproach her [shame her] not. And let fall, etc., and rebuke [scold] her not.
Rested, refreshed, invigorated with food, as well as comforted by the kind words of the master of the harvest-field, Ruth evidently rises up to her labour with new pleasure and fresh earnestness. Note. (a) The poor can appreciate and respond to all this, without presuming upon it, or without being encouraged to idleness. Kindness to the deserving is a stimulus, an incentive to fresh enterprise and diligence. (b) The true use of rest and food is to strengthen us for resuming our toil.
Again, mark how the diligent hand obtains new and ever-increasing favours. God’s law is, to him that hath shall be given, and labour is the appointed way of increase, from which even Paradise itself was not exempted (Genesis 2:15). He who would have must get, and he who would have much, must get diligently. We are all gleaners, and the world is our harvest-field; and productive gleaning is, and always has been, to the earnest and the industrious. God helps us, both in spiritual and temporal things; but He in no way does so with a desire to do away with human responsibility. He scatters His blessings around us, but we ourselves must gather and make them our own. His giving is never intended to abate our diligence. Boaz here gives from pure goodness and nobleness of heart, and therefore his benevolence is a type of the divine and perfect giving of God.
I. He gives unexpectedly. This is seen in two ways:
(1) He allows her to “glean among the sheaves,” in a place where her labour will be more productive. So the Divine hand, in reward for past diligence, and as a proof of present favour, leads men to new spheres and employments, more fertile, as well as more dignified and productive. Joseph is exalted in Egypt, and David in Israel, and Paul among the apostles. Note. It is lawful to extend favours more to one than another (Fuller), in those things which are free favours (ibid.), in those things which are our own (Matthew 20:15), as with Boaz here. So with the Divine grace, and those privileges and opportunities He bestows in a seemingly unequal way among men. He gives and rewards not without a meaning, and not without a reason—this were impossible with God; but He will be accountable to no man for His dealings with the most highly favoured among men. The answer of sovereign grace to the caviller is, and always must be, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” “Is thine eye evil?” etc.
(2) He charges his reapers to scatter handfuls for her. He increases her gleanings, and yet makes it appear the fruit of her own industry (Thomson). [See on Ruth 2:8-9, div. I., p. 108.] And in our own lives how often God has given (a) beyond our fondest anticipations, and (b) in ways which seem the result of our own thrift and endeavours. [Examples: Jacob in Laban’s household; Daniel in Babylon.] We say, in our short-sightedness, possibly, that our own hand and our own wisdom has gained us all this increase; but is it so?
II. He gives liberally. Nowhere have the poor been cared for so liberally as among the Jews (Baldwin Brown). The law made it a sacred duty not to reap “wholly the corners of the field,” etc. (Leviticus 19:9-10), but to leave something behind for the destitute and the stranger. Boaz, however, goes beyond his creed; and so Ruth, who expected to gather a little, gathers abundantly. This is the Divine idea, “good measure, pressed down, running over;” not the giving with a niggardly spirit and a grudging hand, but largely, overflowingly, beyond that which is due, beyond that which is expected or even deserved.
(1) So good men give. They live to bestow happiness. Riches are lent, not given, and bring the purest pleasure when scattered around upon the worthy and the necessitous. Wealth—
“By disburdening grows
More fruitful, which instructs us not to spare.”—Milton.
So God gives (a) largely, (b) liberally, (c) lavishly, (d) constantly. Note. He can make the world, to every one of us, a harvest-field, full of temporal and spiritual blessings.
III. He gives without reproach and without rebuke. His reapers are only his agents in this matter; the master’s will is to control all. An alien, and a daughter of the sinful race of Moab, shall glean in the choicest portions of his harvest-field, shielded from prejudice, and without a single word to remind her of her poverty, or her unworthiness (as some would think it), or of the unexpected favour bestowed upon her. A word to a delicate, sensitive spirit like that she has displayed would spoil all; therefore rebuke her not. Note. Kindness shows itself not only in doing good, but also in preventing evil and reproach. How exactly all this corresponds to the Divine dealings with sinful men! When they come in humble, suppliant attitude, it is said, “None of their sins shall be mentioned unto them.” God shields from shame, as well as bestows pardon, and sovereign grace is always willing to blot out the past. The inspired conception of the Divine benevolence is that He “giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not” (James 1:5).
Again, God charges others, lest they should reproach the sensitive and the tender-hearted among His children (Isaiah 40:1-2; Isaiah 65:25), as well as the wanderer and the stranger who cast themselves on His protecting care. The Saviour’s disciples were reapers in a field “white unto the harvest,” and yet, when they would have rebuked others who were not “of them,” He said, “Forbid them not” (Matthew 19:14).
IV. He gives in encouragement of her own labours. The kindness of Boaz suited
(1) to her situation,
(2) to her employment as a gleaner in the harvest field. So God gives in kind as well as in degree, according to our present capacity. He gives along the lines we ourselves are laying down—a solemn yet certain truth—and according to the spirit and diligence we ourselves are displaying. He gives “wood and hay and stubble” to such as are seeking such; the pure and precious grain of the kingdom only to those whom He is certain have sought, and sought diligently, for the same.
IMPROVEMENT.
(1) Charity, wisely directed, will not tempt the poor to idleness (Lawson).
(2) If we come into fellowship with God, He will protect our characters from shame (E. Price), as well as our lives from want. We are to do our duty, and leave the rest with Him. When led into danger, we are to go quietly on, trusting to His guidance, as well as to our own integrity.
“The end of feeding is to fall to our calling. Let us not therefore, with Israel, sit down to eat and to drink, and so rise up to play; but let us eat to live, not live to eat. We need not make the clay cottage of our body much larger than it is by immoderate feeding: it is enough if we maintain it so with competent food, that God, our Landlord, may not have just cause to sue us for want of reparations.”—Fuller.
“That bird was once a woman, and it is a good lesson she reads us. One day she was kneading bread in her trough, under the eaves of her house, when our Lord passed by, leaning on St Peter. She did not know it was the Saviour and His apostle, for they looked like two poor men travelling past her door. ‘Give us of your dough, for the love of God,’ said the Lord Christ: ‘we have come far across the field, and have fasted long.’ Gertrude pinched off a small piece for them; but on rolling it in her trough, to get it into shape, it grew and grew, and filled up the trough completely. She looked at it in wonder. ‘No,’ said she, ‘that is more than you want;’ so she pinched off a smaller piece, and rolled it out as before; but the smaller piece filled up the trough, just as the other had done; so she put that aside too, and pinched a smaller bit still. But the miracle was just as apparent, the smaller bit filling up the trough the same as ever. Gertrude’s heart was hardened still more; she put that aside also. ‘I cannot give you any to-day,’ said she; for the greed of her heart was to divide all her dough into little bits and roll it into loaves. ‘Go on your journey, and the Lord prosper you.’ Then the Lord Christ was angry, and her eyes were opened, and she fell down on her knees to hear Him say, ‘I gave you plenty, but that hardened your heart, so that plenty was not a blessing to you; I will try you now with the blessing of poverty; you shall henceforth seek your food day by day, and always between the wood and the bark.’ ”—Norwegian Legend of the Gertrude Bird.
“We learn, that is the best charity which so relieves people’s wants as that they are still continued in their calling. For, as he who teacheth one to swim, though haply he will take him by the chin, yet he expecteth that the learner shall nimbly ply the oars of his hands and feet, and strive and struggle with all his strength to keep himself above water; so those who are beneficial to poor people may justly require of them that they use both their hands to work and feet to go in their calling, and themselves take all due labour that they may not sink in the gulf of penury. Relieve a husbandman, yet so as he may still continue in his husbandry; a tradesman, yet so he may still go on in his trade; a poor scholar, yet so he may still proceed in his studies. Thereby the commonwealth shall be a gainer. Drones bring no honey to the hive; but the painful hand of each private man contributes some profit to the public good. Hereby the able poor, the more diligent they be, the more bountiful men will be to them; while their bodies are freed from many diseases, their souls from many sins, wherof idleness is the mother. Laziness makes a breach in our soul, where the devil doth assault us with greatest advantage; and when we are most idle in our vocations, then he is most busy in his temptations.”—Fuller.
“There can be no wrong in those things which are free favours. I am not less just to him to whom I give less, but I am more merciful to him to whom I give more.… Shall it not therefore be lawful for the Lord of heaven to bestow wealth, honour, wisdom, effectual grace, blessings outward and inward, on one, and deny them to another? You, therefore, whom God hath suffered to glean among the sheaves, and hath scattered whole handfuls for you to gather; you that abound and flow with His favours, be heartily thankful unto Him. He hath not dealt so with everyone, neither have all such a large measure of His blessings.”—Fuller.
“I know some preachers who never went to Martin Luther’s school; they may have prayer and meditation, but they have never been schooled by temptation; and if we are not much tempted ourselves, if we are not emptied from vessel to vessel ourselves, we are in very great danger, when we are dealing with these Ruths, lest we be hard with them, and rebuke and reproach them, when instead thereof we should hear the Master say, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem.’ Now I take it that we do very much reproach these tender ones when we set up standards in our ministry to which we tell them they must come or else perish.”—Spurgeon.
“But then, brethren, you will notice that these reapers were to let handfuls fall on purpose for her. Well, then, ye reapers in God’s field, let your preaching be very personal. Oh! I love, when I draw the bow, not to do it at a venture, but to single out some troubled heart, and speak to you all as though there were but one here; not pouring the oil over the wound, but coming up to the edge of the gaping sore to pour in oil and wine. These poor Ruths will not dare to take the corn unless we put it right in their way. They are so faithful, so timorous, that though it seems to be scattered for everybody, they think it cannot be for them: but if it be there, put there so that they cannot mistake it, then they say, ‘Well, that is for me; ay, that is what I have felt; that is what I want;’ and they cannot, unbelieving though they be, they cannot help stooping down and picking up the handful that is let fall on purpose for them. Then, if it be so, our preaching must always be very affectionate.”—Ibid.
“Dr Manton once preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a great crowd went to listen to him. A poor man, who had walked fifty miles to bear the good doctor, afterwards plucked him by the sleeve, and said, ‘There was nothing for me this morning.’ The doctor had preached a very learned sermon, full of Greek and Latin quotations which the poor countryman could not understand; but the doctor had not expected him, and there was nothing for him. I think there should always be in our ministry some things for poor Ruth, so plain and so simple, that the wiseacres will turn up their noses, and say, ‘What platitudes!’ Never mind, if Ruth gets a handful of corn, our Master at the last shall know who did His errand best, and served Him with a perfect heart.”—Ibid.
“While such a practice as is here enjoined would have been dishonest and unfaithful without the express authority of the master, not to have done it after it was enjoined would have been undutiful in its turn,”—Thomson.
“Doubtless Boaz, having taken notice of the good nature, dutiful carriage, and the near affinity of Ruth, could not but purpose some greater beneficence and higher respects to her; yet how he fits his kindness to her condition, and gives her that which to her seemed much, though he thought it little. Thus doth the bounty of our God deal with us. It is not for want of love that He gives us no greater measure of grace, but for want of our fitness and capacity. He hath reserved greater preferments for us, when it shall be seasonable for us to receive them.”—Bishop Hall.
Theme.—LABOUR UNTIL THE EVENING
“When the corn’s rustle on the ear doth come,
When the eve’s beetle sounds its drowsy hum,
When the stars, dewdrops of the summer sky,
Watch over all with soft and loving eye.”—Nicoll.
“Night is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed.”—J. Montgomery.
So she gleaned in the fields until even, and beat out, etc.
The longest and most eventful day must come to a close at last. So with this of Ruth’s toil, and the beginning of her recompense.
(1) She was not weary in well doing.
(2) She did not presume upon the fact that Boaz had so greatly and so generously increased her gleanings. No! She perseveres in her labour of love until the due and proper hour for retiring; then, pleased with what she had gained by her own industry, and careful to secure it, she lingers to beat out the corn, instead of taking it where it might trouble Naomi—a thoughtfulness surpassing even that of most natural children to their parents.
Learn, as suggested here—
I. That it is good to abide where we do well. Boaz had charged her not to glean in another field, but to stand fast by his maidens (Ruth 2:8), and here is the result. She reaped the fruit of her constancy;
(1) a lesson to the unstable in temporal things. Prosperity only follows persevering labour. It is the diligent hand that maketh rich; “the rolling stone gathers no moss” (Braden).
(2) To the unstable in the kingdom of God—men who wander from one church to another, from one preacher to another, from one sphere of duty to another. Note. Every man has his appropriate place: the aim of life should be first to find it and then to keep it.
II. That it is good to labour where God sends success. Can Ruth return to the city with a dejected countenance? Never, while Jehovah lives (E. Price). And why? Evident that she was in the place God had appointed for her. We misread the whole narrative, too, if we fail to see that Boaz is only an instrument in the Divine hands. In all labour, even that of gleaning, there is profit; but see what gleaning is when God guides to the harvest field! The humblest toil then becomes not only productive, but beautiful, and pregnant with after consequences.
III. That it is good to toil on until God’s appointed time of rest. “Man goeth forth to his labour until the evening.” There is a time, then, for going forth, and there is also a time for returning. The day for toil, the night for repose, this is God’s great appointed law. Labour is man’s heritage (Genesis 2:15), and we are happy only as we bow to this. Life, health, man’s physical and moral well-being depend upon obedience. But mark! Labour, too, has its boundaries, the time when it must end; and from this thought comes a stimulus to which even the great Master Himself responded, “I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day,” as well as a hope which looks forward to rest and reward when toil is over. Note. Rest time is not waste time (Spurgeon). The pause prepares mind and body alike for further service.
“King Alphonsus doing something with his hands, and labouring so, as some which beheld him found fault, smiled and said, ‘Hath God given hands to kings in vain?’ ”—Bernard.
“I do not like to see a Christian man too eager for holidays, nor doling out his services in exact and precise proportion to his wages, bitterly complaining if he is requested to do a little more than is in ‘the bond,’ ready to fling down his tools before the first stroke of the clock has fairly struck which tells that the day’s work may cease. A man should be in love with his work, and should take as the mottoes for his inspiration the words, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do,’ etc., ‘Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit,’ etc.”—Braden.
“Sarah kneaded cakes; Rachel fed sheep; Rebekah drew water; Tamar baked cakes. Suetonius reporteth of Augustus Cæsar, that he made his daughters to learn to spin; and Pantaelon relates the same of Charles the Great. Yet now-a-days (such is the pride of the world) people of far meaner quality scorn so base employments.”—Fuller.
“Such diligence is supremely praiseworthy. and deserves, nay, ensures an abundant reward. It is a great thing in life to be wholly devoted to the work we have in hand, and to be able to say, ‘This one thing I do.’ For there is an incalculable multitude of people who are ‘everything by turns and nothing long.’ Shifty, changeful, dissatisfied, untrustworthy, they pass from one occupation to another with the ease and rapidity with which the wind veers round all the points of the compass; busy, fussy folk who are excited, enthusiastic about one thing to-day, and equally excited and enthusiastic about another and totally opposite thing to-morrow. All they undertake is regarded of the same importance, to be entered upon with unrestrained vigour; but nothing prospers that they touch, because they only touch it, and soon it droops and fades.”—Braden.
“Seek a retentive memory, to keep in thy hand what thou hast gathered, or else thou wilt be like a silly gleaner who stoops to glean one ear, and drops another at the same time. Carry home what of truth thou canst. Take notes in thy heart. And when thou hast gathered and hast thy hands full, take care to discriminate. Ruth, we are told, threshed her corn, and left the straw behind, and took home the good wheat. Do thou the same.”—Spurgeon.
“Corn, even the finest kidney of the wheat, grows encompassed with chaff, and therefore must be beaten out and winnowed before it is fit for use.… Paul, that incomparable preacher, freely confessed that he saw and prophesied but in part: if he in part, surely we in a very little part; consequently much of our own chaff is mixed with our Redeemer’s wheat: and that you our hearers are called to beat out what you glean, by a diligent search of the Scriptures, by meditation and prayer.”—Macgowan.
“The materials of the temple were so hewed and carved, both stone and wood, before that they were brought unto Jerusalem, that there was not so much as the noise of a hammer heard in the temple. So Ruth fits all things in a readiness before she goes home, that so no noise might be made at home, to disturb her aged mother.”—Fuller.