Gleaners

[Ruth 2:2] And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter.
Biblical Law commanded that whatever accidentally or unconsciously fell from the hands of a reaper had to be left behind for the poor to gather for themselves. Such was Ruth’s intention. The field she randomly chooses to gather remnants from belongs to a relative of Naomi’s husband, and therefore of Ruth’s deceased husband, Mahlon. . Ruth took the responsibility upon herself to provide for them both by following the gleaners in the field, collecting sheaves of grain from what they had dropped.
Seven times in this chapter it refers to the field of Judah, specifically Boaz’s field or another field, and twice to refer to Naomi’s field or parcel of land. Despite the natural fertility of the land, Naomi encountered death and sterility in the land of Moab. At the same time, Ruth, a native of the country of Moab, helped her mother-in-law to find life in the fields of Judah.
The story does not tell us why Naomi did not go with her to glean, may be she was too old or weak to do so.
Glean is a key word and appears twelve times in this chapter. The right to glean was part of the social contract, or obligation of landowners as compassion provision for the poor, no initiative by Ruth would have enabled the two poor widows to survive. Following the male reapers, those who cut and bind the grain are the female gleaners. Their job is to pick up and stems or heads of the precious grain that may elude the reapers as they work rapidly to complete the harvest. The more prosperous farmers were commanded to allow the poor and less fortunate to glean in their fields free of charge.
Her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, the fields in Palestine being unenclosed, the phrase signifies that portion of the open ground which lay within the landmarks of Boaz.
Ruth’s covenant loyalty to Naomi meant going to the fields, asking permission of the foreman to glean behind the harvesters, and working hard from early morning to glean behind the reapers, an overseer whose special duty was to superintend the operations in the field, to supply provision to the reapers, and pay them for their labor in the evening.
Various modes of reaping are practiced in the East. Where the crop is thin and short, it is plucked up by the roots. Sometimes it is cut with the sickle. Whether reaped in the one way or the other, the grain is cast into sheaves loosely thrown together, to be subjected to the process of threshing, which takes place, for the most part, immediately after the reaping.
Field labors were begun early in the morning before the day became oppressively hot.
She tarried a little in the house that is, the field tent, erected for the occasional rest and refreshment of the laborers. Gleaners were sometimes allowed, by kind and charitable masters, to partake of the refreshments provided for the reapers. The vessels alluded to were skin bottles, filled with water - and the bread was soaked in vinegar (2:14); a kind of poor, weak wine, sometimes mingled with a little olive oil - very cooling, as would be required in harvest-time. This grateful refection is still used in the harvest-field.
Comfort meant encouragement given to a foreign woman who was in great difficulty, an assurance of help to an alien widow that would change despair to confidence, a means of practical assistance. He had given her hope of a real change in her life situation.
The gleaners in the East glean with much success; for a great quantity of corn is scattered in the reaping, as well as in their manner of carrying it. One may judge, then, of the large quantity which Ruth would gather in consequence of the liberal orders given to the servants. These extraordinary marks of favor were not only given from a kindly disposition, but from regard to her good character and devoted attachment to her venerable relative. In one day she beats out an ephah, which is about three-fifths of a bushel. The grain must be safeguarded against moisture, theft and marauding animals. The most secluded and secret places are used. Generally, pits for storing the grain are dug in the hard earth, with a comparatively small opening at the top for access. The underground chamber itself might be as much as 8 feet in depth and 4 or 5 feet in breadth, with a mouth of only about 25 inches in diameter at the top. The mouth is then boarded over and covered with straw and earth or turf to conceal its location. In these receptacles grain can be safely stored for a year or longer - until the supply is replenished from a new harvest. Sometimes the storage pit is under the floor of the tent or house where the family lives - usually under the women’s quarters, where it would be least suspected and least accessible to thieves.
Ruth’s reward in fulfillment of Boaz’s wish in verse 12 was a generous portion of barley to sustain Naomi and herself. An ephah was a dry measure weighing between 10 to 14 kg. (20-30 lbs.). This would have been enough food for ten to fourteen days for one person, or five to seven days for two. A day’s wage for the reapers, according to documents from the time, would have been about 1 kg. of grain.
The reward was for hard work. Ruth had to bend down for long hours to pick up the ears of barley left by the reapers. Then she beat them out to separate the husks from the kernels. Next she collected the precious grain in her shawl, slung it over her shoulders, and carried it into Bethlehem. Finally she fulfilled her purpose of going to the fields by giving it to Naomi, along with what was left over of the parched grain from her noon meal. She held nothing back for herself.
Both barley and wheat harvests. The latter was at the end of May or the beginning of June. Naomi told Ruth that because of her vulnerability as a single woman in the harvest field. From verse 9, Ruth kept herself from danger by staying close to Boaz’s female laborers. Naomi’s joy was increased when she learned that Boaz had included Ruth the Moabite in his circle of care by urging her to stay close to his workers. A prudent recommendation to Ruth to accept the generous invitation of Boaz, lest, if she were seen straying into other fields, she might not only run the risk of rude treatment, but displease him by seeming indifferent to his kind liberality. Moreover, the observant mind of the old matron had already discerned, in all Boaz' attentions to Ruth, the germs of a stronger affection, which she wished to increase. Naomi seized the opportunity provided by the harvest – Boaz would be winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Her daring plan calling for immediate action.
The place of the encounter carried risk. In Israelite tradition, the threshing floor was not only the place of harvest, but also of immoral practices of the fertility cult (Hos. 9:1). At harvest time men and women would come together on the threshing floor as a way of stimulating powers of fertility (the foreign deities Baal and Asherah) to ensure good crops and increase of flocks and herds.
The winnowing process is performed by throwing up the grain, after being trodden down, against the wind with a shovel. The threshing-floor, which was commonly on the harvest-field, was carefully leveled with a large cylindric roller and consolidated with chalk, that weeds might not spring up, and that it might not chop with drought. The farmer usually remained all night in harvest-time on the threshing-floor, not only for the protection of his valuable grain, but for the winnowing. That operation was performed in the evening to catch the breezes which blow after the close of a hot day, and which continue for the most part of the night. This duty at so important a season the master undertakes himself; and, accordingly, in the simplicity of ancient manners, Boaz, a person of considerable wealth and high rank, laid himself down to sleep on the barn floor, at the end of the heap of barley he had been winnowing.
Naomi’s expression lie or lie down describing the prone position of both Boaz and Ruth by the heap of corn. To lie with meant sexual embrace, lie down at Boaz’s feet. Boaz was a worthy man who would not take advantage of her.
Uncover his feet – the Hebrew term is derived from the ordinary word for foot, which, in the plural, sometimes means legs (1 Sam. 17:6).
Singular as these directions may appear to us, there was no impropriety in them, according to the simplicity of rural manners in Beth-lehem. In ordinary circumstances these would have seemed indecorous to the world; but in the case of Ruth, it was a method, doubtless conformable to prevailing usage, of reminding Boaz of the duty which devolved on him as the kinsman of her deceased husband. Boaz probably slept upon a mat or skin; Ruth lay crosswise at his feet - a position in which Eastern servants frequently sleep in the same chamber or tent with their master; and if they want a covering, custom allows them that benefit from part of the covering on their master's bed. Resting, as the Orientals do at night, in the same clothes they wear during the day, there was no indelicacy in a stranger, or even a woman, putting the extremity of this cover over her. On Naomi’s advice, she dared to attract Boaz’s attention by a route quite outside the ordinary rules of modesty. Ruth who had left the familiar comforts of her Moabite home – where, tradition has it, she was of noble family – to live in a new society where she would be treated for some time as a stranger. She had already made one bold move, following the righteous and kind Naomi in order to better her life morally and spiritually. In a sense she had taken the older woman as her spiritual guide: “Where you die, I will die.” Then, with Boaz, she was willing to take a still greater step – exposing herself to the risk of public shame – to secure a husband who exemplified the kindness she had admire in Naomi and to make a place for herself in the new society. In short, Ruth put her womanhood and reputation on the line in order to shape her own future.
Marriage – the main point of the marriage was not the acquisition of a piece of land. Boaz stated before the witnesses at the gate his full acceptance of Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, to be my wife. She was not to be his female slave, or his household servant, but his wife. This marriage was the formation of one flesh.
Partners bring to marriage their ties to past generations. Ruth’s ties were to Mahlon, her late husband who had died in Moab, far away from Bethlehem. Boaz’s obligation in marring her was to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance. This meant three areas of continuity: the family circle, the public memory, and a secure place for future generations.
The people at the gate gave the newly married pair three wishes, each of which emphasized the role of the new family in strengthening the whole people of G-d.
1. Build the house of Israel - meaning the whole people of Israel. Ruth would emulate the two ancestral women, Rachel and Leah. Yahweh gave each power to conceive children. Ruth had been married for a number of years without children, and could be considered barren. The effect of the blessing was that the children of Ruth and Boaz would build up the whole people of G-d.
2. Came in two parts that Boaz, with Ruth by his side, would prosper in Ephrathah. A family of worth would have strength to do good works in their community. This is the only example where it is possible to interpret the phrase here translated prosper to mean produce children.
The second part was that this family would make Ephrathah (Bethlehem) famous. Ruth in later years would understand that this wish had been fulfilled in the coming of David, the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah.
The blessing tells how Ruth’s son, and then Ruth herself, would bring fullness to Naomi who once called her empty. The women spoke of the newborn child as a gift to Naomi from Yahweh who would, in future years, bring three benefits to her.
1. Protector – as her next of kin with the right and duty to redeem, the child would protect Naomi, the childless widow, from poverty or other kinds of difficulty.
2. Restored – the grandson would be a restorer of life. The Hebrew expression occurs seven times in the OT, with varying translations. The effect of food on the starving is to revive their strength (Lam. 1:11, 19). The effect of a comforter is to revive…courage (Lam. 1:16). The work of a defender is to rescue…life from enemy attacks (Ps. 35:17). Yahweh’s covenant teaching (Torah), as lived and taught by this grandson, would mean reviving the soul of Naomi (Ps. 19:7), restoring her courage, and strength for life.
3. Nourisher – the newborn child would become for Naomi a nourisher of your old age. The women of Bethlehem described Naomi’s old age by a word that means to be gray or have gray hair. Old age was considered as a time of respect, honor, and beauty (Lev. 19:32; Prov. 16:31; 20:29), it is seen as a period of life marked by declining strength (1 Kgs. 1:1), failing eyesight (Gen. 27:48:10), disease (1 Kgs. 15:23), and exploitation (Isa. 47:6). Old age meant days of trouble (Eccl. 12:1). It signified a period of life, of a widow, when there is need for a nourisher. As nourisher of Naomi’s old age, her grandson would be obedient to the instruction, ‘do not despise your mother when she is old (Prov. 23:22). Ruth’s son would be G-d’s nourishing hands in her old age, and be a sign of the coming salvation for the remnant of this people (Zech. 8:6).