ELIMELECH AND HIS FAMILY GO FROM BETHLEHEM INTO THE LAND OF MOAB. ELIMELECH AND HIS TWO SONS DIE THERE, AND NAOMI IS LEFT WITH HER DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW. NAOMI COMES BACK WITH RUTH TO BETHLEHEM. RUTH GLEANS IN THE FIELD OF BOAZ. BOAZ MARRIES HER.
IN the days when the judges ruled over Israel, there was a famine in Canaan. And a man of the children of Israel who lived in the city of Bethlehem, went to stay for a while in the land of Moab; he and his wife and their two sons. The man's name was Elimelech, and his wife's name Naomi. After they had come into Moab, the man died, but his sons took wives of the women of Moab, and lived for about ten years. Then they died also, and their mother, Naomi was left alone with her two daughters-in-law.
And Naomi heard that the famine was over in Canaan, and that the Lord had given the people food again; so she rose up to leave the land of Moab, and go back to the city of Bethlehem. Then she spoke to her daughters-in-law, and asked if they would not rather stay in Moab, which was their own land, where they were born, and where their relations lived.
When her daughters-in-law heard what she said, they were troubled and wept; and one of them, named Orpah, kissed Naomi, and bade her farewell, and went away to her own home; but the other, whose name was Ruth, would not leave her. Ruth told Naomi not to ask that she should leave her, or go back from following after her, Where thou goest, she said, I will go, and where thou livest, I will live; thy friends shall be my friends, and thy God, my God; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried. And Ruth asked the Lord to punish her, if she ever left Naomi as long as they both should live. When Naomi saw how much Ruth loved her, and wanted to go with her, she did not speak to her any more about staying in the land of Moab.
And they came into Canaan, to the city of Bethlehem, where Naomi used to live. And the people remembered her, and all of them spoke about her coming, and said, Is this Naomi? But she was very sorrowful, and answered, Call me not Naomi, which means pleasant; but call me Mara, which means bitter; because the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. She meant that the Lord had sent her great trouble. For when she went away from Bethlehem, so many years before, her husband and her two sons were with her; but now, when she came back, they were all dead. It was in the beginning of the barley harvest, while the people were cutting their grain, that Ruth and Naomi came to Bethlehem.
And Naomi had a kinsman, or relation, at Bethlehem, named Boaz, who was a rich and great man. And Ruth said to Naomi, Let me go now out to the field, and glean ears of corn. To glean in the field was to pick up the grain that the reapers had left. Only poor people gleaned, who had no fields of their own. It was not much they could gather, yet the men who were reaping always left a little for them, because the Lord had commanded the reapers, not to take all away, but to leave a little for the poor. And Ruth and Naomi were poor. Therefore Ruth asked her mother-in-law to let her go and glean in some field where the man would give her permission to do it. And Naomi said to her, Go, my daughter. Then she went and happened to come into the field that belonged to Boaz, and there she gleaned after the reapers.
And Boaz came out to the field and spoke to his reapers, and said to them, The Lord be with you. They answered him, The Lord bless thee. And he asked his chief servant, that was set over the reapers, Whose young woman is this? The servant answered, It is the young woman that came with Naomi out of the land of Moab; she said to us, I pray you let me glean after the reapers; and we allowed her to do it. So she came into the field, and hath kept on gleaning from the morning until now.
Then Boaz spoke kindly to Ruth, and told her not to go into any other man's field, but to glean in his, for he had commanded his young men to do her no harm. When she was thirsty, he said, she should go to the pitchers which the young men had filled, and drink what she wanted. And Ruth bowed down to the ground before Boaz, and asked him why he was so kind as to take notice of her, who was only a stranger. But Boaz answered, that he had been told of all her kindness to her mother-in-law, and how she had left her father and her mother, and the land where she was born, and had come to live among the children of Israel. And he asked that God might reward her, because she had done these things; for in the land of Moab the people worshipped idols, but Ruth had left that land to come into Canaan and serve the Lord.
And Boaz told her to come at meal-time, and eat and drink with the reapers. So she did as he said; she sat beside them, and Boaz reached her parched corn, and she ate and had enough, and afterward went out in the field again. And Boaz commanded his young men to let her glean, even among the sheaves that they had bound up for him; he said, also, Let fall some handfuls on purpose for her, that she may take them, and do not find fault with her.
So she gleaned in the field until evening, and beat out the grains of barley that she had gathered, and took them and went into Bethlehem. When her mother-in-law saw how much Ruth brought, she was glad, and asked the Lord to bless the man who had been so kind to her. And she asked her who the man was. Ruth said, the man's name is Boaz. Then Naomi told her that he was a near kinsman to them. And Ruth said he had asked her to come again into his field and glean after the reapers, and to do so until they had ended all of his harvest. Naomi told her to do as Boaz said. So she went out into his field, and gleaned there until the end of the barley harvest and of the wheat harvest.
And Naomi said to Ruth, Boaz winnoweth barley to-night in the threshing floor. Barley is a grain something like wheat. To thresh it was to separate it from the long straw on which it grew. To winnow it was to separate it again from the small, broken pieces of straw, which were left mixed with it after the threshing. These pieces could not be picked out with the hands, there were too many of them; but the reapers used to throw the grain and the small pieces of straw together, up in the air, while the wind was blowing. Then the wind would blow away the straw, because it was so light, but the grains of barley, being heavier, would fall down by themselves in a heap on the ground. The threshing-floor was the smooth, level, piece of ground, where these things were done. Naomi had heard that Boaz was to winnow his barley that night, and she asked Ruth to wash and dress herself, and go to the threshing floor, and speak to Boaz the words which she told her.
So Ruth did as her mother-in-law said. She washed and dressed herself, and went to the threshing-floor; and Boaz winnowed his barley, and then had a feast. And after he had eaten and drunk, and had enough, she came near to him, and spoke to him, saying, Thou art our near kinsman: and she asked him to be kind to her. He answered, May the Lord bless thee, my daughter. Then he told her not to fear; he would do for her all that she needed, because all the people of Bethlehem knew that she was a virtuous and good woman. And he said to her, Bring here thy veil and hold it out. And when she brought it, he poured into it six measures of barley. And Ruth carried what he gave her into Bethlehem, to Naomi, and told her of all that Boaz had done: saying, These six measures of barley he gave me, for he said, Go not away without taking something with thee for thy mother-in-law. Then Naomi told Ruth to wait and be patient, until she should see what else Boaz would do.
We have read that the cities of Canaan had walls around them with gates. Now it was at the gates that the people used to meet together. Whoever came into the city, or went out of it, passed through them. That was the place where the rulers came to hold their court, and try those who had disobeyed the laws, and to say what their punishment must be. Persons also bought and sold things at the gate, making a kind of market there. So that when any man wanted all the people to know of something he was going to do, he would go and speak about it at the gate, because there he found more of them gathered together than anywhere else.
The next day after Boaz had winnowed his barley, he went to the gate of Bethlehem, and sat down in a seat there. And he called to him ten of the elders, or principal men, of the city, and said to them, Sit down here; and they sat down. Then Boaz spoke to them, and to all the people, and told them that he was going to take Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi, to be his wife. And he said to the elders, and to all the people, You are the witnesses; that is, you are the persons to whom I tell it, that you may know it yourselves and tell others also. And all the people and the elders answered, We are the witnesses. And they prayed that the Lord would bless Ruth, and make Boaz still richer and greater than he was then.
So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And Naomi was glad for her daughter-in-law, who had loved her, and come with her out of the land of Moab into Canaan, to live with the children of Israel and serve the Lord. And the Lord gave Boaz and Ruth a son, and Naomi took the child and laid it on her bosom, and nursed it for them. And they named the little boy Obed.