Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ruth 2:4
And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD [be] with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee.
4. The Lord be with you ] Cf. Jdg 6:12, Psa 129:8. A religious spirit governs the relations between employer and employed on this estate.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Rth 2:4
Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you.
Salutation and prayer
I. That it is a commendable thing for one to salute another when they meet.
II. That masters are to pray that God may be with their household, family, and workmen. (R. Bernard.)
A good master
1. The works of Gods providence are very wonderful works. There is a behold put upon this passage. Oh, the wonderful concurrence of these occurrences! Here Ruth is ordered by Providence into Boazs field, and Boaz is ordered by the same Providence to meet Ruth in his field; and all this in tendency to accomplish a great design of their marrying together, infinitely above both their thoughts. It would plainly astonish us to observe diligently the strange occurrences of Divine Providence, and it is our great loss to live so little in the observation of every passage and footstep thereof.
2. It is comely and commodious for masters to mind personally their own concerns. Thus Boaz here did. Wise Cato could say, That man which minds not his vintage or harvest, the further he is from his labour, the nearer he is to his loss; and his eyes are every way, and everywhere.
(1) Upon the servants;
(2) upon the reapers;
(3) upon the gleaners;
(4) not only looking to, but even lodging in the midst of, his labourers, if he did not also labour him self in winnowing work (Rth 3:2; Rth 3:4).
3. Christianity is no enemy to comity and courtesy; or, civil salutations are consistent with true sanctity in humane society.
4. Civil salutation ought to be paid again in the same coin, saluting for saluting. (C. Ness.)
Boaz the farmer
Farming, rather than gardening in the ordinary sense of the word, is mans oldest occupation. It may not be esteemed the most dignified one, nor may those engaged in it be generally found either the most enlightened or refined of men; still, instituted by Divine authority, and pursued by man in his primeval innocence, with the ordinances of marriage and the Sabbath-day, it is a vestige of Eden. Besides, it is probable, if not certain, that it is the one employment in which man had God for his teacher. The heathens themselves represent the gods as having taught him how to cultivate corn; and in this, as in many of their other legends, they have preserved a valuable fragment of ancient truth. There is that indeed in the nature of wheat, barley, and the other cereals, which goes almost to demonstrate that God specially created them for mans use, and originally committed them to his care. These plants are unique in two respects–first, unlike others, the fruits or roots of which we use for food, they are found wild nowhere on the face of the whole earth; and secondly, unlike others also, they cannot prolong their existence independent of man, without his care and culture. When mines are empty, and furnaces stand quenched and cold, and deep silence reigns in the caverns where the axe of the pitman sounded, the husbandman shall still plough the soil. His, the first mans, shall probably be the last mans employment. The occupation which Boaz followed rises still higher in importance when we look at the multitudes it employs. Great as we are in commerce and manufactures–clothing nations with our fabrics, covering every sea with ships, and carrying the produce of our arts to every shore–the cultivation of the soil employs a larger number of hands than any other trade. Now these interests turn to a great extent on the manner in which those who follow Boazs occupation discharge their duties: and it is therefore a matter of thankfulness that in him the book which instructs both kings and beggars, peers and peasants, how to live, sets before us a model farmer.
I. His diligence in business. Boaz was not one whom necessity compelled to labour. He was rich; and is indeed called a mighty man of wealth. Yet he made that no reason for wasting his life in ease and idleness. Nor, though he employed overseers, did he consider it right to commit his business entirely into their hands. In the first place, such irresponsibility is not good for servants. It places them in circumstances of temptation to act dishonestly. Neither is it, in the second place, for the masters interests. The eye of the master maketh a fat horse, says an English proverb. The farmer ploughs best with his feet, says a Scotch one–his success turning on the attention he personally gives to the superintendence of his servants and the different interests of his farm.
II. His courteousness. Be ye courteous is a duty which Paul–himself a fine example of it–enjoins on Christians (Act 26:12). His was courtesy to a superior; but a still finer ornament of manners, and of religion also, is courtesy to inferiors. And what a fine example of that is Boaz! It is with no cold looks, nor distant air, nor rough speech, nor haughty bearing, making his reapers painfully sensible of their inferiority–that they are servants and he their master–Boaz enters the harvest field. More beautiful than the morning, with its dews sparkling like diamonds on the grass, and its golden beams tipping the surrounding hills of Bethlehem, these morning salutations between master and servants! Loving him, they esteemed his interests their own. His conduct corresponded with his speech. Observe the eye of compassion he cast on Ruth. He paid as much honour to the virtues and feelings of this poor gleaner as if she had been the finest lady in the land. Behold true courteousness! This grace is a great set-off to piety. As such it should be assiduously cultivated by all who desire to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.
III. His piety. The Lord be with you–his address to the reapers on entering the harvest field–has the ring of sterling metal. What contrast Boaz offers to farmers we have known, by whose lips Gods name was frequently profaned, but never honoured–their servants, like their dogs and horses, being often cursed, but never once blessed! Like master, like man. Boaz almost never opens his mouth but pearls drop out. His speech breathes forth pious utterances. All his conversation is seasoned with grace; and, though the result of a Divine change of heart, how natural his religion seems!–not like a gala-dress assumed for the occasion–not like gum-flowers worn for ornament, but such as spring living from the sward–not like an artificial perfume that imparts a passing odour to a thing that is dead, but the odours exhaled by roses or lilies bathed in the dews of heaven. Nor was it only in the language of piety that his piety expressed itself. It did not evaporate in words. We have heard him speak; see how he acts! One night sleeping by a heap of corn, alone as he supposed, he wakes to find a woman lying at his feet. It is Ruth. Instructed by Naomi, she takes this strange Jewish fashion to seek her rights and commit her fortunes into his hands.
IV. His care for the moral and religious interests of his servants. Boaz in his own life set them an example of piety which could hardly fail to produce a favourable impression on their minds. Some are content to get work out of their servants; they take no interest in their souls–no more than if, like the cattle they tend, they had no souls at all. Unlike these, Boaz spoke to his servants as a God-fearing man. One who felt himself responsible to God and to their parents also, he charged himself with the care of their morals. This appears in the warnings and kind instructions he gave both to them and to Ruth. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Relations between employers and employed
The great operations which some in these days think fit to carry on, more for their own glory certainly than the good of their country or countrymen, entirely preclude anything like friendship between the chief and the multitude of his subordinates. It is impossible that a man who has a thousand under him should know and consider each, and there would be too much pretence in saying, God be with you, on entering a yard or factory when otherwise no feeling is shown with which the name of God can be connected. Apart altogether from questions as to wealth and its use, every employer has a responsibility for maintaining the healthy human activity of his people, and nowhere is the immorality of the present system of huge concerns so evident as in the extinction of personal goodwill. The work man, of course, may adjust himself to the state of matters, but it will too often be by discrediting what he knows he cannot have and keeping up a critical resentful habit of mind against those who seem to treat him as a machine. He may often be wrong in his judgment of an employer. There may be less hardness of temper on the other side than there is on his own. But the conditions being what they are, one may say he is certain to be a severe critic. We have unquestionably lost much and are in danger of losing more, not in a financial sense, which matters little, but in the infinitely more important affairs of social sweetness and Christian civilisation. (R. A. Watson, M. A.)
On the relations that subsist amongst the different classes of society in general, and in particular the intercourse between employers and operatives
How lovely is the picture of this Hebrew harvest field! It has often been remarked that the Bible, in its histories, doctrines, and precepts, is suited to all nations and all times. Though written by Jews, it is written for the world; though addressed chiefly to Israel, it is framed to suit mankind. To a monarchy in one age, and a republic in another, it gives forth its saving lessons without partiality and without embarrassment. The patriarchal institutes that prevailed in the time of Boaz were very different from the political constitutions of modern Europe. The subjection of the servant to his master which prevailed in those days was very different from the freedom and equal rights of all classes in our own land. Human happiness and misery do not turn on the form which the organisation of society may assume. It is a baptism by the Spirit that will sweeten and hallow the relations of life, whatever the external form may be into which they have been cast. In view of the condition and tendencies of society, what is the duty of a Christian patriot? He is not to whine idly for the return of the good old days, when society consisted only of two classes, kind masters and happy serfs; neither is he madly to plant himself in the breach, with the view of stemming and turning the advancing tide. Let believing men, whatever may be their views of the optimism in political organisation, fix it as an axiom in their minds that for the highest good of the species much more depends on the spirit which animates persons than on the forms which institutes may assume. Let all who hope in God and love their brethren act on this principle, and act together on it. Consider now, more particularly, the two features that characterised the intercourse between Boaz and his reapers. These are kindliness and godliness; there is love of men, and there is reverence of God.
I. Kindliness is greatly to be desired in the intercourse of employers and employed in our day. The master and the men must meet often for the transaction of business that is of common concern. If the meetings be devoid of kindness, they are unpleasant and injurious. How much we suffer from harsh, supercilious pride on the one hand, and dogged, discontented pride on the other! Here is a noble field for the philanthropist to labour on. He who shall increase the kindliness between operatives and their employers will be a benefactor of his race. All does not lie with the masters, but the initiative is with them. They have more in their power. We shall lose all the benefit of our vast machinery, it will be blighted by a curse, if we use living men as a part of it–if we make no distinction between the most wonderful work of God and these dead, mindless workers which our own hands have set up. Human brains have been weighed in the same balance with the dross that feeds the furnace! You take the girth of a mans soul, as you do of a wrought-iron piston, with the view of ascertaining the amount of propulsion that may be expected out of it. Both, and both alike, you put under the steam, and work them till they be worn. This is the ailment of society. Man is not a brother to man. The labourer should not fret against the employer as such. He is part of the organisation of Providence. We dont want this wheel that racks you taken out of the way. We want it oiled with holy human sympathy. But how shall we get such kindliness poured out upon the too, too sharp spirits of men, when the classes meet in a bristling array of mutual suspicion and defiance? We must go to seek it in the source of all good. The sympathy of which we have been speaking is the second commandment; in order to reach it we must climb up to the first. We must begin at the beginning (Ecc 12:13). We are thus brought to the other leading characteristic of the intercourse depicted in the text.
II. Its godliness. Look to the subject-matter of that kind mutual salutation, and you will find that master and men lived in the fear of God, and were not ashamed to own their religion in each others presence. The secret lies here. There would be more of human kindness amongst us if there were more of genuine faith in God. It is here that our defect lies. In great measure God is banished from history, from politics, from merchandise, from manufactures. God is not willing to be banished from any of His works. In Him we live and move and have our being. We do not propose that at your desks or your counters you should set aside your ledgers and commence a debate on systems of theology. Everything in its own time and place. There is such a thing as doing common business in a Christian spirit, walking about on earth like one who is going home to heaven. We are very low as to the existence of godliness in the heart; and we are still lower as to the manifestation of it in the ordinary intercourse of society. Very little of it is possessed; and even that little is not brought into exercise. We are persuaded that few masters are to be found at present who would not be ashamed to acknowledge a sinners hope in a precious Saviour in presence of their workmen; and comparatively few mechanics, who, if such an acknowledgment were made, would not openly sneer or secretly impute it to hypocrisy. The two classes distrust each other. Even the religion that they have they hide in each others presence. Alas, the only salve is by a tacit compact kept far away from the sores of society! The motions of the community are jarring and painful, because they are not softened by Divine grace. It is a short-sighted policy to shut up religion in churches and prayer-meetings, or even in households. Religion is intended for the world. The world has need of it. There cannot in the nature of things be a proper intercourse between human beings if the fear of God and the faith of the gospel do not pervade it. How can you treat a man aright when you have in view only the lowest part of his nature–the briefest period of his destiny? If all that your mind takes in regarding him be his work and his wages–the profit and loss in money of retaining or dismissing him–your treatment of him cannot possibly be right. It is only when you learn to take in the whole man that your conception can be accurate and your conduct wise. Conclusion:
1. Those who have no chief end for their souls, and no chief aim of their lives beyond things seen and temporal, bring no godliness to bear on the business of society. You cannot apply to a brother what you have not experienced yourself. One thing is needful. If you are not working for God, you are idle; if you have not gained your soul, you have lost all.
2. Those who are born from above bring too little godliness to bear on the common interests of life. (W. Arnot.)
Friendly co-operation between masters and men
Why do not employers take employes into their confidence? I know a gentleman very well who has over a thousand hands in his employ. I said to him some years ago, when there was great trouble in the labour market, How are you getting on with your men? Oh, he said, I have no trouble. Why, I said, havent you had any strikes? Oh, no, he said, I never had any trouble. What plan do you pursue? He said, I will tell you. All my men know every year just how matters stand. Every little while I call them together and say, Now, boys, last year I made so much; this year I make less; so you see I cant pay you as much as I did last year. Now I want to know what you think I ought to have as a percentage out of this establishment, and what wages I ought to give you. You know I put all my energy in this business and risked everything, put all my fortune in it and risked everything. What do you really think I ought to have, and you ought to have? By the time we come out of that consultation we are unanimous; there never has been an exception. When we prosper, we all prosper together; when we suffer, we all suffer together; and my men would die for me. Now, let all employers be frank with their employes. Take them into your confidence. Let them know just how matters stand. There is an immense amount of common sense in the world. It is safe always to appeal to it. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Religion in the harvest field
1. It is remarkable that those who stand prominently forward in the lineage of our Lord according to the flesh represent the varied callings and positions of the human race; as if He who was not ashamed to call us brethren had woven into the tapestry of His human scenes threads borrowed from every skein of life, that He might be, as it were, girt with the garment of our humanity, and consequently be able entirely to sympathise with us.
2. But whilst on the one hand our blessed Lord received into Himself according to the flesh streams from every source of human life, He manifested again in His life and works the scenes from which they flowed. So that there is no employment in life but what the labourer, be he monarch, priest, or peasant, may find a practical brotherhood in Christ, and derive lessons of instruction and comfort in the hours of toil from Him who was King of kings, our great High Priest, and had not where to lay His head.
3. The leading lesson which Boaz teaches us is the sanctity of every earthly occupation when pursued by the servant of God. The real greatness of any mans work consists in its being done according to the standard and limits of religion; and the absence of consciousness or religious expression is no sign of the unreality of real religious principle.
4. In the country, a large portion of whose population is agricultural, the conduct and character of the farmer or the landed proprietor is of no small consequence. He can improve or deteriorate the race of the labourer, he can elevate or depress multitudes of those around him, by the way in which he acts; and we are bound to believe that to a great degree God blesses the crops and the harvest according to the character of those connected with them.
5. The position of Boaz is one which silences all possible objections. He was no inferior farmer who could afford to be religious because he had not the opportunity of speculation, for he was a mighty man of wealth. He was not ashamed to recognise God, while, alas! how many amongst us of a similar class have not the courage to acknowledge to those they employ that they recognise God as the source and author of all that they possess. The example of the master will be followed by the man; if he puts religion forward in the front of his intercourse with his labourers, he will set the fashion to the field, the farmyard, and the cottagers home. The foreman will own God, and the reaper will catch the trick of reverence. It would seem as if some men imagined that some chance hand opened the womb of the teeming earth. It is to such men that God says, They did not know that I gave the corn; therefore will I return and take away My corn, I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees (Hos 2:9). But in the stately and almost sublime interview between Boaz and his reapers we find a practical suggestion also–why should not farmers not only recognise God and religion, but do something to realise the connection between God and themselves?
6. Another striking feature in the conduct of Boaz is the care that he takes of the purity of unmarried women when at work in his fields; for Boaz said unto Ruth, Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? Go not to glean in another field, but abide here fast by my maidens. It would almost seem as if the young men and young women worked in different fields. How lamentable is the contrast of a picture like this with that displayed by the estates of our farmers in seedtime, hay harvest and corn harvest. Imagine the long tale of shameful and miserable life that many a woman wrecked early on the quicksand of impurity has to tell upon her death-bed, and too often connects it all with the first hint given in the field in which Gods merciful hand was most singularly manifested in scattering His bounties.
7. But there is one more point full of instruction in the conduct of Boaz–his consideration of the gleaners. Some farmers close their gates altogether against the gleaner, and many are strict in their injunctions that but little shall be left for the poor. Yet surely the prayers of the poor, when genuine and honest, bring a blessing upon all around them, and what is given to them is but a loan to God. (E. Monro, M. A. )
Business to be sanctified by religion
Our forefathers symbolised a beautiful truth when in our old market towns they erected a market cross. As if to teach the buyers and sellers to order their actions and to sanctify their gains by the remembrance of a crucified Saviour. In the orders which God gave for the encampment of Israel during their pilgrimage to Canaan it was provided that every part of the camp looked towards the tabernacle. And thus God taught them ever to remember that He was in their midst, and that before Him they must walk day by day. (Aubrey C. Price, B. A.)
Piety with courtesy
Piety not only stands with humanity and civil courtesy, but also exacteth and requireth it (Mat 12:1-50.; 1Pe 3:8; Luk 10:5). God hath, His ethics, and commandeth good manners as well as good conscience. Affability and courtesy is the way to win others; mens minds are taken with it, as passengers eyes are with fair flowers in the springtide; whereas a harsh, sullen, sour, churlish conversation is very distasteful to all, galleth the best (witness David, 1Sa 25:1-44.), and openeth bad mens mouths to speak evil of religion. (J. Trapp.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. Boaz came from Beth-lehem] This salutation between Boaz and his reapers is worthy of particular regard; he said, Yehovah immachem, “Jehovah be with you!” They said, yebarechecha Yehovah, “May Jehovah bless thee!” Can a pious mind read these godly salutations without wishing for a return of those simple primitive times? The words may be thus paraphrased: “May God be with you, to preserve you from accidents, and strengthen you to accomplish your work!” “May God bless THEE with the increase of the field, and grace to use his bounty to the glory of the Giver!”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
They expressed and professed their piety, even in their civil conversation and worldly transactions; which now so many are ashamed of, and call it hypocrisy or vain ostentation thus to do.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Boaz came from Beth-lehem, andsaid unto the reapers, The Lord be with youThis pioussalutation between the master and his laborers strongly indicates thestate of religious feeling among the rural population of Israel atthat time, as well as the artless, happy, and unsuspecting simplicitywhich characterized the manners of the people. The same patriarchalstyle of speaking is still preserved in the East.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And, behold, Boaz came to Bethlehem,…. Into the field, to see how his workmen went on, and performed their service, and to encourage them in it by his presence, and by his courteous language and behaviour, and to see what provisions were wanting, that he might take care and give orders for the sending of them, it being now near noon, as it may be supposed; and though he was a man of great wealth, he did not think it below him to go into his field, and look after his servants, which was highly commendable in him, and which showed his diligence and industry, as well as his humility. So a king in Homer q is represented as among his reapers, with his sceptre in his hand, and cheerful. Pliny r relates it, as a saying of the ancients, that the eye of the master is the most fruitful thing in the field; and Aristotle s reports, that a Persian being asked what fattened a horse most, replied, the eye of the master; and an African being asked what was the best dung for land, answered, the steps of his master:
and said unto the reapers, the Lord be with you; to give them health, and strength, and industry in their work; the Targum is,
“may the Word of the Lord be your help:”
and they answered him, the Lord bless you; with a good harvest, and good weather to gather it in; and though these salutations were of a civil kind, yet they breathe the true spirit of sincere and undissembled piety, and show the sense that both master and servants had of the providence of God attending the civil affairs of life, without whose help, assistance, and blessing, nothing succeeds well.
q Iliad. 18. ver. 556, 557. r Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 6. s De Administrat. Domestic. l. 1. c. 6.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Kindness of Boaz to Ruth. | B. C. 1312. |
4 And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee. 5 Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? 6 And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: 7 And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. 8 Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens: 9 Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn. 10 Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? 11 And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been showed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. 12 The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. 13 Then she said, Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens. 14 And Boaz said unto her, At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left. 15 And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: 16 And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.
Now Boaz himself appears, and a great deal of decency there appears in his carriage both towards his own servants and towards this poor stranger.
I. Towards his own servants, and those that were employed for him in reaping and gathering in his corn. Harvest-time is busy time, many hands must then be at work. Boaz that had much, being a mighty man of wealth, had much to do, and consequently many to work under him and to live upon him. As goods are increased those are increased that eat them, and what good has the owner thereof save the beholding of them with his eyes? Boaz is here an example of a good master.
1. He had a servant that was set over the reapers, v. 6. In great families it is requisite there should be one to oversee the rest of the servants, and appoint to each their portion both of work and meat. Ministers are such servants in God’s house, and it is requisite that they be both wise and faithful, and show their Lord all things, as he here, v. 6.
2. Yet he came himself to his reapers, to see how the work went forward, if he found any thing amiss to rectify it, and to give further orders what should be done. This was both for his own interest (he that wholly leaves his business to others will have it done by the halves; the master’s eye makes a fat horse) and it was also for the encouragement of his servants, who would go on the more cheerfully in their work when their master countenanced them so far as to make them a visit. Masters that live at ease should think with tenderness of those that toil for them and bear the burden and heat of the day.
3. Kind and pious salutations were interchanged between Boaz and his reapers.
(1.) He said to them, The Lord be with you; and they replied, The Lord bless thee, v. 4. Hereby they expressed, [1.] Their mutual respect to each other; he to them as good servants, and they to him as a good master. When he came to them he did not fall a chiding them, as if he came only to find fault and exercise his authority, but he prayed for them: “The Lord be with you, prosper you, and give you health and strength, and preserve you from any disaster.” Nor did they, as soon as ever he was out of hearing, fall a cursing him, as some ill-natured servants that hate their master’s eye, but they returned his courtesy: “The Lord bless thee, and make our labours serviceable to thy prosperity.” Things are likely to go on well in a house where there is such good-will as this between master and servants. [2.] Their joint-dependence upon the divine providence. They express their kindness to each other by praying one for another. They show not only their courtesy, but their piety, and acknowledgement that all good comes from the presence and blessing of God, which therefore we should value and desire above any thing else both for ourselves and others.
(2.) Let us hence learn to use, [1.] Courteous salutations, as expressions of a sincere good-will to our friends. [2.] Pious ejaculations, lifting up our hearts to God for his favour, in such short prayers as these. Only we must take heed that they do not degenerate into formality, lest in them we take the name of the Lord our God in vain; but, if we be serious in them, we may in them keep up our communion with God, and fetch in mercy and grace from him. It appears to have been the usual custom thus to wish reapers good speed, Psa 129:7; Psa 129:8.
4. He took an account from his reapers concerning a stranger he met with in the field, and gave necessary orders concerning her, that they should not touch her (v. 9) nor reproach her, v. 15. Masters must take care, not only that they do no hurt themselves, but that they suffer not their servants and those under them to do hurt. He also ordered them to be kind to her, and let fall some of the handfuls on purpose for her. Though it is fit that masters should restrain and rebuke their servants’ wastefulness, yet they should not tie them up from being charitable, but give them allowance for that, with prudent directions.
II. Boaz was very kind to Ruth, and showed her a great deal of favour, induced to it by the account he had of her, and what he observed concerning her, God also inclining his heart to countenance her. Coming among his reapers, he observed this stranger among them, and got intelligence from his steward who she was, and here is a very particular account of what passed concerning her.
1. The steward gave to Boaz a very fair account of her, proper to recommend her to his favour, Rth 2:6; Rth 2:7. (1.) That she was a stranger, and therefore one of those that by the law of God were to gather the gleanings of the harvest,Lev 19:9; Lev 19:10. She is the Moabitish damsel. (2.) That she was allied to his family; she came back with Naomi, the wife of Elimelech, a kinsman of Boaz. (3.) That she was a proselyte, for she came out of the country of Moab to settle in the land of Israel. (4.) That she was very modest, and had not gleaned till she had asked leave. (5.) That she was very industrious, and had continued close to her work from morning even until now. And the poor that are industrious and willing to take pains are fit to be encouraged. Now, in the heat of the day, she tarried a little in the house or booth that was set up in the field for shelter from the weather to repose herself, and some suggest that it is probably she retired for her devotion. But she soon came back to her work, and, except that little intermission, kept close to it all day, though it was not what she had been used to. Servants should be just in the character and reports they give to their masters, and take heed they do not misrepresent any person, nor without cause discourage their master’s charity.
2. Boaz was hereupon extremely civil to her in divers instances. (1.) He ordered her to attend his reapers in every field they gathered in and not to glean in the field of another, for she should not need to go any where else to better herself (v. 8): Abide here fast by my maidens; for those of her own sex were the fittest company for her. (2.) He charged all his servants to be very tender of her and respectful to her, and no doubt they would be so to one to whom they saw their master kind. She was a stranger, and it is probably her language, dress, and mien differed much from theirs; but he charged them that they should not in any thing affront her, or be abusive to her, as rude servants are too apt to be to strangers. (3.) He bade her welcome to the entertainment he had provided for his own servants. He ordered her, not only to drink of the water which was drawn for them (for that seems to be the liquor he means, v. 9, drawn from the famous well of Beth-lehem which was by the gate, the water of which David longed for, 2 Sam. xxiii. 15), but at meal-time to come and eat of their bread (v. 14), yea, and she should be welcome to their sauce too: Come, dip thy morsel in the vinegar, to make it savoury; for God allows us not only nourishing but relishing food, not for necessity only, but for delight. And for encouragement o her, and direction to the servants, he himself, happening to be present when the reapers sat down to meat, reached her parched corn to eat. It is no disparagement to the finest hand to be reached forth to the needy (Prov. xxxi. 20), and to be employed in serving the poor. Observe, Boaz was not scanty in his provision for his reapers, but sent them so much more than enough for themselves as would be entertainment for a stranger. Thus there is that scattereth and yet increaseth. (4.) He commended her for her dutiful respect to her mother-in-law, which, though he did not know her by sight, yet he had heard of (v. 11): It has been fully shown me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law. Note, Those that do well ought to have the praise of it. But that which especially he commended her for was that she had left her own country, and had become a proselyte to the Jewish religion; for so the Chaldee expounds it: “Thou hast come to be proselyted, and to dwell among a people whom thou knowest not.” Those that leave all, to embrace the true religion, are worthy of double honour. (5.) He prayed for her (v. 12): The Lord recompense thy work. Her strong affection to the commonwealth of Israel, to which she was by birth an alien, was such a work of the divine grace in her as would certainly be crowned with a full reward by him under whose wings she had come to trust. Note, Those that by faith come under the wings of the divine grace, and have a full complacency and confidence in that grace, may be sure of a full recompence of reward for their so doing. From this expression, the Jews describe a proselyte to be one that is gathered under the wings of the divine majesty. (6.) He encouraged her to go on in her gleaning, and did not offer to take her off from that; for the greatest kindness we can do our poor relations is to assist and encourage their industry. Boaz ordered his servants to let her glean among the sheaves, where other gleaners were not allowed to come, and not to reproach her, that is, not to call her thief, or to suspect her of taking more than was allowed her, v. 15. All this shows Boaz to have been a man of a generous spirit, and one that, according to the law, considered the heart of a stranger.
3. Ruth received his favours with a great deal of humility and gratitude, and conducted herself with as much propriety in her place as he did himself in his, but little thinking that she should shortly be the mistress of that field she was now gleaning in. (1.) She paid all possible respect to him, and gave him honour, according to the usage of the country (v. 10): She fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground. Note, Good breeding is a great ornament to religion; and we must render honour to whom honour is due. (2.) She humbly owned herself unworthy of his favours: “I am a stranger (v. 10) and not like one of thy handmaids (v. 13), not so well dressed nor so well taught, not so neat nor so handy.” Note, It well becomes us all to think meanly of ourselves, and to take notice of that in ourselves which is diminishing, esteeming others better than ourselves. (3.) She gratefully acknowledged his kindness to her; though it was no great expense to him, nor much more than what he was obliged to by the divine law, yet she magnifies and admires it: Why have I found grace in thy eyes? v. 10. (4.) She begs the continuance of his good-will: Let me find favour in they sight (v. 13), and owns that what he had said had been a cordial to her: Thou hast comforted me, for that thou hast spoken friendly to me. Those that are great, and in high places, know not how much good they may do to their inferiors with a kind look or by speaking friendly to them; and so small an expense, one would think, they should not grudge, when it shall be put upon the score of their charity. (5.) When Boaz gave her her dinner with his reapers she only ate so much as would suffice her, and left the rest, and immediately rose up to glean, Rth 2:14; Rth 2:15. She did not, under pretence either of her want or of her labour, eat more than was convenient for her, nor so much as to unfit her for work in the afternoon. Temperance is a friend to industry; and we must eat and drink to strengthen us for business, not to indispose us to it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.
Rth. 2:4. And behold Boaz came. Not only to see the progress of the work, but also to take part in the entertainment provided for his labourers (Wright). The Lord [Jehovah] be with you. The first time this emphatic expression occurs in Scripture (Scott). Cf. Jdg. 6:12. The same salutation as that addressed by the angel to Gideon (Speakers Com.). The salutation one almost universally hears between the peasants in the fields are identical with those used by Boaz and his reapers (Dr. Porter). The Targum is, May the word of the Lord be your help.
Rth. 2:5. Then said Boaz [And Boaz said] unto his servant that was set over the reapers ; the land steward (Josephus). is not only used in its primary significance as a boy, but also in its more general meaning as a servant (Wright). Whose damsel is this? (LXX.). Cujus est haec puella (Vulgate). What nation is this girl? (Targum.) What is the news of this girl? (Syr.) What is the state of this maiden? (Arab.) It seems that Boaz found her resting in the tent where the reapers took their meals (cf. Rth. 2:7-14).
Rth. 2:6. It is the Moabitish maiden. Or she is a Moabitish maiden, who came back with Naomi, etc. (Lange). Thus taken, the answer does not assume that Boaz is acquainted with the return of Naomi, The E.V. may, however, be justified by taking as a participle (cf. Ges. Rth. 3:2, a) (ibid.) [cf. on Rth. 1:22]. Boaz had heard of her, and had been much interested in her history (Rth. 2:11), but he had not seen her before, so that this was their first meeting (Steele and Terry.)
Rth. 2:7. And she said. And she has said (asked). Pray I will glean [i.e., pray allow her to glean] (Keil). And gather among the sheaves [Greek, handfuls]. The Israelites appear generally to have made up their corn into sheaves (Kitto), cf. Gen. 38:7; Lev. 23:10-15; Job. 24:10, etc. In the most ancient times, however, the corn was plucked up by the roots, and in Egypt at this day, barley and dourra are so gathered. Wheat as well as barley does not grow half so high as in England (Russell). So she came, and hath continued. And has come and stays (here) from morning till now (Keil). And she has gleaned from morning even to resting (Syr,). The LXX. renders it freely: And she came and stood from morning till evening, and rested not even a little in the field. That she tarried a little in the house. Thus her sitting in the house is but for a little (Lange); i.e., she has been sitting in the house as you see her now, only for a short time (Wright). Boaz, it would seem, had remarked Ruth sitting in the cottage or tent in which the reapers were accustomed to rest themselves and to take their meals (ibid.). Wordsworth thinks it hardly probable, that she would have entered a tent of the reapers, and translates rather as to her stay in the house, that is little; i.e., she spares herself no time to go home for rest and refreshment. Her sitting in the house that is little (Keil). Evident from this answer,
(1) that Boaz did not prohibit any poor person from gleaning in the fields;
(2) that Ruth asked permission of the overseer, and availed herself of that permission, with untiring zeal from the first thing in the morning;
(3) that her history was well known to the overseer, and also to Boaz, although Boaz sees her now for the first time (ibid.).
Rth. 2:4
Theme.THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MASTERS AND SERVANTS
It is a kind of good deed to say well;
And yet words are not deeds.Shakespeare.
Large-hearted souls that turn with love
To all beneath and One above:
To heaven they constant bow the knee,
And prove them Gods nobility.B.
And behold Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord [Jehovah] be with you, etc.
Now that Ruth is in the field, the plans of Divine Providence are not completed until Boaz has been led there. Note. (a) Providence is the execution of the Divine decree, always infallible and well-timed (Macgowan). How opportunely it brought Pharaohs daughter to the infant Moses; Ahasuerus to have that part of his chronicles read which concerned Mordecai (Est. 6:1-2); Pharaoh to dream when Joseph is to be delivered from prison. A similar guidance to be recognized in connexion with the text. [See on Rth. 2:3.] Note. (b) Gods thoughts are above ours, and He so orders our actions as we, if we had known, should have wished (Bishop Hall). Looking back, how often do we see that He has not only given us the thing that is best for for us, but brought about events even as we ourselves could have desired.
Remark,
I. On the character of a righteous man as illustrated here. Boaz seen in the text as
(1) diligent in business,
(2) fervent in spirit. Rich but religious, a rare bird (Trapp).
Mark his industry. Did not sit at home, and leave his affairs to his servants. There is an overseer [a land stewardJosephus] but everything is not left to him. Not one of those who are ashamed to be seen in the fields with his labourers. No! he goes to inspect, to oversee, to direct, to look well after his business affairs. An example (a) to masters. No eye like the masters. If a man would thrive, let him do his business himself (Toller). Careful personal superintendence not only necessary, but beneficialwork performed more rapidlyvast waste prevented, etc. (Braden). (b) To ministers. Oportet Episcopum conscionantem mori (Bishop Jewell).
Again mark his benevolence and kindness to a stranger (Rth. 2:8-16), as well as the courtesy and piety expressed here. The salutations are earnest prayers. Like every good man, he carries a devout atmosphere about with him wherever he goes, into the cornfield as well as into the closet. Note, (a) Real goodness will display itself in every relationship of life. Naaman, although a heathen, appears to have showed kindness to his servant (2Ki. 5:1-3). Our faith barren, unless it make itself seen in the character and the life. If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere (Beecher). Note. (b) Good men will pray for a blessing upon those around them, especially those of their own household. The Lord be with you! This address, with the response, is one of the earliest examples of family prayer (Wordsworth).
Remark,
II. On the right relationship between master and servants, as illustrated here. They must be very depraved men who are not faithful servants and sincere friends to such masters as Boaz. Even publicans, says our Lord, love those who love them (Lawson). Note. Good masters generally make good servants. Treat men with kindness and courtesy, and they will return it, as here. The just demeanour of their master, refined by humility, controlled these (Lange).
Observe,
(1) The mutual respect and good-will between master and servant expressed in these salutations. The picture a very beautiful one, the master praying a blessing upon his servants, the servants in return praying a blessing upon their master. Can a pious mind read these godly salutations without wishing for a return of those simple, primitive times? (Adam Clarke.) Note. (a) Christians are to bless, and curse not. Religion requires rather than prohibits these salutations [cf. Mat. 10:12; Joh. 20:26; Luk. 1:28; Psa. 129:7-8, etc.], so that our greeting be sincere. It is to be neither that of an Absalom (2Sa. 20:10) nor a Judas, but free from guile, and without hypocrisy. (b) A sign of an ungenerous nature to be outvied with courtesy (Fuller). Charity hopeth all things, and if they [whom we salute] be not sons of peace, our peace returneth to us (Trapp). Those passages, as 2Ki. 4:29, and Luk. 10:4, which the Anabaptists formerly quoted against Christians saluting each other, to be explained by the haste of the messenger, etc. (Bernard).
Observe,
(2) The harmony between employer and employed. The secret of it to be found in the joint dependence upon the Divine providence expressed. The Lord, etc. Living faith in God is the best bond between master and workman; preventing a wrongful use of power on the one side, and presumptous insubordination on the other (Lange). Note. Only a true Christian can make either the highest type of master or of man. Until men are inspired by Gods love until they have confidence in each other as religious men, there will be neither mutual sincere courtesies, nor any profound trust in each others dealings (Braden).
This happy relationship expressed in the text useful, if only by way of contrast. Class alienation our countrys greatest curse (Braden); little of genial unity between employers and employed; the breach between capital and labour seriously widening (ibid.). Where is the cure? Laws, however wisely framed, can never altogether amend relationships which depend upon mutual esteem and good-will. The cure must go deeper than the realm of law. Is to be found alone where Christianity promises it, in the regeneration of human nature itself.
IMPROVEMENT.
(1) Let us learn to use (a) courteous salutations as expressions of a sincere good-will (M. Henry). (b) Pious ejaculations, lifting up our hearts to God for His favour (ibid.) upon ourselves, our friends, households, servants, etc.
(2) See how grace humbles the heart, teaches men to be sociableis the very cement of society. It makes mighty men of wealth not above their fellows (Macgowan). Among the Moslems, the salutation. a sign of their brotherhood in religion, and their actual equality before God (Kitto). We may go to the East to learn how the poor may be treated with courtesy, and be continually reminded, in every passing form of speech, of their natural and religious brotherhood (ibid.).
It appears safe to conclude that the inn of Joseph and Mary was the inn of Jeremiah; and if it was the inn of Jeremiah, it was also beyond doubt the house of Chimham, and consequently it was presumably the house which had once been that of David and Ruth.
Every hint afforded by the Bible narrative as to local fact and local colour helps to prove that the birthplace of David, and that the khan, or residence of Jesse, in which the two men were born, stood here in Bethlehem, on the very ridge now crowned by the Church of the Holy Nativity. As the shape of the ridge, and its relation to Jerusalem imply, the spot on which the house of hospitality would stand must have been a little below the town, at the junction of roads coming up the great valleys on a spot lying below the gates and above the fields; in fact, the very ground on which the inn of Jesus stood, and on which the church and convent of the Grotto stand.
Here, then, where by all analogies we should seek it, the Bible tells us that the house of Boaz stood on the green slopes some paces below the town, between the gates and the cornfields. Ruth, living in the town with Naomi, had to go down into these fields as the gleaners go down now (Rth. 3:3), the descent from the hill on which the city is built to the fields being sharp.Hepworth Dixons Holy Land.
So a king, in Homer, is represented as among his reapers, with his sceptre in his hand, and cheerful, Pliny relates it, as a saying of the ancients, that the eye of the master is the most fruitful thing in the field; and Aristotle reports, that a Persian being asked what fattened a horse most replied, The eye of the master; and an African being asked what was the best dung for land, answered, The steps of the master.Gill.
Say to a Turk according to custom, May your morning be propitious! he replies, May you be the pledge of God! Ask a Turk, Is your health good? he answers, Glory be to God! Salute him, as you pass him rapidly in travelling, he exclaims, To God I commend you! and is answered, May God be with you!Hartley.
The pious, affectionate language interchanged between him and his reapers, and which appears to have been familiar to them, shows that there were many godly persons in Israel, notwithstanding national defections; and it beautifully illustrates the genuine effect of true religion in producing affability in superiors, and respect and affection in inferiors, and mutual unaffected goodwill in all. It is lamentably true that such language as this is seldom heard in our fields, while the bounty of Paradise is gathered in, but frequently the reverse; yea, whatever can inflame the passions and corrupt the morals; so that a stranger, who should be occasionally present, would be apt to form a very different opinion of the religion of England, than Ruth did of that of Israel, from the conversation and conduct of Boaz and his reapers.Scott.
If a civil word or two will make a man happy, said a French king, he must be wretched indeed who will not give them to him.Dictionary of Illustrations.
Observe, courteous and loving salutations beseem Christians. Indeed, our Saviour (Matthew 10) forbade His disciples to salute any in the way; but His meaning was that they should not lag or delay, whereby to be hindered from the service wherein they were employed. And St. John, in his second Epistle, saith, that to some we must not say God speed, lest we be made partakers of their evil deeds; but that is meant of notorious sinners, which have discovered their impious intents. It is commonly said that the smallpox is not infectious until it be broken out, so that before the time one may safely converse, eat, drink, lie with them; but after the pox is broken out it is very dangerous; so we may safely salute and exchange discourse with the most wicked sinners, whiles yet they smother and conceal their bad designs; but when once they declare and express them, then it is dangerous to have any further familiarity with them.Fuller.
Piety not only stands with humanity and civil courtesy, but also exacteth and requireth it (Matthew 12; 1Pe. 3:8; Luk. 10:5). God hath His ethics, and commandeth good manners as well as good conscience. Affability and courtesy is the way to win others; mens minds are taken with it, as passengers eyes are with fair flowers in the springtide; whereas a harsh, sullen, sour, churlish conversation is very distasteful to all, galleth the best (witness David, 1 Samuel 25), and openeth bad mens mouths to speak evil of religion.Trapp.
This was a real prayer from the mouth of Boaz. It is too common with men to say God be with you, when God is not in their thoughts. The name of God is profaned when it is used without consideration. It is reported of the great philosopher Boyle, that he never mentioned the name of God without making a visible pause in his discourse. All good things are requested in this prayer, The Lord be with thee. Gods presence and favour will satisfy our souls, will supply every want, will turn sorrow into joy, and the shadow of death into the morning. But without Gods presence and blessing, the richest confluence of sublunary blessing will leave us wretched and miserable, poor and blind and naked.Lawson.
These salutations are well paraphrased by Dr. A. Clarke:May God be with you to preserve you from accidents, and strengthen you to accomplish your work, May God bless thee with the increase of the field, and grace to use His bounty to the glory of the Giver. They impress us as beautiful indications of the pious and simple courtesy of the ancient Hebrew people. Such salutations, both between equals and superiors and inferiors, are still common in the East, but a Moslem will not thus knowingly hail one of another religion.Steele and Terry.
Men must strive to understand each others position, to look upon it with broader sympathies, to learn that the interest of master and servants cannot be separated. For this class alienation is our countrys greatest curse, and must prove utterly disastrous to the prosperity of its commerce and the growth of its social well-being.Braden.
Where a pious and brave spirit like that of Boaz pervades the community, social questions and crises do not arise; for external laws can never restrain the inward cravings of the natural man. But where the landed proprietor, in his relations to his people, is governed by other principles than those of self-interest, and cares also for their moral and religious development; where, further, the labourer understands that an increase in wages is not necessarily an increase of peace and happiness; where, in a word, the consciousness of an omnipresent God regulates the uprightness and care of the one, and the honesty and devotion of the other; there, no artificial solutions of conflicts between capital and labour will be required. Boaz lives in God, and therefore knows what duties of faith and love are obligatory upon him.Lange.
I think it looks as if Boaz and his servants were really on friendly terms, and had one anothers interests at heart; he was pleased to see them cheerful and happy, and they to see him prosperous; he piously wished a blessing upon their labours, and they devoutly returned a benediction upon his substance.Fuller.
The master of the great household of the world gives us an example of the case, whose eye is in every corner of his large possession. Not civility only, but religion, binds us to good husbandry. We are all stewards, and what account can we give to our Master, if we never look after our estate? I doubt whether Boaz had been so rich if he had not been so frugal, yet was he not more thrifty than religious. He comes not to his reapers but with a blessing in his mouth, the Lord be with you, as one that knew if he were with them, and not the Lord, his presence could avail nothing. All the business of the family speeds the better for the masters benediction. Those affairs are likely to succeed, that take their beginning at God.Bishop Hall.
Rth. 2:5-7
Theme.ATTENTION TO THE STRANGER AT THE GATE
The fragrant sheaves of the wheat
Made the air above them sweet;
Sweeter and more divine
Was the scent of the scattered grain,
That the reapers hand let fall
To be gathered again
By the hand of the gleaner:
Sweetest, divinest of all,
Was the humble deed of thine,
And the meekness of thy demeanour.Longfellow.
Then said Boaz Whose damsel is this?
And the servant that was set over the reapers answered, etc.
And she said, I pray you [thee] let me glean, etc.
A finer picture of rural harvest-scenes is nowhere extant. We hear, as it were, the rustling of the reapers sickles (Lange). The interest, however, here, as always, centres in the human elements of the picturemost of all, in Ruth pursuing her humble and lonely task, a stranger in a strange land. Possibly the poets words are only too true, where he speaks of
The sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.Keats.
Rural life not that paradisiacal thing Virgil contrasts so enthusiastically with the luxuriant life of Rome (Lange). Even in Israel a gleaner, conspicuous by her foreign garb, may have been in danger of insult (Rth. 2:9). Only when a pious and Godfearing spirit rules in the heart of proprietor and dependants, is it good to live amid the quiet scenes and rewardful toil of the country (Lange). Only then the chaste dwelling preserves virtue [casta pudicitiam servat domus] (ibid.). The text gives a fine example of the best aspects of rural life, where religion comes in to soften and refine its usual asperities.
Observe,
I. The prompt attention as well as careful although courteous bearing towards a stranger on the part of the master.
(1) Prompt attention. The Hebrew law held a master, in some measure, accountable for the stranger at his gate [cf. Exo. 20:10]. Nehemiah recognized this responsibility (Neh. 13:16-22). So does Boaz in the text. He does not wait for information, but asks at once, Whose damsel is this? An example (a) to masters and heads of households, which followed, will assuredly bring its own reward, as here. Be not forgetful, says the Apostle, to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares (Heb. 13:2). (b) To ministers. One of the complaints of modern worshippers is, that they come and go from the sanctuary unheeded; no one making inquiries concerning them or their welfare; no one doing for years what this fine old Hebrew gentleman did at once, and in a spirit which lifted it above all possibility of being misunderstood. Even Eli, although mistaken, was not indifferent to the stranger in the sanctuary (1Sa. 1:1-18). Note. No man careth for my soul, a terrible inditement, if true, against any Christian church or community.
(2) Carefulness. Boaz, in doing good, evidently would know the persons and recipients; who they are, whence they came, whether they were worthy or not. A modern tendency to be lax on all these, and kindred points, rebuked here. True that God sends His rain upon the just and the unjust, that the wicked are not to be left to perish in times of want; but also true, that the Church has a special duty towards its own [cf. Gal. 6:10; Luk. 24:47, etc.]. Charity is to begin at home, as well as to begin with the worthy, though it is not to remain there. Note. Strict inquiry should be made respecting those damsels who glean in the field of gospel ordinances. Whose are they, Gods or Satans? (Macgowan.)
Observe,
II. The ready and unhesitating answer on the part of the steward.
Mark,
(1) He answers without hesitation; can give a ready account of those whom he has suffered to glean in his masters fields. Evidently he has performed his duty as overseer diligently and faithfully, as one who may at any moment be called to an account by the master. An example (a) to servants, (b) to church officers, elders, deacons, ministers, etc. Note. Church stewards ought to be capable of giving an account of those they suffer to partake of her bounty (Macgowan).
(2) He makes no attempt at concealment. Had done nothing but what he knew the master would approve. His kindness to the damsel had not made him unfaithful to his master; nor did his faithfulness to his master make him surly to the poor (Macartney).
(3) He is just and accurate in the account he gives. He neither misrepresents nor overstates,a model steward. Faithful in that which is least, in that which simply concerns a poor gleaner, he is likely to be faithful also in much. A contrast to the unjust steward mentioned by our Lord (Luke 16).
(4) He displays a kindly and considerate spirit. Little did he think that this damsel was his intended mistress (Macgowan). But, like master, like servant. He had caught some touch of the generous and considerate spirit which belonged to Boaz; he knew his masters benignity, and imitated it. Honourable of him, that he at once recommends Ruth by praising her diligence (Lange). Note. The well-disposed will praise virtue wherever they see it.
Observe,
III. That which made this attention and kindness on the part of master and servant of value in the case of Ruth.
(1) She was a stranger, one of an alien race, a Moabitish damsel. Kindness, sympathy, slight attentions of especial value to such. [Example, Mungo Park and the African women.] This gave her, too, a special right to gather the gleanings of the harvest (Lev. 19:9-10). Even the law pointed out the stranger as one not to be forgotten and overlooked by the benevolenthow much more then does the gospel! Ruths position illustrates that of many to-day, just coming into similar relationships with the Church of God. Note. All are Moabites by birth, who glean in the gospel fields (Macgowan).
(2) She was a proselytehad left all for Naomi and Naomis God. This evidently procured her favour in Israel, and ought to have done so. Note. Such deserve the deepest sympathy and the warmest welcome from the Church of Christ. Only those who have passed through the same, or a kindred ordeal, can understand what it means, this tearing oneself away from old associations and affections, for the sake of a new principle, possibly to be met with coldness and even distrust and prejudice.
(3) She was humble and modest in her behaviour. Not merely the natural charm and grace of her presence, not merely her modest and reserved bearing, not merely the fact that she was a foreigner, makes her conspicuous; the narrative reveals other and more sterling qualities: (a) gratitude (Rth. 2:10), (b) humility. Did not glean until she had asked leave: I pray you let me, etc. (Rth. 2:7). Little did she think that this rich field was to become her own. Note. In all this she is a type of the true convert. What mean thoughts have such of themselves when they come first to glean in the gospel fields! (Macgowan.) They cannot think they have a right to the handfuls, much less to the sheaves, less still that the field is their own; and least of all, that the unsearchable riches of the owner are theirs (ibid.).
(4) She was diligent and unsparing of herself. Gleaning not a dignified employment, but she evidently did it thoroughly and heartily. Note. (a) There should be fidelity, heartiness, thoroughness, sincerity, honest truthfulness, in the minutest things (Beecher). [Example, Phidias; see extracts.]
Mark her constancy, too, in industry. Not merely diligent at first, as many, but all day long. A type of those who are really and truly Christs, We are His if we continue in well-doing, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end (Heb. 3:14). Ruth continued in her labour from the morning till now, till night, till the end of the harvest (Fuller). Oh that we could imitate her constancy in the working out of our salvation! not only to be industrious in the morning, when we first enter into Christianity, but to hold out and to persevere even to the end (ibid.).
Again, observe on the other hand, as taught here, that rest is a necessity with the most urgent and diligent. Allowed and blessed of heaven (Psa. 127:2). True Christians, however, feel like Ruth, that they must be up and doing; her resting in the house is but for a little [see Crit. and Exeg. Notes]. They feel emphatically that to-day is for work; to-morrow, the to-morrow of eternity for rest.
Eraden on this (Rth. 2:5-16) condensed:
Theme.INTRODUCTION TO A FUTURE WIFE
Divine Providence led Ruth into that particular harvest-field, and under the same mysterious guidance, Boaz directs his steps thither. Judging from the subsequent history, may we not say, that God designed this meeting in order that the two might become husband and wife? The truth of the proverb (not always applicable, however,) that marriages are made in heaven, illustrated here.
1. Notice here Boazs introduction to His future wife. As he enters the field, he notices a stranger,his curiosity aroused, little dreaming what consequences would follow. May have been attracted by the beauty of her face, by her industry in the field, or her Moabitish dress. Inquires Whose damsel is this? (Rth. 2:5.) The reply shows how well known, and equally appreciated is her behaviour to her mother-in-law. Evidently the universal theme of conversation. Good deeds done modestly need no trumpeter, they are speedily recognised.
(2) Notice the first conversation between this future husband and wife. Ruth, absorbed in her work, heard not Boaz speaking to her (Rth. 2:8-9). Note how sensitive, thoughtful, and delicate his offer. He makes provision that she shall not only be unmolested, but refreshed (Rth. 2:9). Seems a little thing to do, but character is shown more in small than great deeds. The needy often deeply touched by trivial gifts. Ruth deeply moved. Why have I found grace? etc. (Rth. 2:10). Has no vanity, no pride; she knows how to receive a gift. Does not regard this generosity as a right, nor accept it with grim sullenness. Evidently Naomi has told the story of her daughter-in-laws fidelity, love, and self-sacrifice. An Israelite, like Boaz, devotedly attached to Bethlehem, appreciates the intensity of affection which could so unreservedly forsake the home of childhood and the associations of youth,a rare instance of high virtue (Rth. 2:12). Did not, however, let his admiration rest in fine utterances of praise, but gives substantial proof of its sincerity in gifts. His sympathy and benevolence unlike that described by Jas. 2:15-16. His kindness exquisitely delicate. He will not offend her sense of independence, so practises a little harmless deception. She shall gather much, and go home fancying her abundance is the result of her own industry. The secret of judicious giving is to help the poor in all possible ways, and not destroy the proud and noble virtue of self-reliance. Indiscriminate charity has produced the pauperism, and lazy beggardom under which society so grievously suffers.
(3) Observe how Ruth won his affection. Not by art, stratagem, nor, perhaps, even by her personal beauty. But by her virtues, by her faithful attachment to a poor, distressed mother-in-law, by her steady industry, by her sweet humility, and above all, by her love to the God of Israel. In all this Ruth an example to English maidens. Unfortunately, many seek husbands, if husbands do not seek themattempt to catch them by meretricious guile and superficial qualities.
(4) Notice where Ruth won the affection of Boaz. In the harvest-field. Engaged in common and humble tasks. A hint as to the best place in which to estimate a womans virtue: not in the ball-room or the music-hall, not in the excitement of a holiday or of the social party, not on the Sunday and in company, but in the quiet routine of her ordinary life. This followed, and there would be fewer mistakes made in matrimonial alliances. Look for a wife, not amongst those who gad about in ostentatious grandeur, nor amongst those whose chief amusement is gossip and flirtation; but seek one whose gentle, unassuming manners, industrious habits, and filial affection, will ensure a happy future, and make a real home. Beware of marrying a slothful woman, or one who speaks against her parents, or one who does not lovingly perform all home duties. Essentially true that a good daughter makes a good wife.
Thus the Saviour comes to visit His earthly field, and calls the servants to account for their charge. He walks amidst the candlesticks, and holds the stars in His right hand. His ministers watch for souls as they who must give an account. Not the poorest stranger is unnoticed, or forgotten by Him. It is a blessed thought. The Saviour sees. The poor, the lonely, the neglected, in all their needs and sorrows, are marked by His eye. The poor widows two mites were not forgotten. The Syro-Phnician was not sent away. Bartimeus was not despised. Lazarus was not rejected. Jesus may be considered as asking His ministers continually, of one and another in their flock, Who is that? And they should be able to reply. He will call them at last to an account for all, and for every soul entrusted to them they must answer.Tyng.
To create and maintain a familiar and intimate acquaintance with the members of the flock committed to him is a most important instrument of usefulness to a faithful pastor.Ibid.
The first thing required in stewards is, that a man be found faithful to his employer; but it is also a good property in a steward to be humane towards his lords servants, and towards all that have any dependence upon him for employment or favours. The man that was set over the reapers of Boaz had already shown such favour to Ruth as it was the part of a steward to do, and by his answer to his masters question concerning her, he was a means of procuring her such favour, as a steward could not confer without permission. Words fitly spoken may do much good, and indicate good sense and good disposition in the speaker.Lawson.
Let masters, therefore, in choosing the stewards to be set above the rest, take such as are qualified, like Jethros description of inferior judges (Exo. 18:21), men of courage, fearing God, dealing truly, hating covetousness. And however they privilege them to be above the rest of their servants, yet let them make them to know their duty and their distance to their masters, lest that come to pass which Solomon foretelleth (Pro. 29:21): He that bringeth up his servant delicately in his youth will make him like his son at the last. Let stewards not be like that unjust one in the Gospel, who made his masters debtors write down fifty measures of wheat, and fourscore measures of oil, when both severally should have been a hundred; but let them carefully discharge their conscience in that office wherein they are placed; whilst inferior servants, that are under their command, must neither grieve nor grudge to obey them, nor envy at their honour. But let this comfort those underlings, that if they be wronged by these stewards, their appeal lies open from them to their master, who, if good, will no doubt redress their grievances.Fuller.
No sooner is she come into the field, but the reapers are friendly to her. No sooner is Boaz come into the field, but he invites her to more bounty than she could have desired. Now God begins to repay into her bosom, her love and duty to her mother-in-law. Reverence, and loving respect to parents, never yet went away unrecompensed; God will surely raise up friends amongst strangers, to those that have been dutiful at home.Bishop Hall.
Had a sister Moabitess met her in this employment, and inquired what it was that could urge her to it, she would have answered her as Elger von Hohenstein did his brother, who, finding him away from his castle and its life of ease, engaged in taking care of the poor, exclaimed, Alas, my brother! what are you doing? What distress compels you to this? sir brother mine, was the answer, distress compels me not; but the love of Christ my Lord constrains me.Lange.
Observe, that what happened to Ruth is analogous to what happened to us. For she was a stranger, and had fallen into the extremest distress; but Boaz, when he saw her, neither despised her poverty, nor contemned the lowliness of her family. So Christ took up the Church, and chose the stranger, who lacked the most necessary possessions, for His bride. But as Ruth would never have attained to such a union had she not previously left her parents and given up people, home, and kindred, so the Church also does not become dear and deserving in the eyes of her Bridegroom until she has left her ancestral (heathen) morals and customs.Chrysostom.
Even the greatest, in respect of God, is but a gleaner. God, He is the Master of the harvest; all gifts and graces, they are His, in an infinite measure; and every godly man, more or less, gleans from Him. Abraham gleaned a great glean of faith; Moses, of meekness; Joshua, of valour; Samson, of strength; Solomon, of wealth and wisdom; St. Paul, of knowledge and the like. Now, if we would be glad at our hearts that the Lord would give us free leave and liberty for to glean graces out of His harvest, let us not grudge and repine that poor people glean a little grain from our plenty. To conclude: when God hath multiplied our five loaves, that is, when of our little seed He hath given us a great deal of increase, let poor people, like Ruth in the text, be the twelve baskets which may take up the fragments of gleanings which are left.Fuller.
The plume-like waving of the autumn corn,
By soft winds to a dreamy motion fanned,
Still bring me back thine image, O forlorn,
Yet not forsaken, Ruth! I see thee stand,
Lone midst the gladness of the harvest-band,
Lone as a wood-bird on the oceans foam,
Fallen in its weariness. Thy fatherland
Smiles far away! Yet to thy sense of home,
That finest, purest, which can recognise
Home in affections glance, for ever true,
Beats thy calm heart; and if thy gentle eyes
Gleam tremulous through tears, tis not to rue
Those words immortal in their deep loves tone,
Thy people and thy God shall be mine own.
Mrs. Hemans.
It is related that when Phidias, the great sculptor, who carved statues for one of the temples in antiquity, was labouring with minute fidelity upon the hair on the back of the head of one of the historic figures, which was to be elevated from the pavement to the very apex of the building, or placed along the frieze, some one expostulated with him, saying, Why do you take such great pains with the hair? it is never to be seen. His simple reply was, The gods will see it. So he laboured thoroughly in the minutest things, not for the eyes of men, but for the eyes of the gods.Beecher.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(4) The Lord be with you.There is a trace here of the good feeling prevailing between Boaz and his servants. Though he has come to his field to supervise the work, it is not in a fault-finding spirit, but with true courtesy and friendliness; nor is it a frivolous jesting manner that he displays, but with gravity and soberness he presents a true gentleman in his intercourse with his inferiors.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Boaz came from Beth-lehem His dwelling was in the city and his grainfield some distance out in the neighbouring country.
The Lord be with you The Lord bless thee These salutations are well paraphrased by Dr. A. Clarke: “May God be with you to preserve you from accidents, and strengthen you to accomplish your work!” “May God bless THEE with the increase of the field, and grace to use his bounty to the glory of the Giver!” They impress us as beautiful indications of the pious and simple courtesy of the ancient Hebrew people. Such salutations, both between equals and superiors and inferiors, are still common in the East, but a Moslem will not thus knowingly hail one of another religion.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘ And, behold, Boaz came from Beth-lehem, and said to the reapers, “YHWH be with you.” And they answered him, “YHWH bless you.”
Being a good man Boaz came to see how the reaping was going, and greeted his reapers with the words, ‘YHWH be with you’ (compare our ‘goodbye’ which means ‘God be with you’). They in return called down on him the blessing of YHWH. We are intended by this to see Boaz as a godly man. Note that in the Hebrew it literally reads, ‘YHWH be with you — bless you, YHWH’ with the Name of YHWH forming an inclusio. YHWH is brought into the centre of the situation.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Rth 2:4. Boaz cameand said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you We are authorised by the events of this history to conclude, that none of them happened by chance, but by the immediate interposition of God. Happy they who in all their ways acknowledge him, and in every state, however low, repose themselves on his all-sufficient care. The present scene affords us a pleasing instance of the simplicity and religion of ancient times, when the masters were wont to pray God to prosper the honest labours of those whom they employed, and when the labourers, in return, offered up their prayers for their masters. Heathens themselves practised this duty: they would not put the sickle to their corn till they had invoked their goddess Ceres. See Virgil, Georg. lib. 1: ver. 2:347. How strongly does such a practice reprove the profane impiety of too many masters and labourers in the field!
REFLECTIONS.We have here an account,
1. Of Boaz, whose name is famous in the following history. He was a near kinsman of Naomi, an inhabitant of Beth-lehem, a man of great wealth and generosity. He had heard of her return, though Naomi, out of modesty, and unwillingness to trouble her rich relations, seems not to have made him acquainted with the distress of her circumstances. Note; (1.) The worthless are importunate and clamorous, while the deserving are modest and silent. (2.) Many have rich relations, for whom they are little the better. (3.) It is a sure mark of a proud unthankful heart to overlook or disregard poor relations.
2. Of Ruth the Moabitess, whose character shines with distinguished lustre under the severest pressures of poverty; for such has God chosen, poor in this world, but rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom: and now that faith is tried, whether she can prefer the land of Israel, with all the inconveniences that she suffers, to the plenty she might have enjoyed in Moab. We hear no mention of the least desire in her to return: though unused, probably, to such a method of procuring her living, her mind is conformed to her circumstances. She is willing, not only to work for her own bread, but also to maintain her aged mother. In order to this, she asks leave to go and glean in any field, where she might, through the master’s kindness, be admitted. Her mother, pleased with such an instance of filial piety, affectionately permits her to go. Note; (1.) None know to what straits they may be reduced. It is not good to be brought up too delicately. (2.) To be content under the pressures of poverty is a blessed evidence of a faithful heart. (3.) They who know the value of their souls will prefer Christ and a crust to all the affluence and glory of the world without him. (4.)
They who are poor have need to be thankful for the least favour shewn them. (5.) Industry in young people is highly commendable; and never came there any good from an idle hand.
3. She happened to light on Boaz’s field, God directing her thither for purposes of his own glory. Note; Circumstances, which to us appear utterly fortuitous, proceed under the peculiar Providence of God: and from the most unexpected incidents, he can bring about the greatest events.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 280
BOAZ AND HIS REAPERS
Rth 2:4. And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.
EVERY season suggests to us some appropriate considerations: and even the most common incidents of life are capable of affording us very important instruction. Certainly, at first sight, a mans intercourse with his reapers would not promise much for spiritual edification: but the address of Boaz to his people, and their reply to him, were altogether so different from what is usual in our day, that we shall find our time not unprofitably employed in the investigation of them.
I.
Their mutual address is the first thing to be considered
It may be understood in a two-fold view;
1.
As a friendly salutation
[It seems probable that, if not at that time, yet in after ages, this kind of address was common in the time of harvest [Note: Psa 129:7-8.]. But, as used on this occasion, it deserves peculiar notice; both as expressing great condescension and kindness on his part, and as evincing much respect and gratitude on theirs. Boaz, it must be remembered, was a mighty man of wealth [Note: ver. 1.]: and therefore any notice from him might be deemed an act of condescension, and more especially this, which conveyed to their minds such a sense of paternal love. And their reply argued a becoming feeling of filial respect. Into how many fields might we go, before we heard such greetings as these! How much more frequently might we hear complaints respecting the work, on the one part; and murmuring concerning the wages, on the other part! Notwithstanding the superior advantages we enjoy, and the higher attainments which, in consequence, we might be expected to make in every thing that was amiable and praiseworthy, how uncommon an occurrence should we deem it, if we chanced to witness such greetings in the present day! The true picture of modern life may be drawn in those words of Solomon, The poor useth entreaties; but the rich answereth roughly [Note: Pro 18:23.].]
2.
As a devout benediction
[From the piety evinced by Boaz, we may well suppose that these benevolent expressions, on both sides, were not a mere customary form; but a real desire, in the bosoms of them all, for their mutual welfare in reference to the eternal world. How lovely was the address, how suitable the answer, in this view! It is remarkable, that the Apostle Paul begins and ends almost every epistle with prayers and benedictions, expressive of his love for the souls of men. And such ought our correspondence to be, even when the main subject of our letters refers to temporal concerns. Such, too, should be our daily intercourse with friends and servants, in the house, or in the field. Who does not admire this interview between persons so distant in rank, yet so allied in spirit? Let us, then, cultivate the spirit here manifested: for, verily, if it universally obtained, we should enjoy almost a heaven upon earth.]
II.
The next point for us to consider, is, What instruction we should gather from it
We may learn from it,
1.
That the blessing of God is our chief good
[This, under any view of their expressions, is evidently implied. The wealth of Boaz, if he had possessed ten thousand different estates, would have been of no real value without the blessing of God; and with that, the men who laboured in reaping down his fields were truly rich. It is the light of Gods countenance which is the only solid good [Note: Psa 4:6.]: In his presence is life; and his loving-kindness is better than life itself [Note: Psa 30:5; Psa 63:3.].]
2.
That religion then appears in its true colours, when it regulates our conduct in social life
[It is in vain for a man to pretend to religion, if in his daily converse with the world he do not manifest its power to transform the soul. What is the knowledge even of an angel, without love? What the faith that could remove mountains? What the zeal that could give all our goods to feed the poor, or even our bodies to be burnt for Jesus sake? We speak advisedly when we say, that in the full possession of all these excellencies we should be no better than sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, if we were not under the habitual influence of love [Note: 1Co 13:1-3.]. Know ye, Brethren, that your religion must be seen, not in the church or in the closet only, but in the shop, the family, the field. It must mortify pride, and every other evil passion; and must bring forth into exercise all the mind that was in Christ Jesus [Note: Php 2:4-5.]. Try yourselves by this standard: see what you are, as husbands or wives, parents or children, masters or servants. See whether you possess the courtesy of Boaz, or the respectful love of his reapers. It is in this way that you are to shine as lights in a dark world. It is in this way that you are to put to shame the specious pretences of politeness, and the feigned humility of those who are candidates for earthly honour: your courtesy must be the genuine offspring of Christian benevolence; and your whole deportment, a visible exhibition of your Saviours image.]
And now, not as a master to his servants, but as a father to his children, I say, The Lord be with you! And may there be in all of you a responsive voice, imploring the blessing of Almighty God on him, who truly, though unworthily, seeks your welfare.
The Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee.
What a beautiful picture is here given of the simplicity of ancient times, in the pious salutations which passed between Boaz and his servants. What an evident proof it affords, that both were living under divine influences. Oh! how exceedingly to be desired, that such was the usual salutation between masters and servants in the present day! How lovely that house, that family, that service, which is endeared to one another in the several members of it, and cemented in God’s blessing. There is another charming instance of it recorded in Psa 129:8 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Rth 2:4 And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD [be] with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee.
Ver. 4. And, behold, Boaz came from Beth-lehem. ] To look to his country business, as a good economist: his eyes are on the servants, on the reapers, on the gleaners. Maiores fertilissimum in agro oculum domini esse dixerunt; a our ancestors were wont to say, that the master’s eye maketh the ground most fruitful. The master’s footsteps, saith one in Aristotle, are the best manure for the farm. b And, Procul a villa sua dissitus iacturae vicinus, said Cato: The farther from thy business, the nearer to loss. Boaz had a bailiff of his husbandry, A , as Josephus calleth him, careful and painful; and yet we find him not only looking to, but even lodging in the midst of his hinds. Rth 3:7 ; Rth 3:14
The Lord be with you The Lord bless thee.] Piety not only stands with humanity and civil courtesy, but also exacteth and requireth it. Mat 10:11 1Pe 3:8 Luk 10:5 God hath his ethics, and commandeth good manners as well as good conscience. Affability and courtesy is the way to win upon others; men’s minds are taken with it, as passengers’ eyes are with fair flowers in the spring-tide; whereas a harsh, sullen, sour, churlish conversation is very distasteful to all, galleth the best, witness David, 1Sa 25:10-13 and openeth bad men’s mouths to speak evil of religion, as if it were an enemy to comity and courtesy – as if it removed it, whereas it only rectifieth it, and prescribeth to it, by restraining flattery and treachery.
The Lord bless thee.
a Plin., lib. viii. cap. 6.
b Domini vestigia stercus optimum. – Arist. Oecon., lib. i.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
they answered. This tells of a time of peace, prosperity, and quiet.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 10
The Congregation Of The Lord
“And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee. Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens: Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.”
Rth 2:4-9
In these verses we follow Ruth, the Moabite stranger, from the field of Boaz into his house. There are many instructive lessons to be learned from the reception that was given her. In this study, I want to show you some of the privileges and responsibilities of being a part of Gods house as they are illustrated by Ruths coming into the house of Boaz.
RUTH FOUND HER PLACE IN BOAZS HOUSE AS THE RESULT OF HUMBLE OBEDIENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD.
You will remember that she had humbly taken her place as a gleaner in the fields, because that is what God in his law prescribed as a means of the poor continuing to provide for themselves. Being obedient to the Word of God, she was guided by the hand of divine providence to the field of Boaz and then to the house of Boaz.
That is always the case with Gods saints. If a person walks in the light God has given him, God will give him more light. If you take the Word of God to be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path, if you follow the Book of God, it will guide you in paths of righteousness and lead you to the place of blessedness (Psa 19:7-11; Psa 119:9).
IN THE HOUSE OF BOAZ THE ONLY PROMINENT PERSON WAS BOAZ HIMSELF.
No prominence, honor, or distinction was given to anyone but Boaz. Even the servant who was set over the reapers is left nameless in the Scriptures, because he is really not important. He as only a servant.
So it is in the house of God. Only one person is exalted in the Church of God. Only one person is recognized as pre-eminent in the house of God. Only one name is honored in the household of faith. Honor, recognition and pre-eminence is given to no man but the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. We call no man holy, or reverend, because no man is. That name belongs only to our God (Psa 111:9). We call no man master, or doctor, or father, because we are all simply brethren (Mat 23:6-12).
WHEN A SINNER IS SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD IN CHRIST, HE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY SEEK HIS PLACE IN THE CONGREGATION OF THE LORD.
Sheep are social creatures. The only time you find a sheep alone is when he is sick or wounded. Gods sheep are social creatures too. Believers need one another. As soon as a person is saved he should, like Saul of Tarsus, join himself with the disciples (Act 9:27). Every saved sinner ought to be committed to one of the churches of God, one of the churches of the saints (1Co 11:16; 1Co 14:33).
Some things happen to people immediately when they are saved. As soon as a person is united to Christ by faith, as soon as you trust the Son of God, you are, or you have been immediately
Forgiven of all sin by His grace (1Jn 1:9).
Justified from all things by Christs righteousness and shed blood (Act 13:39).
Born again and made a new creature in Christ (1Pe 1:23; 1Jn 5:1).
Given the place of a son in the house of God (1Jn 3:1; Eph 2:19).
Sinners are born into the family of God, not by natural birth, but by the grace and power of God the Holy Spirit (Joh 3:5-7). You are born into the church universal, the mystical, spiritual body of Christ. You do not join it.
However, every saved person ought to seek his or her place in a local church, which is the house of God, the congregation of the Lord, the pillar and ground of the truth. Nothing is more important in the life of a believer than the worship of God in his house (Heb 10:24-26). Nothing is more detrimental to the lives of men and women who bear the name of Christ than the neglect of Gods house (Hag 1:4-6; Zec 8:9-15).
Two things, and only two things, are required for membership in the House of God. Throughout the New Testament, we see sinners brought into the fellowship of Gods church, seeking and being admitted into that fellowship only if they possessed these two things.
Those who are received as brothers and sisters in the house of God must believers, they must possess, by their own profession, they gift of faith in Christ. Nowhere in the New Testament were people received into the fellowship of the saints, or recognized as brethren who did not personally profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everywhere in the New Testament, believers baptism was also required for admission into the fellowship of the saints.
I am aware that most people think these are insignificant, controversial matters, about which we dare not be very dogmatic. That simply is not that case. These are matters of plain, clear revelation, about which we must not compromise. It takes only a casual reading of the book of Acts to see them plainly set before us (Act 2:41-47; Act 8:37; Act 9:18; Act 10:48; Act 16:31-33) All who trust Christ are to confess their faith in him by believers baptism. And all who come into the house of God professing faith in Christ are to be received without doubtful disputations (Rom 14:1; Rom 15:6-7). The house of God is to be a place where the Lords newborn babes may receive the love, care, protection, guidance, oversight, instruction and companionship they need.
The house of God, the Church of God, ought to be like the house of Boaz, an attractive, pleasing haven for weary strangers. When Ruth came to the house of Boaz, she found it to be a household of generous, kind, gracious people. She was attracted to the house, not because of its greatness, grandeur and gold, but because of the grace displayed in the people who dwelt there. We preach grace – The free gift of Gods best to those who deserve his worst. Let us make certain that we practice grace. If the grace that we proclaim with our lips is not practiced in our lives, it is not likely that we will see much result from our preaching. Love one another. Forgive one another. Bear one anothers burdens. Be kind to one another. Rejoice with one another. Put away envy, jealousy, and peevishness. In other words, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God (Eph 4:30). The church of God is not here to entertain sinners on their way to hell; but we are here to serve the souls of eternity bound sinners for the glory of God. We offer no attractions to the flesh. But we do offer two attractions to weary strangers: a message of grace and a fellowship of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.
THE PERSON WHO GETS THE MOST ATTENTION IN THE HOUSE OF GOD SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE ONE WHO NEEDS THE MOST ATTENTION.
When Boaz came to Bethlehem to greet his reapers and to sit with them in his house, two things stand out. First, Very gracious salutations were given by Boaz to his servants and by the servants to Boaz (Rth 2:4). The words, The Lord be with you and The Lord bless thee, contain all that could be desired by us. Boaz (the type of Christ) pronounced all the blessings of grace upon his servants (typical of Gods saints in this world). Then, those servants so blessed of God as to be his servants blessed Boaz, wishing him alone to be exalted.
Second, a very gracious condescension was made (Rth 2:5 – Boaz condescended to look upon Ruth and ask, Whose damsel is this? There were many, many maidens in the fields; but Ruth was the newcomer. Ruth was the stranger. Ruth was the one who needed attention. And she got it. This question was put to his servant that was set over the reapers. He represents the pastor, the gospel preacher, whose responsibility it is to know the people to whom he preaches, to know what they need, and to give account of them to God (Heb 13:17; Jer 3:15).
BOAZ TOOK GREAT CARE TO PUT RUTH AT EASE IN HIS HOUSE.
He seems to have gone out of his way to make her feel welcome, at home, and comfortable. Knowing she was a stranger, knowing she probably felt very uncomfortable, he took care to make her comfortable – Hearest thou not, my daughter? As we have seen, he spoke to his young men about her in her presence; and he spoke directly to her for her comfort. So it is with our Lord (Isa 40:1-2). In his house, he speaks about chosen sinners in their presence. Then he speaks directly to them by the power and grace of his Spirit, applying the Word effectually to his own; and he does it for the everlasting comfort of their souls..
THE TITLE WHICH BOAZ GAVE TO RUTH IS VERY SIGNIFICANT.
My Daughter – This title placed her upon the footing of the highest privilege and greatest blessedness in the household. Even so, all who come to God by faith in Jesus Christ are the children of God (Rom 8:17; Eph 1:4-6 Gal 3:26; Gal 4:6; 1Jn 3:1). All the rights and privileges, all the possessions and prospects of the house of God belong as fully to the youngest and weakest member of the family as to the oldest and strongest. This title, daughter, also indicates a permanent relationship. When we talk about the family of God, we are talking about a family circle that will never be broken. God will never disown his own. He will not let us leave them. No enemy can ever carry them away, not even one of them!
BOAZS FIRST WORDS TO RUTH INDICATE THAT WHICH OUR GOD REQUIRES AND EXPECTS, AND DESERVES FROM ALL HIS CHILDREN (Rth 2:8-9).
The house of Boaz was something separate and distinct from all the other houses of the land, and he was determined to keep it that way. He told Ruth what her service and occupation was to be. He said, Glean in my fields and drink at my wells – Go not to another field. He even told her who her companions were to be. – Abide by my maidens! It mattered not whether they pleased her. They pleased him. It was her duty to love them, to serve them, and to serve Boaz with them. The lessons for us should be obvious. We who are born of God are to separate ourselves from the people of this world, particularly from their ways and their religion, and devote ourselves to the people of God (2Co 6:14-18; 1Jn 4:21; 1Jn 5:1). As she gleaned in his fields, drank at his wells, and followed after his maidens, Boaz promised Ruth all the protection of his wealth and power in his house (Heb 3:6).
If we have been given the privilege of a rightful place in the house of our God, let us carefully fulfill our own place in the house. Let us make our companions these people. We must endeavor not to drop your part of the load. Let us seek to serve, not to be served. And let us always take care to give special attention to those who need special attention.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
A Greeting in Harvest
And, behold, Boaz came from Beth-lehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.Rth 2:4.
1. The greeting took place at Bethlehem. There are two towns of that name mentioned in the Old Testament. This is Bethlehem of Judah. It is situated about six miles south and west of Jerusalem, on a ridge which rises to a height of 2550 feet above sea-level, and falls away in terraced slopes on all sides, the descent to the north and east being specially steep. The terraces, as they sweep in graceful curves round the ridge from top to bottom, give to the little town the appearance of an amphitheatre, and serve to make to the approaching traveller a picture which closer acquaintance does not wholly disappoint.1 [Note: T. Nicol in the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, i. 195.]
Bethlehem is still the house of bread, as its name means, and the way to Bethlehem is still through fields of barley in April as it was in the days of Boaz. A quarter of a mile below the town, on the slope of the hill, the traditional site of the threshing-floor of the great Hebrew farmer is pointed out to the visitor; and its authenticity is exceedingly probable, for it is just in the place where the Bible narrative prepares you to look for it. We read in the advice which Ruths mother-in-law gave to her that she said of Boaz, Behold, he winnoweth barley to-night in the threshing-floor. Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the threshing-floor. Now threshing-floors are always in the same field where the corn or barley is reaped; for all the threshing and winnowing processes in the East, owing to the fineness of the weather, are done in the open air; and they are always in the highest part of the field which is most exposed to the wind, so that in winnowing the chaff may be blown away from the grain. You might therefore have expected that Naomi would ask her daughter-in-law to go up to the threshing-floor. But her words are true to the local peculiarities, which are different from those of other places. The town of Bethlehem covered the whole top of the hilly ridge on which it was built. It occupied the highest ground in the country, so that any place round about was lower than itself; consequently there was no room for a threshing-floor on the heights where it would naturally be situated. The threshing-floor of Boaz, like his farm, had to be formed at a lower level, in some such declivity as the traditional spot. Ruth had therefore to go down to it, as the sacred narrative tells us; and this little coincidence confirms in a most interesting and unexpected manner the local accuracy of the Bible writer, and shows that he must have written, not from imagination, but from having lived on the spot, and thus having been familiar with its peculiar features.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan.]
2. It was the time of barley harvest. It was a beautiful April day, and the barley-fields of Boaz below the town of Bethlehemthis crop being always the first to ripen in Palestine as in our own countrywere lying golden under the blue cloudless sky, and the reapers had begun with their sickles to cut it down. It was a picturesque sight, full of colour and animation; the light blue and red dresses of the womenwhich are exactly the same now as in the days of Ruthcontrasting with the yellow grain and glowing with intense vividness in the brilliant sunshine. It was a scene that an artist would have loved to paint; as indeed it has often been painted, for who does not remember some artistic representations of Ruth among the alien corn?
She stood breast high amid the corn
Claspd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripend;such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veild a light,
That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:
Sure, I said, Heavn did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.1 [Note: Thomas Hood.]
Perhaps nothing links us more closely with generations that are past and with races long departed than the yearly operations of the harvest. Social customs are varied in many lands and differ widely among distinct nations. Society frames one set of rules for its protection in this country and another in that, and so diverse are these conventionalities that what would be the strictest etiquette in one land would sometimes be the grossest outrage in another. It is hard for us, with our modern ideas and western modes of thought, to enter into the spirit of many social and domestic customs of the Egypt of the Pharaohs, or even the Rome of the Csars. We even find it hard, unless we dwell long among them, to understand the ways of our continental neighbours to-day. But when we come to consider the operations of the harvest in almost any land or any age, we seem to stand on familiar ground. Change and variety show themselves here also, it is true. Machinery has made a vast revolution in our methods of agriculture. The primitive practices of former years would only produce a smile of contempt if employed in England to-day. But for all that we are on familiar ground when we read the story of the harvests of other days. In the main, the operations of to-day are the same as those of generations long fallen asleep. The same ploughing and harrowing, the same sowing and reaping, the same threshing and winnowing, the same process repeated again and again as years roll on, link us with all lands and all ages in a bond of brotherhood. The Saviours parables of the cornfields might almost have been uttered by Him without change of language in our own cornfields to-day. The grain of wheat found in the wrappings of the mummy brings us more closely into touch with the Egypt of olden times than the mummy itself. The harvest-field seems to be the meeting-point, the common ground, of all civilized races and all generations. Elsewhere they may be divided; but in gathering their bread men are one.
Even so is it when men are brought into relationship with Him who, as a corn of wheat, fell into the ground and died, that He might produce the harvest of world-wide salvation. The Bread of Life is the common need of man, and in gathering that Bread, in seeking and following that one Saviour, men are ever drawn more closely to each other. Apart from Him they may be separated, scattered, divided, hostile; in Him they become brethren; they are all one in Christ Jesus.
3. The intercourse of Boaz with his reapers shows us that the relations between them were not commercial but patriarchal. He took a warm interest in themselves and their doings, and they in turn were kindly affectioned towards him. He not only supervised the work of his servants, but gave them assistance in it. He partook of the same food with them, and quenched his thirst from the vessels which the young men had drawn for common use. It was no niggardly hand that dispensed the provisions of the harvest-folk; and an injunction was given to the reapers to allow the poor strange gleaner to glean even among the sheaves where the ears were more plentiful, and to let fall handfuls of the grain on purpose that she might pick them up innocently and increase her store.
I have been interrupted by the visit of a lady of my congregation, who came to take leave; one, it appears, who has been warmly attached to the instruction given there. She told me the delight, the tears of gratitude, which she had witnessed in a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave a kind look on going out of church on Sunday. What a lesson! How cheaply happiness can be given! What opportunities we miss of doing an angels work! I remember doing it, full of sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it; and it gave an hours sunshine to a human life, and lightened the load of life to a human heartfor a time!1 [Note: F. W. Robertson, Life and Letters, 210.]
There was a time, not so long ago, when the same simple and generous manners prevailed in Scotland among the agricultural class: when those who tilled the soil together fared alike, and masters and servants sat at the same table without any sense of incongruity or unfitness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The harvest-field was looked upon as a kind of communion-table in which master and servant recognized their common dependence upon the bounty of the universal Father, and acknowledged the sameness of their human nature and the sameness of their wants and destinies. And we cannot imagine that this kindly custom, any more than the sitting down together of master and servant at the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in the church, and partaking together of the holy symbols, lessened the respect of the servant for the master, or weakened the interest of the master in the servant. So far from putting either of the parties out of their proper place, it drew the relation between them closer, and imparted to it a more gentle and sacred character, of which neither could possibly take advantage. And assuredly, if the employer in every case treated his workmen as Boaz treated those who laboured in his harvest-field, there would be fewer grievances to complain of between them.1 [Note: Hugh Macmillan.]
I give thee joy! O worthy word!
CongratulateA courtier fine,
Transacts, politely shuffling by,
The civil ceremonial lie,
Which, quickly spoken, barely heard,
Can never hope, nor een design,
To give thee joy!
I give thee joy! O faithful word!
When heart with heart, and mind with mind
Shake hands; and eyes in outward sign
Of inward vision, rest in thine;
And feelings simply, truly stirred,
Emphatic utterance seek to find,
And give thee joy!
I give thee joy! O word of power!
Believe, though slight the tie in sooth,
When heart to heart its fountain opes
The plant to water that with hopes
Is budding for fruitions flower
The word, potential made, in truth
Shall give thee joy.
Shall give thee joy! Oh, not in vain,
For erring child the mothers prayer;
The sigh, wherein a martyrs breath
Exhales from ignominious death
For some lost cause! In humbler strain
Shall this poor word a virtue bear,
And give thee joy!2 [Note: Clough, Poems, 3.]
4. Boaz came down from his residence in the town to see how the harvest work was going on, and his salutation to his people and their response show to us a state of things truly idyllic. In all the beautiful story there is not a finer touch than this devout and fervent greeting between master and servants in the barley-field. It is a most charming picture of the simple piety and pleasant manners of the early days. It appeals to the heart and quickens the imagination.
(1) What a fine example of courtesy does the greeting offer. It was with no haughty airs or rough speech that Boaz entered the harvest-field that lovely April day, bringing a shadow over the innocent gladness of the reapers, and giving them a painful sense of their inferiority. The Lord be with you, was his courteous salutation; and they, with the reaping-hooks in their hands, and the sweat of honest labour streaming from their faces, paused in their toil among the golden sheaves, and standing up respectfully welcomed him with the equally courteous response, The Lord bless thee.
Something that abode endued
With temple-like repose, an air
Of lifes kind purposes pursued
With orderd freedom sweet and fair.
A tent pitchd in a world not right
It seemed, whose inmates, every one
On tranquil faces bore the light
Of duties beautifully done,
And humbly, though they had few peers,
Kept their own laws, which seemed to be
The fair sum of six thousand years
Traditions of civility.1 [Note: Coventry Patmore.]
(2) The courtesy is not a superficial thing; for it is the outcome of consideration. In the story of this old-world harvest there is the mutual kindliness of disposition pervading the scene. Master and men seem alike interested in each others welfare. The employer shows a kindly spirit towards those in his service, and they reciprocate it in the expression of good wishes for their masters prosperity. The Lord be with you. The Lord bless thee. There is kindliness, and mutual benediction, and identity of interests in that harvest-field.
How little regard some masters have for the feelings of their dependants! What rough and harsh language do they address to thema cowardly as well as an unchristian thing; for the servants cannot retaliate without the risk of losing their situation. It is of the very essence of Christianity to be tender and considerate, and so to regulate our speech and behaviour that those who are under us may manifest their individuality, act in character, and forget their inferior condition. And no one who loves the Lord Jesus, who humbled Himself and became our servant, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and so made service the highest dignity and blessedness of life, can possibly act otherwise than in the same spirit of meekness and tender courtesy towards others; with that gentleness which makes those who serve us try to do their best, and makes them great and not mean in their own hearts; which arouses them to a truer self-respect, and leads them into a higher life. The master is as much indebted to the servant as the servant is to the master; even more, if we consider that the servant gives time and health and strength and skill, in return for wagesthe life for the means of livingthings for which no money can be equivalent, and which can only be repaid in kind by courteous treatment and kindly sympathy and consideration.
It is related of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, the hero of Aboukir, that, mortally wounded, he was carried on board one of his ships and a soldiers blanket placed under his head. He expressed relief, and then asked whose blanket was at his head. Only a soldiers blanket, was the reply. Whose blanket, did you say? he queried earnestly. Only one of the mens, came the reply a second time. I wish to know the name of the man to whom this blanket belongs, he persisted. It is Duncan Roys, of the Forty-second, Sir Ralph. Then, said the dying general, see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night. He will be cold without it, and I shall not need it then.1 [Note: G. C. Peck, Old Sins in New Clothes, 269.]
It is not wise as a rule to make comparisons between classes, but I am inclined to think that if it comes to the spirit of courtesy, which lies behind all manners, respectable working people, say, our artisans and their wives, will make a better show than their masters and their wives. They will be less concerned about their own dignitywhich is always a sign of vulgarity; they will have more regard to the claims of other people; they will be more anxious not to hurt anothers feelings, and they will be quicker to render services in the little exigencies of life; and all this is the fruit of courtesy. Were any woman (and I count this a perfect test) travelling with a young child and some articles of luggage, it would be better for her as a rule to take a place in a third-class rather than in a first-class carriage. The chances are that the richer peopleunless they gathered from something she said or from her name upon a dressing-case that she was a person of distinction, in which case they would take any trouble in exact proportion to their own meannesswould eye her with displeasure, convey to her that the child was a nuisance, ignore the struggle with her luggage, and make her glad to leave the compartment. Were she to travel with an artisan and his wife, they would bid her welcome, and make her feel at home, and anticipate her wants and encompass her with observances, because she was a lonely woman with a child. And the service of a woman and a child is more than mannersit is the climax of courtesy.1 [Note: John Watson, The Homely Virtues, 165.]
Nothing becomes a lady better than courtesy; and as to this word, let not the vulgar herdpoor wretches!be deceived, who think that courtesy is only another name for open-handedness; for to be open-handed is not courtesy in general, but a special form of it. Courtesy is the same as goodness; for, inasmuch as in the courts of old virtue and good manners were cultivated (as to-day their contraries are), this term was derived from the word court, so that courtesy meant the usage of the court. But if it were to be derived from the courts of the present day, especially in Italy, it would only be another term for what is base.2 [Note: Dante, Convivio, II. ii. 5468, tr. by Toynbee.]
Livingstone treated every black man as if he were a blood-relation. He saluted the poorest with a very pleasant smile, and raised his gold-laced cap (the badge of his high office) a little above his head. Before the poorest African he maintained self-restraint and self-respect as carefully as in the best society at home.3 [Note: Life of James Stewart of Livingstonia, 90.]
Once when Dr. Stewart and Mr. Mzimba were travelling together to attend a meeting of Presbytery, they had to spend a night at a wayside inn. Knowing that hotel-keepers as a rule do not give up a bedroom to a native, Dr. Stewart, after being shown his room, asked the landlady what accommodation Mr. Mzimba was to have. Oh, she said, I will let him sleep in the loft outside. Well, well, was the quiet rejoinder, just let me see the place. They were taken to the loft above the stable. Dr. Stewart turned to Mr. Mzimba and said, in presence of the landlady, You go and occupy my room, and I will sleep here. Oh, no, was her reply, I cannot allow that. But I insist upon it, continued Dr. Stewart; if you have no bedroom in the house to give my friend, he must take my room. The upshot was that Mr. Mzimba was shown into a comfortable room. During many years this landlady told this wonderful story to her guests. It seemed to have been the only experience of the kind she had known.1 [Note: Life of James Stewart, 274.]
(3) But there is more than courtesy and consideration in the greeting. There is genuine piety. We are struck most of all by the religious spirit which pervades the salutation. No doubt the words were the common Eastern salutation. Be it so. They still compare very favourably with many of our own salutations, and are vastly different in spirit from the language occasionally heard in the harvest-field to-day. They may be even the more significant because they were phrases in such ordinary use. A mans commonplace remarks will reveal his character more than his more studied and formal speeches.
Boaz, as we see in the course of the whole narrative, was habitually a devout man. He set the Lord always before his eyes, and acknowledged him in all his ways; and therefore it was a perfectly natural thing for him to introduce Gods Name into the midst of his ordinary pursuits. He felt that it was by Gods blessing that the barley crop had grown and ripened under the favouring heavens, until the reapers were now cutting it down with their sickles, and piling up its golden sheaves on the field. And with his own lips and language Boaz set before his servants an example of piety so beautiful that they could not but admire and imitate it.
The master blesses the men, and the men bless the master. It is like our church service, where the priest and the people mutually pray for one another: The Lord be with you, And with thy spirit. And indeed, perhaps, that very verse and response were in the first place taken from this simple salutation of Boaz and his reapers. They little thought, when with kind and devout hearts they so bade good day to each other, that they were setting a pattern for a holy service, which the Church of God, guided by His Spirit, would take up from them and use for ever. Yet so it is. They have somewhat of the same honour given them as David in the Old Testament, the blessed Virgin, Simeon, Zacharias, and others in the Newthe honour of having their words appointed to be used by all Christians in their solemn offices of praise and thanksgivingone of the greatest honours, surely, on this side the grave.1 [Note: J. Keble.]
Abraham reckoned the servants of his household as so many souls. He valued them by what was best in themthe distinctively human and immortal part. A modern master or farmer reckons his servants as so many hands. He values in them only what subserves his purpose, and holds the rest as of no account; therefore it need not be wondered at that men so rated sometimes behave in a manner as irrational as if they were hands and not souls, and break out into those lawless revolts which convulse industry and are disastrous to all concerned. Long experience as well as Scripture teaches us that he who feareth not God regardeth not man; that the fear of God is the only sure foundation of truth among men in their dealings with one another; and that where this fear is absent the issue is invariably want of mutual confidence and selfish alienation. The brotherhood of man must grow out of and be nourished by the same root as the Fatherhood of God. The commandment is binding, is absolute, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
The world in these days is full of loud assertion about rights. But in the Bible we read not about rights, but about duties. He to whom all rights belong came not to assert any rights, but to fulfil all duty, and He says, I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Sin is the great divider between man and man, for its essence is selfishness. Christ came to do away with sin by His own death, and to unite us to God and to one another in Himself. He draws men to each other by drawing them to God in Himself. Looking, then, on their servants, made in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of Christ, not as hands but as souls, and regarding the workers themselves as more valuable than their work, their thoughtful minds and sensitive hearts as more precious than anything produced by the labour of their handslet masters say, We seek not yours, but you. And so the gracious greeting of the master to his servants will ever be, in the workshop and in the market-place and in the field, The Lord be with you, and the gracious response of the servants will inevitably be The Lord bless thee.
Literature
Bardsley (J. W.), Illustrative Texts and Texts Illustrated, 294.
Dawson (J. E. le S.), Lenien Readings on the Book of Ruth, 40.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, xiii.end, 97.
Macmillan (H.), Jesus in the Cornfield, 23.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons preached in a Religious House, ii. 346.
Perren (C.), Seed-Corn for the Sower, 498.
Sowter (G. A.), Sowing and Reaping, 118.
Churchmans Pulpit: Harvest Thanksgiving, 37, 40 (Macmillan).
Plain Sermons by Contributors to Tracts for the Times, vi. 197.
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
The Lord: Psa 118:26, Psa 129:7, Psa 129:8, Luk 1:28, 2Th 3:16, 2Ti 4:22, 2Jo 1:10, 2Jo 1:11
And they: Rth 4:11, Gen 18:19, Jos 24:15, Psa 133:1-3, 1Ti 6:2
Reciprocal: Gen 47:10 – General Num 6:24 – The Lord Deu 6:7 – shalt talk Jdg 6:12 – The Lord Rth 3:10 – Blessed 1Sa 13:10 – salute him 2Sa 13:25 – blessed 2Ki 4:18 – to the reapers 1Ch 2:51 – Bethlehem Jer 31:23 – The Lord Mat 2:5 – General Luk 2:4 – unto Rom 15:33 – be
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Rth 2:4. And said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you, &c. Such was the piety of ancient times, that it manifested itself even in mens civil conversation and worldly transactions, and induced them to pray to God for a blessing on the labours of those whom they saw to be honestly and usefully employed, who were wont in return to pray in a similar manner for them. The Lord be with you; and the Lord bless you This was the beautiful language of religion in those days; too little known, alas! in ours.