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sense) in Bethlehem, and Ruth must have led a very retired life, never seeking company
or compassion, since Boaz requires to be informed who the Moabite damsel was. But
though a stranger to her personally, the story of Ruth was well known to Boaz. Seen in
the light of her then conduct and bearing, its spiritual meaning and her motives would at
once become luminous to Boaz. For such a man to know, was to do what God willed.
Ruth was an Israelite indeed, brave, true, and noble. She must not go to any other field
than his; she must not be treated like ordinary gleaners, but remain there, where he had
spoken to her, "by the maidens," so that, as the reapers went forwards, and the maidens
after them to bind the sheaves, she might be the first to glean; she must share the
privileges of his household; and he must take care that she should be unmolested.
It is easier, even for the children of God, to bear adversity than prosperity, especially if
it come after long delay and unexpectedly. But Ruth was "simple" in heart; or, as the
New Testament expresses it, her "eye was single," and God preserved her. And now, in
the altered circumstances, she still acts quite in character with her past. She complains
not of her poverty; she explains not how unused she had been to such circumstances;
but she takes humbly, and with surprised gratitude, that to which she had no claim, and
which as a "stranger" she had not dared to expect. Did she, all the while, long for a
gleam of heaven's light - for an Israelitish welcome, to tell her that all this came from
the God of Israel, and for His sake? It was granted her, and that more fully than she
could have hoped. Boaz knew what she had done for man, and what she had given up
for God. Hers, as he now assured her, would be recompense for the one, and a full
reward of the other, and that from Jehovah, the God of Israel, under Whose wings she
had come to trust. And now for the first time, and when it is past, the secret of her long-
hidden sorrow bursts from Ruth, as she tells it to Boaz: "Thou hast consoled me, and
spoken to the heart of thine handmaid."
What follows seems almost the natural course of events -natural, that Boaz should
accord to her the privileges of a kinswoman; natural also, that she should receive them
almost unconscious of any distinction bestowed on her - keep and bring home part even
of her meal to her mother-in-law (2:18), and still work on in the field till late in the
evening (ver. 17). But Naomi saw and wondered at what Ruth's simplicity and modesty
could have never perceived. Astonished at such a return of a day's gleaning, she had
asked for details, and then, without even waiting to hear her daughter's reply, had
invoked God's blessing on the yet unknown dispenser of this kindness. And so Ruth the
Moabitess has begun to teach the language of thanksgiving to her formerly desponding
Hebrew mother! But when she has told her story, as before to Boaz, so now to Naomi
its spiritual meaning becomes luminous. In her weakness, Naomi had murmured; in her
unbelief, she had complained; she had deemed herself forsaken of God and afflicted.
All the while, however she and hers might have erred and strayed, God had never left
off His kindness either to the living or to the dead!^333 And it is only after she has thus
given thanks, that she explains to the astonished Ruth: "The man is near unto us - he is
(^)