The Pulpit Commentary — Ruth — Section 36

cornfield by means of walls e.nd hedges. A fell, then the wholo of them belon~d to the simplo furrow, with porhaps a stone here P)-opriet~r 5seo ~arpzov's 'Collegrnm Rnb- e.nd there, or a smill collection of stones, b1111co-B1bhcum, p. 242). Happily for Ruth, sufficed, ns in Switzerland Rt the present her steps were so ordered that tho field which day, to distinguish the patches or portions she ,ent-:red as a gleaner belonged to Elime- that belonged to different proprietors. Hence lech s kinsman, Boaz. And it so happened, the singule.r word fiel,d, a.s comprehending runs the story, that it was the portion of the sum-total of the adjoining unenclosed the fields that belonged to Boaz who was ground the.t he.d been la.id down in grain. of the kindred of Elimelech. ' "Though the gardens e.nd vineyards," says . Ver. 4.-On the very day that the l\foab- Horatio B. He.ckett, "are usual Iv surrounded 1tess enter~d on. her gleaning, Boaz, in nc- by a stone wall or hedge of pricklv pear, the cordanco wtth his wont, as n good and wise grain-fields, on the contrary, thou~h they master, visited his harvest-field. And, be- belong to different proprietors, are not separ- hold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. The ated by any enclosure from each other. law of kindness was on his lips; and while The bounde.ry between them is indicated by benevol~nce was beaming from his counten- heaps of small stones, or sometimes by single ance, piety was niling within his heart. upright stones, placed at intervals of a rod He said to the reapers, Yahveh be with or more from each other. This is the e.ncient you ! And they said to him, Yahveh bless landmark of which we read in the Old thee! Courtesy met courtesy. It is a Testament" (' Illustrations of Scripture,' p. chnrming scene, and we may reasonably as- 110). The word.field in Hebrew, i1J~, de- sume that there was reality in the salnfa- notes radically, not so much plain, as tions. Such civilities of intercourse between plov,ghed land (see Ra.abe's 'Glossn.r '). In proprietors and their labourers are still, says English there is a slightly varied though Dr. W. M. Thomson, common in the East. corresponding idiom lying at the base of the " The Lord be with you I is merely the Teutonic term in use. A.fiel,d (German Feld) Allah m' alcum I of ordinary parlance ; and is a dearance, a place where the trees of the so too the response, Tlie Lord bless thee I" original forest have been felled. The ex- (' The Land and the Book,' p. 648). Modern pression, that I may glean 'among' the Moslems are particular in the matter of ears, proceeds on the assumption the.t Ruth salutations. "Abuhurairah reports that he did not expect that she would "make a . heard Mohammed say, You will 1wt enter clean sweep " of ill the straggled ears. There into paradise until you '1.ave faith, and you might likely be other gleaners besides her- will not complete your faith until you love self, and even though there should not, she one another, and that is sho= by making conld not expect to gather all. After who- salaam to friends and stran'}ers" (Kitto's soever shall show me favour. A peculiarly 'Bible Illustrations,' in loc. ). 1mtique kind of structure in the original : Ver. 5.-A.nd Boaz said to the young '' after whom I shall find favour in his eyes." man who was set over the reapers, Whose Ruth speaks as if she thought only of one is that young woman t His eye had been reaper, and he the proprietor. She, as it instantaneously arrested by the handsome were, instinctively conceives of the labourers stranger. Perhaps, as Jarchi remarks, he as "hands." And she said to her, Go, my took note of the modest and graceful carriage daughter. Naomi yielded; no doubt at first of her person while she picked up indus- reluctantly, yet no doubt also in a spirit of trious!y the straggled stalks. It is too grateful admiration of her daughter-in-law, Rabbinic, however, and artificial, finical, who, when she conld not lift np her circum- bizarre, to suppose with the same Jewish stances to her mind, brought down her mind annotator that Boaz would notice with to her circumstances. admiration that, while she picked up zeal- Ver. 3.-Rnth, having obtained the con- ously all available couples of stalks, she left sent of her mother-in-law, went, and came, the triplets in the field unappropriated I and gleaned in the field after the reapers. The question which he put to the overseer That is, she "went forth," viz., from the is not wlw but wlwse i,s that young woman? eity, "and came to the cornfields, and She had not the gait or air of an ordinary gleaned." "There are some," says Lawson, pauper, and hence he wondered if she could "whose virtue and industry lie only in their belong to any of the families in Bethlehem. tongues. They say, and do not. But Ruth Ver. 6.-And the young man who was was no less diligent in business than wise set over the reapera replied and said, She in resolution." The later Jews had a set of is a lll[oabitish young woman who returned fantastic bye-laws concerning gleaning, de- with Naomi from the land of llfoab. The tailed by Maimonides. One of them was, young man had already received, no doubt that if only one or two stalks fell from tho from her own lips, particulars regal'ding tho ~icld,, or hand of the reaper, these should he attractive stranger. Instead of the free left lyiz1Jl for the gleaners; but if tlvree stalks definitive rendering of Luther ond King CH. II. 1-!:J.] THE BOOK OF RUTH.