Yer. 16.-And she rose to glean: and to increase her gleanings, and yet to make Boa1 charged his young men, saying, Even them e.11 appear the fruit of her own in- between the sheaves let her glean, and do dustry." •' 'l'here are persons to be met not affront her. Boaz would probably thus with in social life who, while possessing speak in the hearing of Ruth hernelf, so that, the more solid qualities of moral excellence, without any fear of reproach, she might feel are sinJl;Ularly deficient in the more graceful. free to take full advantage of the privilege Thei 11ave honesty, but they have no accorded her. Boaz wished her to gather a sensibility ; they have truth, but they are large gleaning, no doubt rightly conjecturing strangely wanting in tenderness. They a.re that there must have been for some time distinguished by whatsoever things arejuat past but little superfluity in the larder of and pure, but not by those which are lovely Naomi. The space " between the sheaves," and of good report. You ha.ve the marble as distinguished from the spaces outside their column, but you have not the polish or the line, would probably be the part whither the delicate tracery on its surface ; you have the maidens conveyed their collected armfuls, rugged oak, but you miss the jasmine or the and where they bound them into sheaves. honeysuckle creeping gracefully around it It would thus be the place where there would from its roots. But the conduct of Boaz, as he the greatest number of 'we.ifs.' It would we stand and hear him giving these direc- also be the place in which unprincipled tions to his reapers, proves the compatibility gleaners might have the best opportunity of those two forms of excellence, and how for stealing from the sheaves. Boaz felt the strong and the amiable may meet and unbounded confidence in Ruth, and said to harmonise in the same character. Indeed, the reapers, "Affront her not," namely, by they do always meet in the highest forms of saying or insinuating anything to the effect moral greatness" (' Studies on the Book of that she we.s either pilfering, on the one Ruth,' pp. 119, 120). hand, or me.king herself too forward, on Ver. 17.-And she gleaned in the :11.eld the other. The Vulgate version completely until the evening, and beat out what she merizes out of sight the poetic beauty and had gleaned, and it was about an ephe.h tenderness of the injunction by rendering it of barley. Gathering together her various thus : " Do not hinder her." sheaves, lots, or bundles (see ver. 7), she Ter. 16.-And even of set plll'pose draw threshed them with some suitable rod or out for her from the bundles, and leave simple 'flail' (flagellum), which she had them, and let her glean them, and do not either brought with her in the morning, e.s find fe.u)t with her. His kindness grows e.s part of her equipment as a gleaner, or had he sees ner, or speaks concerning her. He obtained e.t the hut; or perhaps, like many gives additional injunctions in her favour, others, she would make use of a convenient both to the young men and to the maidens, stone. Speaking of the village of HO.j, near though the line of distinction between the Gaza, Robinson says, "We found the lazy two sexes dips at times entirely out of sight. in.habitants still engaged in treading out the "When the sheaf-makers had gathered an barley harvest, which their neighbours had armful of ste.1.ks, and there seemed to be so comJ?leted long before. Several women were clean a sweep that none were left behind, beating out with a stick handfuls of the then they were of set purpose (de industria) grain which they seemed to have gleaned. to draw out some from the bunches or One female was grinding with e. handmill, bundles, and leave them lying. The act of turning the mill with one hand, and occa- deliberate, e.s opposed to unintentional, draw- sionally dropping in the grain with the ing, is expressed by the emphatic repetition other " ( • Researches,' vol. ii. p. 385 ). " In the evening,'' says Dr. W. M. Thom- of the verb ~~i!ir-1-,bi. The verb thus re- son, "you might see some poor woman or peated was e. pu'.dle to the older expositors, maiden, that had been permitted to glean on inclusive of all the Hebrew commentators. her own account, sitting by the roadside, But comparative philology has clearly de- and beating out with a stick or a stone what termined its radical import, and thus ilium· she had gathered, as Ruth did. I have often inated its use in the passage before us. It watched this process in various parts of tho <loes not here mean '' spoil," though that is country"(' The Land and the Book,' p. 647). its usual signification. Nor can it mean "let The diligent gleaner on Boaz's field found, fall," e.s in King James's version. It means after threshing, that she had nearly e.n draw out. Do iiot find fault with her. ephah of barley, It would be a considerable The word is almost always rendered 'Febuke load for a female to carry-about a bushel. in our English version ; but the force of Josephus mentions incidentally, in his 'An- the preposition may be represented thus: tiquities• (xv. 9, 2), that the Hebrew cor or "do not chide 'with' her." "It was," homer was equivalent to ten Attic µi8,1,vo1. says Dr. Andrew Thomsou, "a thoughtful But as the ephah was exactly the tenth part and delicate form of kindness to Ruth, thllll of a cor or homer, it follows that the Hebrew OH, II, 10-17.] THE BOOK OF RUTH. 39
ephah was equivalent to tho Attic µio,µvot. of manna, it would be a sufficient daily Moroover, just ns the ephah was the tenth allowance for a man (see Exocl. :xvi 16 J· part of o. homer, so the omer was the tenth Hence Ruth would take home with her what part of a.n ephah (Exod. xvi. 36) ; and thus, would suffice for several days' suatenance to 1f a.n omer of be.rley would be somewhat Naomi and herself. equivalent for nutritive purposes to e.n omer