Bible Strands
Ruth 3:2
Now is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been working, a relative of ours? In fact, tonight he is winnowing barley on the threshing floor.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Naomi speaks to Ruth at night, immediately after proposing to secure her welfare, directing her attention to Boaz's current activity at the threshing floor.
The words — The Hebrew מֹֽדַעְתָּ֔/נוּ (mo.da'.Ta./nu) literally means "our relative," and הֲ/לֹ֥א (ha./Lo') functions as a rhetorical question marker expecting an affirmative answer.
The thread — Naomi's appeal to family obligation echoes the kinsman-redeemer provision in Deuteronomy 25:5 and builds on her earlier recognition of Boaz's character in Ruth 2:1 and Ruth 2:20.
Why it lands — The text records a calculated social maneuver to protect a vulnerable widow through established clan law, demanding the reader see how survival operates within prescribed communal structures.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley to night in the threshingfloor.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 25:5 When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.
- Ruth 2:20 Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, who has not withdrawn His kindness from the living or the dead.” Naomi continued, “The man is a close relative. He is one of our kinsman-redeemers.”
- Ruth 2:1 Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a prominent man of noble character from the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
- Ruth 2:8 Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go and glean in another field, and do not go away from this place, but stay here close to my servant girls.
- Hebrews 2:11 For both the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.