Barley

             Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.”

Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

 Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”

“The Lord bless you!” they answered.

 Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”

The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.” (Ruth 2:1-7)

 

Chapter one was the prologue. It’s what you needed to know to set the scene for the actual story. The chapter ends with them reaching home and finding themselves in a bit of a pickle. They don’t have money. They don’t have property. Relatives or friends or Naomi’s probably made room for them in their homes, but they’re that close to being homeless, and Naomi seems to be stuck in her bitterness.

Ruth obeys the etiquette of the time and asks Naomi’s permission to go do what needs to be done. She does what poor people did by following the harvesters and gleaning what they happened to have missed. Now, since they went to Naomi and Elimelek’s hometown, it’s not too surprising that she would find herself in a field of someone related to one of them. The texts says that it was a fiend belonging to Boaz, so it’s not unreasonable to conclude he had more than one, making it more likely that she would stumble across one of them in her gleaning. Since there are harvesters there, we can guess that it wasn’t of a size that Boaz could have harvested by himself or even with a couple friends or relatives, and it makes sense that Ruth would glean in bigger fields because those who have small fields are more likely to feel the loss of her gleanings. This wasn’t really a one-in-a-million thing. Maybe closer to one in a hundred.

That morning, Ruth had identified herself to the harvesters and asked permission to glean, and had spent the whole day working. Now, according to what I found on the internet, one cup of barley grain will make 1 1/3 cups of barley flour. That’s just a 1/3 of a cup more than is generally needed for two people for one meal, and barley isn’t big. It’s not like picking two apples and having a meal for two people. 

 

Gleaning all day may have provided enough food for a couple of days or perhaps enough to sell some to help pay other expenses, but not enough for them to live on for long.

It’s not unusual for us to ask someone, “Are you a Mary or a Martha?” But we can also ask, “Are you a Naomi or a Ruth?” Granted, Ruth may have been forty, or she might have had some physical infirmity we’re not told. Maybe the culture thought that one person gleaning for a family was enough. There might have been reasons why Naomi didn’t glean, too, but I suspect that she was caught in the gravity wells of depression and bitterness and being torn apart by them. Or, given what we’ve read about her previously, she might have been a comparatively passive person, not putting forth her will in much. Keep in mind that she was known as being sweet, not industrious.

On the other hand, Ruth was a proactive person. They needed food and money, so she went out to get some. Everything that happened was because of Ruth’s humility and her willingness to work hard. Still, the thing to notice most is that it’s because of Ruth’s attitude and behavior that Naomi’s bitterness will ease.

Sadly, I think I tend to be more of a Naomi.