Ruth 2:18
And she took it up, and went into the city: and her mother in law saw what she had gleaned: and she brought forth, and gave to her that she had reserved after she was sufficed. And she took it up, and went into the city: and her mother in law saw what she had gleaned: and she brought forth, and gave to her that she had reserved after she was sufficed.
Ruth 2:18 belongs to the beautiful four-chapter story of Ruth, a brief and wonderfully interesting little pastoral tale from the time of the judges whose close brings out the ancestry of the Lord Jesus, into which a Moabite woman is brought. It records Ruth carrying what she had gleaned into the city, her mother-in-law seeing the harvest, and Ruth bringing forth and giving her the food she had reserved after she herself had eaten enough, which presents gleaning as small and humble work that still brings provision to others. It belongs to the harvest-field of Boaz, where it is not enough for some to cut down the grain while others must bind it. Binding means gathering loose material together in Sabbath-schools, prayer-meetings, missionary associations, and churches, and bringing out followers of Christ who have never been brought out. Binding also means organizing the army of God into companies, regiments, battalions, sharpshooters, artillerymen, infantry, sappers and miners, and putting idle troops no longer kept in reserve into action to take every stronghold of sin and win the earth for King Immanuel.