Ruth 2:19
And her mother in law said unto her, Where hast thou gleaned to day? and where wroughtest thou? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee. And she shewed her mother in law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man’s name with whom I wrought to day is Boaz.
Naomi asked Ruth where she had gleaned that day and where she had worked, blessed the one who had taken notice of her, and learned from Ruth that the man's name with whom she had worked that day was Boaz. The verse stands in a beautiful, brief, wonderfully interesting pastoral tale of the simple home life of Israel set in the time of the judges. Through Ruth God cared for the line leading to Jesus, for the book closes with the ancestry of the Lord Jesus into which a Moabite woman is brought, and its near kinsman points to the Lord.
The questions become a daily self-examination of where one has worked and gleaned, what truth has been gathered and what fruit has been brought to God. It is asked whether one has gathered from the harvest, whether one has joined the reapers in the world's harvest field, or whether one has neglected the work while opportunities remain. Each day tests whether one gathers with Christ or scatters, does God's will, and serves others rather than seeking one's own pleasure. Each day's work and influence shapes character and matters in the coming judgment, and even those unable to preach or serve as missionaries can gather for God through Christlike conduct as a witness.
Gleaning pictures humble, practical work that brings help to those overlooked, calling for faithful service and resistance to wrongdoing. It calls for asking what good work has been done for others through prayer, helping a troubled soul, and speaking an inviting word. The Lord reckons with each person at night for that day's labor and will ask what was gathered. One is therefore to work faithfully today and each following day until the harvest is ended in view of the Master's coming.
The gathered sheaves represent the results of labor and bring joy when the harvest is complete. Even when one regrets bringing little fruit and being too silent to seek what was needed, gathered truth is still offered as a sheaf, and faithful labor ends with God's welcome and rest after life's toil. The harvest-field of Boaz pictures the work of conversion in which cutting down the grain is not enough and others must bind it into sheaves. Cutting is conviction of sin and binding is gathering loose material into Sabbath-schools, prayer-meetings, missionary associations, and churches, bringing out followers of Christ who have never been brought out and organizing the idle reserve into active companies, regiments, battalions, sharpshooters, artillerymen, infantry, sappers and miners, so that with all troops in action all the castles of sin can be taken and the earth swept for King Immanuel.