Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this?
Ruth 2:5 belongs to the beautiful story told in Ruth 1-4, four brief and wonderfully interesting chapters forming one little pastoral tale of the time of the judges, closing by bringing out the ancestry of the Lord Jesus, into which a Moabite woman is brought. In the verse Boaz notices Ruth in the harvest field and asks his overseer who she is. The question arises in the account of gleaning, where Ruth gathers grain left behind.
The field of Boaz is an organized harvest with a servant set over the reapers and different workers for different tasks. The harvest reflects the hand labor and simple methods of ancient times, with work done with little sickles. Ruth's gleaning of grain left behind presents her as an example of humble, diligent, small work in God's harvest, calling to faithful labor even when the task is lowly.
Cutting down the grain is only the first work, the conviction of sin by the law, and is not enough by itself. Binding the sheaves must follow by other workers, meaning gathering loose material and unorganized followers of Christ together and combining them in Sabbath schools, prayer meetings, missionary associations, and churches. That gathering means dividing God's army into companies, regiments, battalions, sharpshooters, artillerymen, infantry, and sappers and miners for active service to take the strongholds of sin.
Ruth 2:5 belongs to the beautiful story told in Ruth 1-4, four brief and wonderfully interesting chapters forming one little pastoral tale of the time of the judges, closing by bringing out the ancestry of the Lord Jesus, into which a Moabite woman is brought. In the verse Boaz notices Ruth in the harvest field and asks his overseer who she is. The question arises in the account of gleaning, where Ruth gathers grain left behind.
The field of Boaz is an organized harvest with a servant set over the reapers and different workers for different tasks. The harvest reflects the hand labor and simple methods of ancient times, with work done with little sickles. Ruth's gleaning of grain left behind presents her as an example of humble, diligent, small work in God's harvest, calling to faithful labor even when the task is lowly.
Cutting down the grain is only the first work, the conviction of sin by the law, and is not enough by itself. Binding the sheaves must follow by other workers, meaning gathering loose material and unorganized followers of Christ together and combining them in Sabbath schools, prayer meetings, missionary associations, and churches. That gathering means dividing God's army into companies, regiments, battalions, sharpshooters, artillerymen, infantry, and sappers and miners for active service to take the strongholds of sin.