RAW (Teach Me How To Love You)
Teach Me How To Love You!!!
uncovering feet and the spreading of the garment. There are occasions in the Old Testament where the term “feet” is used euphemistically for the sexual organs. The expression “spread the edge of the garment” is likewise used with sexual overtones in a betrothal context in Ezekiel 16:8. The text of Ruth does not suggest a blatant sexual act but is provocative in its ambiguity.
3:8–9. Something startled Boaz in the middle of the night. He turned to discover that a woman was lying at his feet. Boaz asked for the identity of his unusual guest (cf. 2:5). Ruth responded in humility (cf. 2:10): I am your servant Ruth. She had put herself under the wings of Yahweh (2:12), and now she asked to be put under the wings of Boaz. In the phrase the corner of your garment the word “corner” is ḵānāp̱, which is translated “wing” in 2:12.
She used a poetic image that had its source in the blessing that Boaz had given her. A Moabitess widow was calling the attention of a noted Hebrew to his responsibility. He could now follow through on his benediction (2:12) by becoming Ruth’s kinsman-redeemer and providing her with the security of marriage.
I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman—She had already drawn part of the mantle over her; and she asked him now to do it, that the act might become his own. To spread a skirt over one is, in the East, a symbolical action denoting protection. To this day in many parts of the East, to say of anyone that he put his skirt over a woman, is synonymous with saying that he married her; and at all the marriages of the modern Jews and Hindus, one part of the ceremony is for the bridegroom to put a silken or cotton cloak around his bride.
You didn’t look for a young man to marry, either rich or poor
So Ruth stayed near his feet until morning but got up while it was still too dark to recognize anyone. Boaz thought, “People in town must not know that the woman came here to the threshing floor.” So Boaz said to Ruth, “Bring me your shawl and hold it open.”
So Ruth held her shawl open, and Boaz poured six portions of barley into it. Boaz then put it on her head and went back to the city.
When Ruth went back to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did you do, my daughter?”
Ruth told Naomi everything that Boaz did for her. She said, “Boaz gave me these six portions of barley, saying, ‘You must not go home without a gift for your mother-in-law.’