Catholic Commentary
Departure Before Dawn: Boaz's Provision and Discretion
14She lay at his feet until the morning, then she rose up before one could discern another. For he said, “Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.”15He said, “Bring the mantle that is on you, and hold it.” She held it; and he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her; then he went into the city.
Ruth 3:14–15 describes Ruth departing from the threshing floor at dawn with six measures of barley that Boaz provided, after they spent the night in a chaste encounter demonstrating mutual commitment. Boaz instructs secrecy to protect Ruth's reputation as a vulnerable Moabite widow while he prepares to undertake the legal transaction at the city gate that will secure her status.
Boaz's protective silence and overflowing gift reveal how true covenant love works: it shields the vulnerable before lifting them up, and gives abundance rather than mere sufficiency.
"Then he went into the city" — The abruptness of this clause is itself meaningful. Boaz does not linger. The gift is given, the secrecy is secured, and he immediately moves toward the purpose the night has set in motion: the legal confrontation at the gate. Action follows pledge without delay. This decisiveness is itself a form of ḥesed — the covenant love that does not merely feel but moves.
From a Catholic theological standpoint, these verses are luminous with typological significance that the tradition has carefully mined.
Boaz as a Type of Christ the Redeemer: The Church Fathers, including Origen (Homilies on Ruth) and later St. Bede the Venerable (In Librum Ruth), read Boaz consistently as a figure (typos) of Christ, the true go'el (kinsman-redeemer). The discretion Boaz exercises in verse 14 anticipates the kenotic hiddenness of the Incarnation: the Son of God enters human history "before one could discern another," in the darkness of a stable, in the quiet of a Galilean village, before the world has awakened to what has occurred. The Catechism teaches that the Old Testament "types" prefigure the new realities accomplished in Christ (CCC §128–130), and patristic typology finds in Boaz's protective concealment a foreshadowing of the way divine grace often works silently, beneath the threshold of human notice, before breaking into full light.
The Mantle Filled with Grain — A Eucharistic Echo: St. Bede explicitly connects the barley Ruth carries away from Boaz's threshing floor with the spiritual nourishment Christ gives His Church. The threshing floor is itself a traditional biblical image of the place where grain is separated and prepared — a figure of purification and of the Eucharist (cf. the Didache 9:4, where the gathered wheat from many fields becomes one bread). The overflowing gift poured into Ruth's mantle suggests the Eucharistic abundance Christ gives to the Church: not a measured sufficiency but an excess of grace. As the Catechism affirms, the Eucharist is "the source and summit" of Christian life (CCC §1324), and in Boaz's lavish provision patristic readers perceived that generosity proleptically figured.
Chastity as Ordered Love: St. Ambrose (De Viduis and De Officiis) invokes Ruth as an exemplar of chastity not as repression but as the right ordering of love toward its proper end. Boaz's concern for Ruth's reputation models what the Catechism calls the virtue of chastity as "an apprenticeship in self-mastery" (CCC §2395) — here expressed not in self-denial alone but in the active, costly protection of another's dignity. This is the chastity of ḥesed, love that serves rather than exploits.
These two verses offer contemporary Catholics a countercultural vision of honor and generosity that speaks directly to modern life.
First, Boaz's protection of Ruth's reputation challenges today's culture of exposure. In an age of social media where private moments are commodified and shared, Boaz's instinct is to shield — to ensure that a vulnerable woman is not made a subject of speculation before she can be made a subject of legal protection. Catholics working in public life, in parishes, in families, are called to the same instinct: to protect the reputation of the vulnerable before seeking recognition for doing so.
Second, the six measures of barley speak to a generosity that goes beyond the minimum. Catholic social teaching, particularly in Caritas in Veritate (Benedict XVI, §6), insists that charity must exceed mere justice — that the logic of gift must permeate even our economic and social relationships. Boaz did not give Ruth her legal due; he gave her an abundance that testified to who he was. Catholics are invited to examine where in their giving — of time, money, attention, forgiveness — they stop at sufficiency rather than pressing toward largesse.
Finally, the image of the mantle filled with grain is a meditation prompt: what has the Lord filled the vessel of your vocation with, and are you carrying it home to those who wait?
Commentary
Ruth 3:14 — "She lay at his feet until the morning"
The first clause of verse 14 closes out the intimacy of the preceding scene while deliberately maintaining its propriety. Ruth remained "at his feet" (Hebrew: margelotav) — the same posture of humble supplication in which she lay down (3:7–8). The text is careful: there is no suggestion of sexual consummation. The Targum and the rabbinic tradition (e.g., Ruth Rabbah 6:4) go to lengths to affirm the chastity of both parties, and the Church Fathers read the scene in the same register. St. Ambrose (De Viduis 3) holds Ruth up precisely as a model of modest, purposeful virtue — she came to secure a legal right, not to gratify desire.
"Before one could discern another" — The Hebrew idiom (beterem yakir ish et re'ehu) literally means "before a man could recognize his neighbor," that is, in the thick half-darkness just before true dawn. This liminal hour is spiritually charged throughout Scripture: it is the hour of Jacob's wrestling (Gen 32:24–26), of the Exodus (Ex 12:29), of the women at the empty tomb (Jn 20:1). The departure at this threshold moment signals that something decisive has happened in the night, but its full disclosure awaits the coming day — namely, the legal transaction Boaz is about to undertake at the city gate (4:1–12).
"Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor" — Boaz's instruction is not an act of shame but of protective chivalry. The threshing floor was a social space where, in the ancient Near East, seasonal celebrations sometimes gave occasion to loose behavior (see Hos 9:1). Boaz's concern is entirely for Ruth's honor — a Moabite widow was already socially vulnerable; any whisper of impropriety could sabotage the very legal proceedings he is about to initiate on her behalf. He protects her reputation before he can protect her status.
Ruth 3:15 — "Bring the mantle that is on you, and hold it"
The mantle (mitpaḥat) Ruth carries — possibly the same outer garment she spread over Boaz as a symbolic gesture of claiming his protection (3:9, using the same root as Boaz's "wings" in 2:12) — becomes a vessel of provision. The image is precise and loaded: the cloth that was the sign of her petition is now filled with the gift of his response. Boaz's generosity transforms the symbol of her appeal into an instrument of sustenance.
"Six measures of barley" — The quantity is notable. The Hebrew simply says shesh se'orim ("six barleys"), and scholars debate the exact measure (six seahs would be roughly 50–60 lbs., an almost impossibly heavy load; six omers is more reasonable at about six days' worth of grain). Whatever the precise weight, the number six is significant: Naomi and Ruth had been gleaning day by day for the barley harvest (2:17), but here Ruth receives in a single predawn transaction a multiple of what a day's gleaning could yield. The abundance is deliberate and communicative — Boaz is signaling to Naomi (as Ruth herself explains in 3:17) that he will not leave the matter half-done.