Ruth 3:16–18

Ruth 3:16 — "How did it go, my daughter?" The Hebrew literally reads "Who are you, my daughter?" (mî-'at bittî), a question that vibrates with double meaning. At one level Naomi asks for a practical account: what happened? But the phrase also carries an echo of identity — Ruth is being asked, in effect, what kind of woman have you become this night? The question is not suspicious but expectant. The darkness of the threshing floor made Ruth unrecognizable even to herself in a moment of enormous risk and vulnerability. Naomi's maternal tenderness wraps the inquiry: "my daughter" (bittî) is Naomi's characteristic address for Ruth (cf. 2:2, 2:22, 3:1), signaling that their relationship has transcended ethnicity and obligation to become genuine filial love. Ruth has gone out a widow and a foreigner; she is returning, though she does not yet know it, as a bride-elect.

Ruth 3:17 — "He gave me these six measures of barley; for he said, 'Don't go empty to your mother-in-law.'" Six measures of barley — the Hebrew šēš śĕ'ōrîm, six seahs — is an extraordinarily generous gift, estimated at roughly 50–90 pounds of grain. A single seah was itself a substantial measure. Boaz does not send Ruth back with a token; he loads her down. The deliberate echo of the word "empty" (rêqām) is one of the Book of Ruth's most poignant structural signals. In Ruth 1:21, Naomi cried in her bitterness: "I went out full and the LORD has brought me back empty." Now, through Boaz's agency, emptiness is beginning to be reversed. The LORD's hesed — His covenant lovingkindness — works through human generosity: Boaz does not merely fill a basket, he addresses Naomi by name in his instruction to Ruth, making clear that his concern extends to the older woman. Ruth faithfully transmits both the gift and the explanation; she is not simply a recipient but a messenger of grace toward her mother-in-law.

Ruth 3:18 — "Wait, my daughter… the man will not rest until he has settled this today." Naomi's command — "Wait" (šēbî, "sit down," "stay still") — is the theological climax of the passage. It is a word of hard wisdom from a woman who has survived devastating loss and learned the discipline of entrusting outcomes to Providence. Naomi does not tell Ruth what to hope for but how to hope: actively, quietly, without manipulation. Her confidence in Boaz — "the man will not rest until he has settled this today" — rests on long acquaintance with his character. The word translated "settled" (kālâ) implies completion, finality; this matter will not drag on. Naomi has read the six seahs of barley correctly: they are not just food but a pledge, a down-payment on a promise. The women are asked to hold themselves in a posture of receptive trust while the kinsman-redeemer acts on their behalf.

The typological and spiritual senses: The Latin Fathers and medieval exegetes consistently read Boaz as a figure (figura) of Christ the Redeemer. In this light, the six measures are a foretaste of the fullness of grace that the Redeemer brings — not the seven of eschatological completeness, but an abundance that points forward to it. Naomi's counsel to "wait" evokes the prophetic tradition of hāšaq — waiting on the LORD (cf. Is 40:31; Ps 27:14). The scene anticipates the Church waiting between the Ascension and the Parousia: the Redeemer has acted, the pledge (the Spirit, the Eucharist, the sacraments) has been given, and the Bride is called to patient, trusting watchfulness until the final settlement is made.

Catholic tradition finds in this passage a rich interplay of grace, covenant fidelity, and the theology of hope. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that hope is "the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit" (CCC 1817). Naomi's counsel to Ruth — "Wait… the man will not rest until he has settled this" — is a near-perfect catechesis on this virtue: hope is not passive fatalism but a confident resting in Another's faithfulness.

St. Ambrose of Milan, in his De Viduis (On Widows), held Ruth up as a model of filial piety and steadfast virtue, noting that her loyalty to Naomi bore fruit precisely because it was motivated not by self-interest but by love. The six measures of barley, for Ambrose, signal that grace is never given in mere sufficiency but in superabundance — a reflection of God's own generosity.

The figure of Boaz as gō'ēl (kinsman-redeemer) is explicitly linked in Catholic typology to Christ's redemptive mission. Pope Benedict XVI, in Verbum Domini (2010, §41), affirmed that the Old Testament is read in its fullness when we perceive how figures like the kinsman-redeemer anticipate the one who "came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45). Naomi's certainty that Boaz will act today foreshadows the "today" of salvation announced in Luke 4:21 and Luke 23:43 — the divine urgency that does not defer what love demands.

The theology of hesed (covenant lovingkindness), embodied in Boaz's gift and his explicit care for Naomi, connects to the Church's social teaching: authentic love of neighbor always reaches the one behind the one in front of you.

The spiritual heart of these verses for a contemporary Catholic is Naomi's single-word command: "Wait." In an age of instant information, relentless productivity, and the anxiety of unresolved outcomes, the discipline of waiting on God's action is countercultural and demanding. Naomi does not counsel passive resignation; she counsels informed waiting — grounded in knowledge of the Redeemer's character and in the evidence of grace already received (the six measures of barley).

For the Catholic today, this translates into a concrete spiritual practice: when you have done what love and prudence require — when you have made the petition, sought the reconciliation, taken the step of faith — learn to "sit down" and trust that the divine Kinsman-Redeemer is already working on your behalf. The sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and Reconciliation, are precisely those "measures of barley" — tangible pledges of a redemption in progress. They are not the fullness yet, but they are the Redeemer's word to us: "Don't go empty to your mother-in-law." Receive grace. Carry it to others. Then wait with confidence, not passivity, for the settlement that is already underway.