14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “[i]Come here, that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar.” So she sat beside the reapers; and he [j]served her roasted grain, and she ate and was satisfied and had some left. 15 When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her. 16 Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.”
17 So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. 18 She took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave [k]Naomi what she had left after [l]she was satisfied. 19 Her mother-in-law then said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.” 20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is [m]our relative, he is one of our [n]closest relatives.” 21 Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “[o]Furthermore, he said to me, ‘You should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.’” 22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.” 23 So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
It’s not clear, but Ruth might have been a little naive here. But her mother-in-law is under no such illusions. She saw the kindness of Boaz and knew exactly what was going on. This was family looking out for family, and holding nothing back.
While it seemed the workers/owners of other fields might have been less than reputable when it came to women who were gleaning in the fields, that was not the case with Boaz.
Don’t be one who would take advantage of those less fortunate than yourself, raise the bar of kindness and charity. Go above and beyond in your generosity, and do what you can to relieve the plight of those around you.