Ruth 2:12

My Notes

What Does Ruth 2:12 Mean?

Ruth 2:12 is Boaz's blessing over Ruth — and the image he uses for God's protection is the most tender in the Old Testament.

"The LORD recompense thy work" — the Hebrew yĕshallem Yahweh po'olekh (may the LORD repay your work/deed) acknowledges what Ruth has done: she left her homeland, her gods, her family, and everything familiar to follow Naomi to a foreign land (1:16-17). The word po'al (work, deed, action) treats Ruth's loyalty as a tangible accomplishment — something God sees and will repay.

"And a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel" — the Hebrew uthĕhi maskurtekh shĕlemah me'im Yahweh 'Elohey Yisra'el (and may your wages be complete/full from the LORD God of Israel) uses maskoreth (wages, payment, reward) — the word for a worker's earned pay. The Hebrew shĕlemah (full, complete, whole) means the reward won't be partial. God pays in full. The reward comes specifically from Yahweh, the God of Israel — the God Ruth has chosen by choosing Naomi.

"Under whose wings thou art come to trust" — the Hebrew 'asher-ba'th lachsoth tachath-kĕnaphav (under whose wings you have come to take refuge) is the verse's crown. The Hebrew kanap (wing) evokes the image of a mother bird sheltering her chicks — the same imagery used in Psalm 17:8 ("hide me under the shadow of thy wings"), Psalm 36:7 ("the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings"), and Psalm 91:4 ("under his wings shalt thou trust"). Ruth, the Moabite foreigner, has come under the wings of a God she wasn't born into — and Boaz sees it.

The Hebrew chasah (to trust, to take refuge, to shelter) means Ruth has made a deliberate choice: she has come to take shelter under Israel's God the way a vulnerable creature comes under a protecting wing. The trust is active and chosen, not passive and inherited.

The dramatic irony: Boaz himself will become the instrument of the reward he's pronouncing. The wings under which Ruth has taken refuge will be extended through Boaz's own hands — as kinsman-redeemer, as husband, as the human means by which God shelters the Moabite widow.

Reflection Questions

• 1.Boaz sees Ruth's costly choice to leave Moab and come to Israel's God. What did your 'coming to God' cost you — and do you feel that cost has been seen?
• 2.The wing imagery is the tenderest picture of God's protection. How does imagining yourself sheltered under wings (rather than behind a fortress) change how you experience God's care?
• 3.Ruth came to God from the outside — she wasn't born into the covenant. How does her story speak to anyone who feels like an outsider to faith?
• 4.Boaz unknowingly describes the reward he himself will become. When has someone blessed you with a promise they didn't realize they'd personally fulfill?

Devotional

Under whose wings you have come to trust.

Boaz looks at Ruth — a Moabite widow, gleaning in a foreign field, with nothing to her name except the loyalty that brought her here — and sees something the world would miss. He sees a woman who has chosen to take shelter under wings she wasn't born under. A foreigner who left everything to come to the God of Israel. And he blesses her for it.

The wing image is the tenderest picture of God in the Bible. Not a fortress. Not a shield. Wings. The way a mother bird covers her young — warm, close, protective, soft. The vulnerable creature doesn't earn the shelter. She comes to it. She tucks herself under the wings. And the wings close around her.

Ruth didn't grow up under these wings. She came from Moab. She worshipped Moabite gods. She married an Israelite man who died. And when everything that connected her to Israel's God was gone — when she could have walked back to Moab and no one would have blamed her — she came. She chose the wings. She chose Naomi's God.

Boaz sees all of this and pronounces a blessing: may the LORD repay your work. May your wages be complete. He doesn't know yet that he's describing his own future. The reward Boaz blesses Ruth with, Boaz himself will deliver — as kinsman-redeemer, as husband, as ancestor of David and, ultimately, of Jesus. The wings Ruth sheltered under extended through Boaz's arms.

If you've come to God from the outside — if you weren't born into faith, if you chose it in a moment of costly loyalty, if you left something behind to shelter under wings you had no claim on — this verse is Boaz looking at you and saying: God sees what you did. And the reward will be full.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture