The midday sun hung heavy over the fields as Ruth tried to follow the workers’ melodic dialect. Their story made no sense: a poor man who had nothing but a single lamb, who fed her from his own plate, dipping bread in wine before offering it to his pet?
“But why?” Ruth’s accent betrayed her confusion. She tilted her head, certain she had misunderstood. “He gave his food to an animal?”
The reapers exchanged knowing smiles. “Not just gave,” one explained, slowing his speech for her. “He fed her himself, with his own hands. That’s what you do…” he paused meaningfully, “when you really love someone.”
Ruth felt heat rise to her cheeks as memory flashed through her mind – Boaz at the meal earlier, his hesitation before asking her to dip her own bread in the wine. Had he wanted…? No. She pushed the thought away, but it lingered like honey on her tongue.
She glanced across the field where Boaz stood talking with the foreman. Her heart quickened as she remembered how his hand had hovered, uncertain, before withdrawing. How he’d watched her eat, something dark and tender in his gaze.
“The prophet Nathan told this story to King David,” another worker added, misreading her silence for confusion. “It’s how we show special care here.”
Ruth’s fingers twisted in her skirt. She understood now – perhaps too well. The intimacy of hand-fed bread, the significance of shared wine. In her mind’s eye, she saw Boaz’s withdrawn hand, the moment unclaimed.
Having satisfied her physical hunger, she now felt another appetite awakening. A desire she should have buried with Mahlon, yet here it was, burning like summer wind through barley fields. But she was Moabite – her blood marked her as unclean, unworthy. What right had she to hunger for such tenderness?
She was nothing but a widow. But he had a special concern for widows, this God of Israel. They said that neglecting widows provoked his wrath. Yet she was a stranger. Would he care enough to turn Boaz’s half-formed gesture into something more? Or would this too remain just another hunger left unfed?
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