Among the people of Israel, when they were settled in the promised land, was a man named Boaz. He was very rich; for God had given him cattle and corn-fields in abundance. He was a good, kind man, too.
One day, in the tune of harvest, a poor young woman went into his field to pick up the stalks of corn and barley that the reapers left as they went along. As she was gleaning, Boaz came into the field, and asked who she was. When he had heard that she was a good woman, he spoke kindly to her, and not only gave her leave to glean in his field as long as she liked, but told her that when she was hungry she might go and get her dinner with his own reapers.
When she got home, she had such a quantity of barley that her mother-in-law, with whom she lived, asked her where she had been gleaning. She said, in the field of Boaz. Then her mother-in-law told Ruth that this kind man was a near relation of hers. After some time, Boaz became kinder to her than ever. At last he married her, and King David, who wrote so many psalms, was her great-grandson.—The place where they lived was called Bethlehem. Here, long afterwards, the Lord Jesus was born.
