Ruth 3

This chapter contains what I think is the most... whats a good word? Ah, 'unique' marriage proposal I've ever heard of. Apparently laying down next to a man and uncovering some not-well-defined portion of his lower anatomy could be taken to mean that you wanted to marry him. My, how times have changed!

There are some other customs and habits of the time period that are also shown here, though they aren't the focus. Apparently the places where harvests were processed - the threshing floor - doubled as a home away from home. Boaz is described as sleeping 'at the far end of the grain heap' (verse 7, NET). Maybe he had a cot or some blankets to sleep on, but that he would just lay down right there next to his work seems very foreign to me.

On the topic of marriage, it turns out that there was a pecking order of sorts within their culture. Boaz wasn't the closest male relative, so he had to check with the man who was before being able to commit to Ruth in marriage. We also have it implied here that Boaz was not a young man - but just how much older than Ruth he was, or whether he was already married, is not told (multiple marriages seem common at this time - see I Samuel 1).