The Pulpit Commentary on Ruth 3:13

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Abide here tonight; and it shall come to pass in the morning, if he will act to thee the part of a kinsman, well; he shall act the kinsman's part: and if it please him not to act to thee the kinsman's part, then sure as Yahveh is alive, I will act to thee the kinsman's part.

Lie still till the morning. Love is quick-witted. Boaz's plan of operations would formulate itself on the spur of the moment; but the remainder of the night would doubtless be spent in maturing the details of procedure.

The aim would be to secure, as far as honor would permit, the much-wished-for prize. There would be, moreover, we need not doubt, much conversation between them, and mutual consultation, and arrangement.

A large letter, a majuscula, occurs in the first word of the verse— לִינִי—which the smaller Masora ascribes to the Oriental or Babylonian textualists. It had, no doubt, been at first either a merely accidental, or a finically capricious, enlargement; but, being found, mysteries had to be excogitated to account for it;—all mere rubbish.

"Tonight" is a perfect translation of הַלַּיְלָה, for the to is simply the common definite article in one of its peculiar forms, perhaps peculiarly crushed and defaced (see note on Ruth 3:2).

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