Ruth 2 · a question people ask
"She happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz" (2:3). Was it chance, or the LORD?
The verse says she "happened to come" there (2:3). In Hebrew, the verb qarah stands beside a noun from the same root, miqreh, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "accident, chance, fortune" (tap happened). The chapter doesn't say the LORD led her there. The people in it speak of the LORD: Boaz's greeting (2:4), his blessing (2:12), and Naomi's (2:20). Elsewhere the book says what the LORD does: he "had visited his people in giving them bread" (1:6), and "the LORD enabled her to conceive" (4:13). Christians read 2:3 in two main ways. Both agree Ruth didn't choose the field because it was Boaz's (2:2-3), and both agree the LORD is at work in the book (1:6, 4:13). Judges 14 says outright, "it was of the LORD" (Judges 14:4), and that chapter's honest question asks how; Ruth 2:3 doesn't say it.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Chance as Ruth met it, the LORD's hand as the book tells it
Those who hold this view read "happened" as how it looked from where Ruth stood, while the book lets you see more. You already know who Boaz is (2:1) before she goes out (2:2-3), and when Naomi hears his name she blesses him "by the LORD" (2:20). They read it beside "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Proverbs 16:33). And they set it beside Abraham's servant, who prayed, "please give me success today" (Genesis 24:12), in Hebrew the same verb as happened, and afterward said, "the LORD has led me on the way to the house of my master’s relatives" (Genesis 24:27).
Ruth 2:1-3 · Ruth 2:20 · Proverbs 16:33 · Genesis 24:12 · Genesis 24:27
The text says it happened, and says no more
Those who hold this view read "happened" as saying what it says: Ruth came there without a plan. Elsewhere the same noun is plain chance, "It was a chance that happened to us" (1 Samuel 6:9), and the same verb is used where "time and chance happen to them all" (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Genesis 24 says "the LORD has led me" (Genesis 24:27); Ruth 2 doesn't say it. They let the chapter keep to what it tells, and leave how the LORD worked in this one morning with "The secret things belong to the LORD our God" (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Ruth 2:3 · 1 Samuel 6:9 · Ecclesiastes 9:11 · Genesis 24:27 · Deuteronomy 29:29
The verses
“Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me now go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I find favor.” She said to her, “Go, my daughter.” She went, and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. Behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said to the reapers, “May the LORD be with you.” They answered him, “May the LORD bless you.””
“May the LORD repay your work, and a full reward be given to you from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.””
“Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the LORD, who has not abandoned his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Naomi said to her, “The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen.””
“Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.”