Question: What was the significance of Ruth laying at the feet of Boaz and why was he so impressed by it?
Answer: In the book of Ruth we are told that a Bethlehem family left their town and country of Israel to go to Moab during a famine. The sons married Moabite women but they and their father died in Moab. Naomi, the widow, and her two daughters-in-law, were parting but Ruth refused to leave Naomi and returned with her to Bethlehem. To take care of her mother-in-law she went to work in the fields. She so impressed Boaz, one of the owners of fields, that he encouraged her to work for him only and rewarded her for her devotion to her mother-in-law, a near relative of his. Naomi instructed Ruth at harvest time to wait until the men were sleeping and quietly go to Boaz and put part of his covering over her feet and lay there. This was apparently a customary way of asking a man to provide the protection of marriage.
Boaz was impressed, as he says, because in his estimation she could have had her pick of younger men, rich or poor, but was not motivated by a desire for wealth or excitement. Rather, she was loyal to her mother-in-law and recognized that Boaz, as a near relative, was the choice of integrity in line with the law of Moses, which said that the near relative of a deceased man was to marry his widow and raise up children to his name. This was a way of ensuring that the land he had inherited from God remained in his family.
As it turns out, the descendent of Ruth and Boaz was David, king of Israel. It was God who had engineered this coming together of two godly believers to produce the greatest king Israel ever had.
It is unfortunate that some have suggested that Ruth uncovering Boaz’ feet was a euphemism for sexual intercourse. This interpretation is totally contradictory to the whole tenor of this book. It is designed to show the integrity and character of David’s ancestors. No one would have thought that Ruth having sex with Boaz showed moral integrity.