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“Where You Go I Shall Go”The Watchtower—2012 | July 1
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As the two women settled into life in Bethlehem, Ruth began thinking about how best to take care of herself and Naomi. She learned that the Law that Jehovah had given to his people in Israel included a loving provision for the poor. They were allowed to go into the fields at harvesttime and follow the reapers, gleaning what was left behind as well as what grew at the edges and corners of the fields.c—Leviticus 19:9, 10; Deuteronomy 24:19-21.
It was the time of the barley harvest, likely in April by our modern calendar, and Ruth went to the fields to see who would let her work under the provision for gleaners. She chanced upon the fields of a man named Boaz, a wealthy landowner and a relative of Naomi’s dead husband, Elimelech. Though the Law gave her the right to glean, she did not take it for granted; she asked the young man in charge of the harvesters for permission to work. He granted it, and then Ruth got right to work.—Ruth 1:22–2:3, 7.
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“Where You Go I Shall Go”The Watchtower—2012 | July 1
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c It was a remarkable law, surely unlike anything Ruth knew in her homeland. In the ancient Near East in those days, widows were treated poorly. Notes one reference work: “After her husband’s death, normally a widow had to rely on her sons for support; if she had none, she might have to sell herself into slavery, resort to prostitution, or die.”
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