What Does Ruth 3:4 Mean?
And it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall perceive the place where he lies, and you shall go in, and uncover his feet, and lie down. And he will tell you what you shall do.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do.THE KEY
The uncovering becomes a threshold: what was concealed is exposed, and the next instruction is left to him.
THE MEANING
You meet a sequence of finding the place, entering, uncovering his feet, and lying down. The scene holds the intimacy of that exposure alongside the fact that he will say what comes next.
THE ROOT
וְגִלִּית
wegillit
GROWS FROM
גלה
Uncover, expose, reveal.
“uncover” in this verse is wegillit. Here גלה is an embodied act of uncovering, while the same root also names what is disclosed or brought into view. The verse keeps the exposure literal, yet the wording lets the gesture sit at the edge of disclosure: after the uncovering comes the answer he will speak.
ALSO GROWS
niglah: Was revealed; appeared.
נִגְלָה
It shows the same root describing something that comes into view.
megalleh: Uncovering; revealing.
מְגַלֶּה
This form names the act of exposing what had been covered, the action at the center of the verse.
וְשָׁכָבְתְּ
veshakavt
GROWS FROM
שכב
Lie down, recline.
“lie down” in this verse is veshakavt. The verse uses this root for both his lying down and hers. That repetition makes their positions echo one another while the next spoken direction remains his.
ALSO GROWS
shokhev: One who lies down.
שֹׁכֵב
It keeps the action of lying down visible as a state of the body.
mishkav: Bed; place of lying down.
מִשְׁכָּב
It shows how the same root extends from the body’s action to the place where it rests.
THE PATTERN
What is concealed can be brought into view, making disclosure the threshold for what follows.
The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the uncovered things belong to us and to our children for the ages, that we may do all the words of this instruction.Therefore do not fear them, for nothing is covered that will not be uncovered, nor hidden that will not be known.THE THREAD
The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the uncovered things belong to us and to our children for the ages, that we may do all the words of this instruction.Ruth’s וְגִלִּית (wegillit, “you uncover”) is a form of גלה (galah, “uncover, reveal”); Deuteronomy’s נִגְלֹת (niglot, “revealed”) comes from the same root. In Ruth the exposure remains bodily and intimate, while the shared word lets the gesture resonate with disclosure without dissolving its physical edge.
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