2:5 Boaz asking [in the Hebrew] whose is she, rather than who is she, might suggest it was love at first sight and he was immediately holding in mind the possibility of marrying her. It could be Ruth had the same feelings (see on 2:13; 3:2,10).

2:12- see on Ruth 3:10.

2:13 There’s an ambiguity in the last part of Ruth’s words here. It could be translated as “I don’t wish to merely be as one of your maidservants” (see NEB), with the implication, however vague, that she was thinking of marriage. This was then extended into the effective proposal she later makes to Boaz (see on 3:2,10).

3:2 threshingfloor- Threshing floor at harvest time was an immoral place, associated with prostitutes and cheap women (Hos. 9:1). A case could be made that the plan was that Ruth would come to Boaz at night whilst he was drunk, dressed up appealingly, and sexually compromise him into marrying her. This would’ve been so difficult for a woman like Ruth, who appears by all accounts an upright woman- more upright, if this were the case, than her Jewish mother-in-law who hatched the plan. The suggestion in v. 4 that Ruth lay down with him is indeed vague but could well suggest sexual contact. The whole story, of deceiving a man into marriage, coming to him by night, when he’s likely slightly drunk... all recalls the situation of Jacob being tricked into marrying Leah [for surely Jacob couldn’t have been quite sober if he really didn’t know that the woman he was sleeping with wasn’t in fact his beloved Rachel]. The motif of deception appears common to both histories. The connection is heightened by the villagers wishing Ruth fertility like Rachel and Leah (Ruth 4:11). They also wish her the fertility of Tamar (Ruth 4:12)- who also deceived a man using sexual compromise. See on 2:13.

3:10 Boaz here recognizes that Ruth is ‘going after’ him. He feels she is showing him grace- reciprocating the grace he had shown her in the harvest fields. Just as he had invited her to see God’s skirt spread over her (Ruth 2:12), so she is asking him to spread his skirt over her. Her ambition in effectively proposing to Boaz, a Gentile nobody proposing herself to a man of the Jewish establishment, is indeed inspirational. See on 2:13.

4:11,12- see on Ruth 3:2.