Ruth 3:11

11. A virtuous woman Literally, a woman of strength. It corresponds with the common expression, man of valour. Ruth was strong in all that constitutes female excellence and worth. She was not merely virtuous, in the sense of chaste, but she was full of virtues. “Boaz, no doubt, knew her general character, and knew also that in the present instance she acted in accordance with the advice of her mother in law, who had taught her that she not only had a right to claim Boaz for her husband, but that she was precluded by the law of God from forming any other reputable connexion. Boaz also remembered that he was old, and she young and attractive; and, though from the heathen Moabites, yet she preferred to walk in the sober path of honest married life rather than to associate with the young and the gay, by whom, it is intimated, she had been tempted. He was therefore fully justified in ascribing to this very act an honourable and virtuous principle, notwithstanding the apparent violation of modesty and propriety; and in this he judged correctly, for such was the fact.” Thomson.