Ruth was overwhelmed that Boaz would treat her so kindly. She had gone out hoping to find grace, or favor, in someone's sight (Ruth 2:2), but she knew she was a foreigner, a Moabite from outside Israel. She fell to the ground before him, which Keil & Delitzsch describe as her way of thanking him reverentially. Her words are full of humility and wonder: how could one so lowly be shown such favor? Gill hears exactly that in her question. She is asking Boaz to explain why a Moabite would receive this kind of notice.

Boaz told her plainly why: he had heard how she treated Naomi. "It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband" (Ruth 2:11). He named what she had left behind: "thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity." Then he blessed her: "The LORD recompense thy work" (Ruth 2:12). Ruth replied, "Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me" (Ruth 2:13). At mealtime he fed her until "she did eat, and was sufficed, and left" (Ruth 2:14).

Ruth's question contains a play on words in Hebrew. "Take knowledge of" is nakar, to regard or recognize, and "stranger" is nokriyyah, foreign. The two words sound alike, and Strong's Concordance (a standard Bible word dictionary) traces the word for foreigner back through a related word, neker, to nakar itself. So the word for noticing her and the word for what she was are close relatives in Hebrew. Keil & Delitzsch explain "take knowledge" as looking at someone with sympathy or care.

Ruth truly was an outsider. Gill notes that she was neither a citizen of Bethlehem nor part of the commonwealth of Israel, meaning the nation of Israel as a people. Yet the Law of Moses had already made room for someone like her. It named "the stranger" (a different Hebrew word, ger) among those for whom gleanings, the grain left behind by the reapers, must be left (Leviticus 19:10).

Ruth asked why she was noticed, and Boaz's answer points past himself to God. He had heard of her loyalty to Naomi. In her leaving father, mother, and homeland, Keil & Delitzsch see the same step God commanded Abraham to take (Genesis 12:1). Boaz then prays that the LORD would reward her, the God "under whose wings thou art come to trust" (Ruth 2:12). Ruth had come to shelter under God's care, and Keil & Delitzsch connect this image of wings to Deuteronomy 32:11 and Psalm 91:4. The foreigner had come to take refuge in Israel's God, and one of His people was welcoming her.

Ruth's wonder at being noticed is the response of anyone who receives grace they did not earn. Matthew Henry goes further and sees in the kindness of Boaz to Ruth a picture of the kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ to poor sinners.