פּירוש אויף רות 2:21

“And Ruth said” [2:21]. Ruth said: he said to me, stay close to my youths until the completion of the harvest. One can ask about this verse, why did Ruth lie, that Boaz told her to stay near his youths? Why would she attribute to Boaz that he would tell a woman to stay with his male servants? Scripture states ex- plicitly that Boaz said, “stay close to my girls” [2:8]. This means, stay with my maidservants. However, our sages say that Ruth learned to lie because she was a Moabite. Therefore, the verse says, “Ruth the Moabite,” that is to say, because she came from Moabites, and that is how she spoke.⁵⁶Ruth Rabbah, 5.11.