(8) Then said Boaz unto Ruth: ‘Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither pass from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens.
(21) And Ruth the Moabitess said: ‘Yea, he said unto me: Thou shalt keep fast by my young men, until they have ended all my harvest.’ (22) And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law: ‘It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, and that thou be not met in any other field.’ (23) So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and she dwelt with her mother-in-law.
(יא) ותאמר רות המואביה גם כי אמר אלי עם הנערים אשר לי תדבקין אמר רבי חנין בר לוי: בודאי מואביה היא זו, הוא אמר וכה תדבקין עם נערותי, והיא אמרה עם הנערים אשר לי...
(11) And Ruth the Moabitess said, "Indeed, he said to me, 'You will stay close to my young men...' Rabbi Chanin ben Levi said, Certainly she was a Moabitess! For he (Boaz) said 'Stay here by my young women' and she said, 'with my young men.'
In the JPS Commentary on Ruth, Rabbi Dr.Tamara Eskenazi writes: "All three times the narrator refers to Ruth as a Moabite appear in connection with Naomi: (1:22, 2:2, 2:22) ... This may signal the extent to which Ruth's "Moabiteness" colors Naomi's relation to her."
(יח) ותחדל לדבר אליה . מכאן אמרו אין מרבין עליו ואין מדקדקין עליו :
(18) She ceased to argue with her: From here we learn that we do not overburden [the prospective convert] nor are we overly meticulous with him.
The Rabbis (Yevamot 47b) and Rashi cast Naomi as Ruth's conversion instructor.
Moabites were associated with sexual sins, drunkenness, and excess.
In his commentary on the Book of Ruth, Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz writes: "Or, as a Moabite, Ruth was not intimately familiar with the Hebrew differentiation between the masculine and feminine forms. ... Ruth mistakenly used the masculine form without intending to be suggestive, because, as the Midrash interprets, "She was a Moabite!"