And now, my daughter, fear not: all that thou sayest I shall do to thee, for it is on all hands known in the gate of my people that thou art a truly capable woman. The word חָיִל in the expression אֵשֶׁת חֱיִל is of many-sided import, and has no synonym in English, German, Latin, or Greek.
But every side of its import brings into view one or other or more of such affiliated ideas as strength, force, forces, capability—whether mental and moral only, or also financial; competency, substantiality, ability, bravery.
All who had taken notice of Ruth perceived that she was mentally and morally, as well as physically, a substantial and capable woman. She was possessed of force, both of mind and character. She was, in the New England sense, of the expression, a woman of "faculty.
She was full of resources, and thus adequate to the position which, as Boaz's wife, she would be required to fill. There was no levity about her, "no nonsense." She was earnest, industrious, virtuous, strenuous, brave.
There was much of the heroine in her character, and thus the expression connects itself with the masculine application of the distinctive and many-sided word, "a mighty man of valor." The expression אֵשֶׁת חֲיִל occurs in Proverbs 12:4, where, in King James's version, it is, as here and in Proverbs 31:10, translated 'Ca virtuous woman"—"a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband."
But it is not so much to moral virtue that there is a reference as to that general capacity which consists in "large discourse, looking before and after" ('Hamlet, ' Proverbs 4:4). Compare the masculine expression אַנְשֵׁי־חֲיִל in Exodus 18:21, Exodus 18:25, rendered, in King-James's version, "able men," and meaning capable or substantial men, who, however, as we learn from the additional characteristics that are specified, were to be likewise conspicuous for high moral worth.
In Proverbs 31:10 there is the same reference to general capacity, as is evidenced by the graphic representation that follows—a representation that by no means exhausts itself in the idea of moral virtue.
Ibn Ezra takes the whole soul out of the expression when he interprets it, both here and in Proverbs, as meaning "a woman possessed of riches." When Boaz says, "All that thou sayest I will do to thee," he means, "All that thou hast so winsomely and yet so modestly referred to in what thou didst say, I am prepared to do to thee.
There was only one obstacle in the way, and that of a somewhat technical description. If that should be honorably surmounted, nothing would be more agreeable to Boaz s heart than to get nearer to Ruth "For," said he, "it is on all hands known in the gate of my people that," etc.
Literally the phrase is, "for all the gate of my people know," a strange inverted but picturesque mode of expression. It was not "the gate of the people," but the people of the gate," that knew.