* God told the Israelites to let the widows, poor people, and foreigners glean the leftover grain in order to provide food for themselves.
* Sometimes the owner of the field would allow the gleaners to go directly behind the harvesters to glean, which enabled them to glean much more of the grain.
* A clear example of how this worked is in the story of Ruth, who was generously allowed to glean among the harvesters in the fields of her relative Boaz.