Rut 2:16

2:16 Make sure you pull out ¹  ears of grain for her and drop them so she can gather them up. Don’t tell her not to!” ² 

Mazmur 9:6

9:6 The enemy’s cities have been reduced to permanent ruins; ³ 

you destroyed their cities; ⁴ 

all memory of the enemies has perished. ⁵ 

[2:16]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis. Here שָׁלַל (shalal, “pull out”) is a homonym of the more common Hebrew verb meaning “to plunder.” An Arabic cognate is used of drawing a sword out of a scabbard (see BDB 1021 s.v.).

[2:16]  ² tn Heb “do not rebuke her” (so NASB, NRSV); CEV “don’t speak harshly to her”; NLT “don’t give her a hard time.”

[9:6]  ³ tn Heb “the enemy – they have come to an end [in] ruins permanently.” The singular form אוֹיֵב (’oyev, “enemy”) is collective. It is placed at the beginning of the verse to heighten the contrast with יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) in v. 7.

[9:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “you uprooted cities.”

[9:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “it has perished, their remembrance, they.” The independent pronoun at the end of the line is in apposition to the preceding pronominal suffix and lends emphasis (see IBHS 299 §16.3.4). The referent of the masculine pronoun is the nations/enemies (cf. v. 5), not the cities (the Hebrew noun עָרִים [’arim, “cities”] is grammatically feminine). This has been specified in the present translation for clarity; many modern translations retain the pronoun “them,” resulting in ambiguity (cf. NRSV “their cities you have rooted out; the very memory of them has perished”).