Rut 3:10

3:10 He said, “May you be rewarded ¹  by the Lord, my dear! ²  This act of devotion ³  is greater than what you did before. ⁴  For you have not sought to marry ⁵  one of the young men, whether rich or poor. ⁶ 

Rut 3:2

3:2 Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, is our close relative. ⁷  Look, tonight he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor. ⁸ 

1 Samuel 2:5

2:5 Those who are well-fed hire themselves out to earn food,

but the hungry no longer lack.

Even ⁹  the barren woman gives birth to seven, ¹⁰ 

but the one with many children withers away. ¹¹ 

Ayub 29:12-13

29:12 for I rescued the poor who cried out for help,

and the orphan who ¹²  had no one to assist him;

29:13 the blessing of the dying man descended on me, ¹³ 

and I made the widow’s heart rejoice; ¹⁴ 

Ayub 29:2

29:2 “O that I could be ¹⁵  as ¹⁶  I was

in the months now gone, ¹⁷ 

in the days ¹⁸  when God watched ¹⁹  over me,

Titus 1:16

1:16 They profess to know God but with their deeds they deny him, since they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

[3:10]  ¹ tn Or “blessed” (so NASB, NRSV).

[3:10]  ² tn Heb “my daughter.” This form of address is a mild form of endearment, perhaps merely rhetorical. A few English versions omit it entirely (e.g., TEV, CEV). The same expression occurs in v. 11.

[3:10]  ³ tn Heb “latter [act of] devotion”; NRSV “this last instance of your loyalty.”

[3:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “you have made the latter act of devotion better than the former”; NIV “than that which you showed earlier.”

[3:10]  sn Greater than what you did before. Ruth’s former act of devotion was her decision to remain and help Naomi. The latter act of devotion is her decision to marry Boaz to provide a child to carry on her deceased husband’s (and Elimelech’s) line and to provide for Naomi in her old age (see Ruth 4:5, 10, 15).

[3:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “by not going after the young men” (NASB similar); TEV “You might have gone looking for a young man.”

[3:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “whether poor or rich” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); the more common English idiom reverses the order (“rich or poor”; cf. NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[3:10]  sn Whether rich or poor. This statement seems to indicate that Ruth could have married anyone. However, only by marrying a גֹּאֵל (go’el, “family guardian”; traditionally “redeemer”) could she carry on her dead husband’s line and make provision for Naomi.

[3:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Is not Boaz our close relative, with whose female servants you were?” The idiomatic, negated rhetorical question is equivalent to an affirmation (see Ruth 2:8-9; 3:1) and has thus been translated in the affirmative (so also NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[3:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “look, he is winnowing the barley threshing floor tonight.”

[3:2]  sn Winnowing the threshed grain involved separating the kernels of grain from the straw and chaff. The grain would be thrown into the air, allowing the wind to separate the kernels (see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 65-66). The threshing floor itself was usually located outside town in a place where the prevailing west wind could be used to advantage (Borowski, 62-63).

[2:5]  ⁹ tc Against BHS but with the MT, the preposition (עַד, ’ad) should be taken with what follows rather than with what precedes. For this sense of the preposition see Job 25:5.

[2:5]  ¹⁰ sn The number seven is used here in an ideal sense. Elsewhere in the OT having seven children is evidence of fertility as a result of God’s blessing on the family. See, for example, Jer 15:9, Ruth 4:15.

[2:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “languishes.”

[29:12]  ¹² tn The negative introduces a clause that serves as a negative attribute; literally the following clause says, “and had no helper” (see GKC 482 §152.u).

[29:13]  ¹³ tn The verb is simply בּוֹא (bo’, “to come; to enter”). With the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”) it could mean “came to me,” or “came upon me,” i.e., descended (see R. Gordis, Job, 320).

[29:13]  ¹⁴ tn The verb אַרְנִן (’arnin) is from רָנַן (ranan, “to give a ringing cry”) but here “cause to give a ringing cry,” i.e., shout of joy. The rejoicing envisioned in this word is far greater than what the words “sing” or “rejoice” suggest.

[29:2]  ¹⁵ tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi-yittÿneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).

[29:2]  ¹⁶ tn The preposition כּ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).

[29:2]  ¹⁷ tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.

[29:2]  ¹⁸ tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”

[29:2]  ¹⁹ tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance – “when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”