Rut 2:14-19

2:14 Later during the mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and have ¹  some food! Dip your bread ²  in the vinegar!” So she sat down beside the harvesters. Then he handed ³  her some roasted grain. She ate until she was full and saved the rest. ⁴  2:15 When she got up to gather grain, Boaz told ⁵  his male servants, “Let her gather grain even among ⁶  the bundles! Don’t chase her off! ⁷  2:16 Make sure you pull out ⁸  ears of grain for her and drop them so she can gather them up. Don’t tell her not to!” ⁹  2:17 So she gathered grain in the field until evening. When she threshed ¹⁰  what she had gathered, it came to about thirty pounds ¹¹  of barley!

Ruth Returns to Naomi

2:18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw ¹²  how much grain ¹³  she had gathered. Then Ruth ¹⁴  gave her the roasted grain she had saved from mealtime. ¹⁵  2:19 Her mother-in-law asked her, ¹⁶  “Where did you gather grain today? Where did you work? May the one who took notice of you be rewarded!” ¹⁷  So Ruth ¹⁸  told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked. She said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.”

[2:14]  ¹ tn Heb “eat” (so KJV, NRSV).

[2:14]  ² tn Heb “your portion”; NRSV “your morsel.”

[2:14]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb צָבַט (tsavat) occurs only here in the OT. Cf. KJV, ASV “he reached her”; NASB “he served her”; NIV “he offered her”; NRSV “he heaped up for her.” For discussion of its meaning, including the etymological evidence, see BDB 840 s.v.; R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 174; and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 125-26.

[2:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “and she ate and she was satisfied and she had some left over” (NASB similar).

[2:15]  ⁵ tn Or “commanded” (so KJV, NASB, NCV).

[2:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “even between”; NCV “even around.”

[2:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “do not humiliate her”; cf. KJV “reproach her not”; NASB “do not insult her”; NIV “don’t embarrass her.” This probably refers to a verbal rebuke which would single her out and embarrass her (see v. 16). See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 176-77, and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 126.

[2:16]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “do not rebuke her” (so NASB, NRSV); CEV “don’t speak harshly to her”; NLT “don’t give her a hard time.”

[2:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “she beat out” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT). Ruth probably used a stick to separate the kernels of grain from the husks. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.

[2:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “there was an ephah.” An ephah was a dry measure, equivalent to one-tenth of a homer (see HALOT 43 s.v. אֵיפָה). An ephah was equivalent to a “bath,” a liquid measure. Jars labeled “bath” found at archaeological sites in Israel could contain approximately 5.8 gallons, or one-half to two-thirds of a bushel. Thus an ephah of barley would have weighed about 29 to 30 pounds (just over 13 kg). See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 179.

[2:17]  sn This was a huge amount of barley for one woman to gather in a single day. It testifies both to Ruth’s industry and to Boaz’s generosity.

[2:18]  ¹² tc MT vocalizes ותרא as the Qal verb וַתֵּרֶא (vattere’, “and she saw”), consequently of “her mother-in-law” as subject and “what she gathered” as the direct object: “her mother-in-law saw what she gathered.” A few medieval Hebrew mss (also reflected in Syriac and Vulgate) have the Hiphil וַתַּרְא (vattar’, “and she showed”), consequently taking “her mother-in-law” as the direct object and “what she gathered” as the double direct-object: “she showed her mother-in-law what she had gathered” (cf. NAB, TEV, CEV, NLT). Although the latter has the advantage of making Ruth the subject of all the verbs in this verse, it would be syntactically difficult. For one would expect the accusative sign אֶת (’et) before “her mother-in-law” if it were the direct object of a Hiphil verb in a sentence with a double direct object introduced by the accusative sign אֶת, e.g., “to show (Hiphil of רָאָה, ra’ah) your servant (direct object marked by accusative sign אֶת) your greatness (double direct object marked by accusative sign אֶת) (Deut 3:24). Therefore the MT reading is preferred.

[2:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “that which”; the referent (how much grain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Ruth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and she brought out and gave to her that which she had left over from her being satisfied.”

[2:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “said to her.” Since what follows is a question, the translation uses “asked her” here.

[2:19]  ¹⁷ tn Or “blessed” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV). The same expression occurs in the following verse.

[2:19]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Ruth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.