Rut 2:8

2:8 So Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen carefully, ¹  my dear! ²  Do not leave to gather grain in another field. You need not ³  go beyond the limits of this field. You may go along beside ⁴  my female workers. ⁵ 

Rut 2:21

2:21 Ruth the Moabite replied, “He even ⁶  told me, ‘You may go along beside my servants ⁷  until they have finished gathering all my harvest!’” ⁸ 

Rut 4:10

4:10 I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, as my wife to raise up a descendant who will inherit his property ⁹  so the name of the deceased might not disappear ¹⁰  from among his relatives and from his village. ¹¹  You are witnesses today.”

[2:8]  ¹ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The idiomatic, negated rhetorical question is equivalent to an affirmation (see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 119, and GKC 474 §150.e).

[2:8]  ² tn Heb “my daughter.” This form of address is a mild form of endearment, perhaps merely rhetorical. It might suggest that Boaz is older than Ruth, but not necessarily significantly so. A few English versions omit it entirely (e.g., TEV, CEV).

[2:8]  ³ tn The switch from the negative particle אַל (’al, see the preceding statement, “do not leave”) to לֹא (lo’) may make this statement more emphatic. It may indicate that the statement is a policy applicable for the rest of the harvest (see v. 21).

[2:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “and thus you may stay close with.” The imperfect has a permissive nuance here.

[2:8]  ⁵ sn The female workers would come along behind those who cut the grain and bundle it up. Staying close to the female workers allowed Ruth to collect more grain than would normally be the case (see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 61, and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 121).

[2:21]  ⁶ tn On the force of the phrase גָּם כִּי (gam ki) here, see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 138-39.

[2:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “with the servants who are mine you may stay close.” The imperfect has a permissive nuance here. The word “servants” is masculine plural.

[2:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “until they have finished all the harvest which is mine”; NIV “until they finish harvesting all my grain.”

[4:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “in order to raise up the name of the deceased over his inheritance” (NASB similar).

[4:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “be cut off” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB “may not perish.”

[4:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and from the gate of his place” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “from the court of his birth place”; NIV “from the town records.”