Ruth 2

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The narrator introduces Boaz with a backgrounding clause before Ruth or Naomi know he will matter. The term moda ('relative, acquaintance') signals a kinship connection to Elimelech's clan. The description ish gibbor chayil ('a man mighty of strength/wealth') is the same phrase applied to Gideon (Judges 6:12) and to the ideal woman in Proverbs 31:10 (eshet chayil). It encompasses wealth, social standing, and personal capability — Boaz is everything that Naomi's household currently lacks.
2. The name Boaz (Bo'az) may mean 'in him is strength' — from the preposition be ('in') and oz ('strength'). If so, the name anticipates his role: he is the man in whom the family's future strength resides. The same name was given to one of the two pillars of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 7:21).

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Ruth's initiative drives the scene: elkhah-na hasadeh va'alaqotah ('let me go, please, to the field and glean'). The particle na ('please') is deferential — Ruth asks permission, not forgiveness. She proposes to exercise the legal right of gleaning (laqat) granted to the poor and the foreigner in Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22. That a Moabite widow in Israel would know this law — or assume it would be honored — reflects either Naomi's instruction or Ruth's remarkable boldness.
2. The phrase emtsa-chen be'einav ('I find favor in his eyes') anticipates the exact language Boaz will use in verse 10 and Ruth will use in verse 13. The narrator builds the encounter through verbal echoes: the favor Ruth hopes for from any landowner will come, specifically and abundantly, from Boaz.
3. Naomi's reply — lekhi vitti ('go, my daughter') — is strikingly brief. After the eloquent speeches of chapter 1, Naomi has few words. She sends Ruth into a situation fraught with danger for an unprotected foreign woman and says only two words. Whether this reflects depression, helplessness, or trust in God is left unstated.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The phrase vayyiqer miqrehah (literally 'her chance chanced upon') uses the root qarah ('to encounter, to happen, to befall') in a cognate accusative construction — the verb and its object share the same root, intensifying the meaning. The same root appears in Ecclesiastes 2:14-15 and 9:2-3 to describe the apparent randomness of fate. Here the narrator deploys the language of chance precisely to undermine it: the reader knows from verse 1 that Boaz is Elimelech's kinsman.
2. The three rapid verbs — vattelekh vattavo vattelaqet ('she went and came and gleaned') — compress Ruth's journey into staccato action. No description of the walk, the landscape, or her feelings. The narrative pace keeps the focus on what happens, not how she feels about it.

Translator Notes

1. The narrative marker vehinneh ('and look!') signals a dramatic entrance — Boaz arrives at exactly the moment Ruth is gleaning in his field. We rendered this as 'just then' to convey the narrative surprise without resorting to archaic 'behold.' The timing reinforces the irony of verse 3: one 'coincidence' follows another.
2. The exchange YHWH immakhem / yevarekha YHWH ('the LORD be with you / the LORD bless you') is either a routine greeting (like modern 'God bless you') or a marker of Boaz's genuine piety. The narrator does not distinguish — but the exchange establishes Boaz's household as one where the LORD's name is invoked freely and reciprocally. This is not the world of Judges, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes; this is a field where master and workers bless each other in God's name.

Translator Notes

1. Boaz's question — lemi hanna'arah hazzot ('to whom does this young woman belong?') — reflects the social reality: an unmarried or widowed woman in the ancient Near East was identified by her connection to a male household. The question 'whose is she?' is not objectifying by ancient standards but locating her within the kinship network. Boaz is trying to place her socially — whose family, whose household, whose responsibility?

Translator Notes

1. The servant's first identifying marker is ethnic: na'arah Mo'aviyyah hi ('a Moabite young woman she is'). Her foreignness is the primary fact. The phrase ha-shavah im Na'omi ('the one who returned with Naomi') uses the same verb shub ('to return') from chapter 1 — Ruth's reputation has preceded her. The entire community apparently knows the story of the Moabite who came back with Naomi.
2. The servant's identification — 'Moabite young woman' — places Ruth in a double-marginal category: foreign and female. In the social hierarchy of an Israelite harvest field, she has no standing whatsoever. Everything Boaz does next is therefore extraordinary generosity beyond legal obligation.

Translator Notes

1. Ruth's request — alaqotah-na ve'asafti va'omarim ('let me glean and gather among the sheaves') — goes beyond basic gleaning rights. Gleaning (laqat) meant picking up individual stalks that fell during harvesting. Gathering among the sheaves (asaf va'omarim) implies collecting closer to the bundled grain — a more productive but more presumptuous request. Ruth is negotiating for maximum provision.
2. The servant's report emphasizes Ruth's tireless labor: me'az habboqer ve'ad attah ('from the morning until now'). The final clause zeh shivtah habbayit me'at ('this — her sitting in the house/shelter — has been little') confirms she barely rested. The servant is clearly impressed. Her work ethic speaks before Boaz does.

Translator Notes

1. Boaz's address — halo shamat bitti ('have you not heard, my daughter?') — opens with paternal authority. The term bitti ('my daughter') establishes a protective relationship, not a romantic one (yet). He immediately issues three imperatives: do not go to another field, do not leave this one, stay close to my workers. The protection is comprehensive.
2. The verb tidbakin ('you shall cling, stay close') is from the root davaq — the same verb used of Ruth's clinging to Naomi in 1:14, of the marriage bond in Genesis 2:24, and of Israel's attachment to God in Deuteronomy 10:20. The narrator threads this verb through the book: Ruth clung to Naomi, now she is told to cling to Boaz's workers, and eventually she will be joined to Boaz himself.

Translator Notes

1. Boaz's command tsivviti et-hanne'arim levilti nag'ekh ('I have charged the young men not to touch you') reveals a reality the text does not romanticize: an unprotected foreign woman in a harvest field was vulnerable to sexual assault. The verb naga ('to touch') in this context means unwanted physical contact — the same verb used in Genesis 20:6 when God prevents Abimelech from touching Sarah. Boaz has already taken protective action before speaking to Ruth.
2. The provision of water — ve'shatit me'asher yish'avun hanne'arim ('drink from what the young men draw') — is significant because drawing water was labor-intensive. Boaz gives Ruth access to water she did not draw, from workers she does not employ, in a field she does not own. Each provision strips away one more layer of her outsider status.

Translator Notes

1. Ruth's response — vattippol al paneiha vatttishtachu artsah ('she fell on her face and bowed to the ground') — is the full prostration gesture of submission and gratitude. It is the same posture used before kings and before God. From Ruth, it communicates the enormity of what Boaz has offered: not just grain but protection, dignity, and recognition.
2. The wordplay in lehakkireni ve'anokhi nokhriyyah ('to notice me, and I am a foreigner') is one of the finest in the Hebrew Bible. The verb nakhar means both 'to recognize, to pay attention to' and, in a different form, 'to be foreign.' Ruth uses the verb and then identifies herself with its cognate noun: 'Why would you recognize (hakkir) me, seeing that I am a foreigner (nokhriyyah)?' The one who is by definition unrecognizable — the foreigner — has been recognized. The wordplay compresses the entire theological arc of Ruth into a single sentence.

Translator Notes

1. The emphatic infinitive absolute construction hugged huggad li ('it has been told, it has been told to me') doubles the verb for emphasis — the report about Ruth has been thorough and complete. Boaz knows her entire story. His summary of her actions — leaving father, mother, and homeland (eretz moladtekh) — deliberately echoes God's call to Abraham: lekh-lekha me'artsekha umimmoladtekha umibeit avikha ('go from your land and your kindred and your father's house,' Genesis 12:1). Ruth has done what Abraham did: left everything familiar for an unknown destination among an unknown people.
2. The phrase am asher lo yadat temol shilshom ('a people you did not know yesterday or the day before') is an idiom for complete unfamiliarity. Ruth's journey was not to a place of potential welcome but to radical strangeness. Boaz recognizes the full cost of her choice.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The verb yeshallem ('may he repay') and the noun maskurtek ('your wages') are economic terms — payment for work done. Boaz frames Ruth's loyalty not as emotional sentiment but as labor that has earned a wage from God. The theological implication is startling: covenant faithfulness shown by a Moabite generates a debt that God himself will repay.
2. The phrase lachasot tachat kenafav ('to take refuge under his wings') uses the root chasah ('to seek refuge, to take shelter') found throughout the Psalms (Psalms 2:12, 5:11, 17:8, 36:7, 57:1, 91:4). Ruth the Moabite has sought shelter under the wings of the God of Israel — and God will provide that shelter through Boaz himself. The double meaning of kanaf ('wing' and 'corner of a garment') creates a verbal bridge to 3:9 that transforms theology into narrative action.

Translator Notes

1. Ruth's phrase dibbarta al-lev shifchatekha ('you have spoken to the heart of your servant') uses the idiom dibber al-lev ('to speak to the heart'), which appears in Genesis 34:3, Isaiah 40:2, and Hosea 2:14. It means more than kind words — it means to reassure, to console, to win someone's trust through tender speech. The same phrase describes how God woos wayward Israel.
2. Ruth's self-deprecation — ve'anokhi lo ehyeh ke'achat shifchotekha ('and I will not even be like one of your servant girls') — is not false modesty. She is stating social reality: she ranks below Boaz's own servants. The word shifchah ('female servant, handmaid') is the same term she uses for herself, creating an ironic hierarchy: she calls herself his servant while acknowledging she is not even equal to his actual servants. Boaz's kindness has elevated her beyond her station, and she knows it.

Translator Notes

1. The invitation to eat at the communal meal — goshi halom ve'akhalt min-hallechem ('come here and eat from the bread') — breaks another social barrier. Ruth the gleaner is invited to eat with the workers, at the landowner's table. The vinegar (chomets) is sour wine used as a dipping sauce — a common field condiment that makes coarse bread palatable.
2. The sequence vattokhal vattisba vatttotar ('she ate and was satisfied and had left over') echoes the language of divine provision. The same three-beat pattern — eat, be satisfied, have surplus — appears in the feeding miracles and in Deuteronomy's descriptions of abundance in the promised land (Deuteronomy 8:10). A Moabite widow in a harvest field receives the same pattern of provision that God promises Israel. The surplus (vattotar) anticipates the abundance she will bring home to Naomi in verse 18.

Translator Notes

1. Boaz's command — gam bein ha'omarim telaqet velo takhlimuha ('even among the sheaves let her glean, and do not humiliate her') — exceeds the gleaning law. Leviticus permits gleaning at the edges; Boaz opens the sheaves themselves. The verb kalam ('to humiliate, to put to shame') indicates that gleaners could expect verbal abuse or harsh treatment from workers protecting their employer's grain. Boaz forbids not just physical harm but social degradation.
2. The command is given privately to the workers, not to Ruth. Boaz protects her dignity by arranging generosity she will not witness being arranged. She will think she found the grain; the workers will know it was placed for her. This is chesed in its most refined form — kindness that preserves the recipient's sense of agency.

Translator Notes

1. The infinitive absolute construction shol-tashollu ('you shall surely pull out') emphasizes deliberateness — this is not passive allowance but active provision disguised as accident. Boaz commands his workers to engineer abundance while maintaining Ruth's dignity. She will think she is finding good grain; in reality, the grain is finding her.
2. The verb ga'ar ('to rebuke, to scold') suggests that harvesters normally drove off gleaners who took too much or came too close. Boaz dismantles every mechanism of exclusion: no physical harm (v. 9), no humiliation (v. 15), no scolding (v. 16). He creates a zone of total safety around a woman who had no right to expect any.

Translator Notes

1. An ephah (eifah) is approximately 22 liters or about 30 pounds of grain — an extraordinary amount for a single day's gleaning. Normal gleaning might yield a few pounds. The quantity confirms that Boaz's secret instructions in verses 15-16 had their intended effect: Ruth's labor, combined with arranged generosity, produces an abundance that would be impossible under normal gleaning conditions.
2. The verb chavat ('to beat out, to thresh') describes Ruth processing the grain herself — separating the kernels from the stalks by striking them. This is additional labor after a full day of gleaning, demonstrating Ruth's relentless work ethic. She does not bring home raw sheaves but processed, ready-to-use grain.

Translator Notes

1. The double provision — gleaned grain and leftover food — mirrors the eat/be-satisfied/have-surplus pattern of verse 14. Ruth brings home both the day's wages (grain) and the day's surplus (food from the communal meal). Naomi receives not just provision but evidence of extraordinary generosity.
2. The verb hotirah ('she had left over') connects to the vattotar of verse 14. What Ruth saved from her own satisfaction she brings to Naomi. The economy of chesed operates through surplus: Boaz gives Ruth more than she needs, and Ruth carries the excess to Naomi. Kindness flows downhill from the man of means through the gleaner to the empty widow.

Translator Notes

1. Naomi's questions tumble out in rapid sequence — eifoh liqqatt hayom ve'anah asit ('where did you glean today and where did you work?') — before Ruth can answer. The quantity of grain has clearly shocked her. Naomi blesses the unknown benefactor before she knows his name: yehi makkirekh barukh ('may the one who noticed you be blessed'). The verb makkirekh ('the one who noticed/recognized you') echoes Ruth's wordplay from verse 10 — the nakhar/nokhriyyah connection now extends through Naomi's blessing.
2. Ruth's revelation — shem ha'ish asher asiti immo hayyom Bo'az ('the name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz') — is placed at the end of the verse for maximum narrative impact. The name lands like a thunderclap on Naomi, who will immediately recognize its significance.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The phrase asher lo azav chasdo et-hachayim ve'et-hammetim ('who has not abandoned his chesed toward the living and the dead') recalls Naomi's own chesed blessing over Ruth and Orpah in 1:8. There, Naomi asked God to show chesed to them as they had shown chesed to the dead. Now the cycle completes: God's chesed toward the dead (Elimelech, Mahlon, Chilion) and the living (Naomi, Ruth) flows through Boaz. The woman who accused God of emptying her (1:21) now blesses God for not abandoning his love.
2. The term go'el ('redeemer, kinsman-redeemer') is from the root ga'al ('to redeem, to buy back, to act as kinsman'). It carries legal, economic, and theological weight: the go'el redeems land (Leviticus 25:25), persons (Leviticus 25:47-49), and blood (Numbers 35:19). God himself is called go'el of Israel (Exodus 6:6, Isaiah 41:14, 43:14). By identifying Boaz as go'el, Naomi introduces the mechanism that will resolve every strand of the plot: land, marriage, lineage, and identity.
3. The word qarov ('close, near') signals that Boaz is not just any relative but a close one — close enough in the kinship network to bear the obligation of redemption. The proximity matters legally: the go'el responsibility falls on the nearest male relative.

Translator Notes

1. Ruth quotes Boaz as saying hanne'arim asher-li ('the young men who are mine') — but in verse 8, Boaz actually told her to stay with his na'arot ('young women'). Ruth's substitution of 'young men' for 'young women' is noticed by many commentators. It may be an innocent misquotation, or it may reflect that Ruth worked near both groups, or it may be narratively significant — Naomi's response in the next verse will steer Ruth back toward the women, possibly out of concern for her safety among the men.
2. The phrase ad im-killu et-kol-haqqatsir asher-li ('until they have finished all my harvest') extends Boaz's protection through the entire harvest season — weeks of guaranteed safety, provision, and access. This is not a one-day favor but a standing arrangement.

Translator Notes

1. Naomi's response corrects Ruth's 'young men' back to na'arotav ('his young women') — a subtle but deliberate redirection. Whether Naomi is worried about safety, propriety, or both, she steers Ruth toward the female workers. The verb yifge'u ('they meet, they encounter, they strike against') can mean anything from an accidental meeting to a violent assault. Naomi is warning Ruth that outside Boaz's field, she has no protection.
2. The phrase besadeh acher ('in another field') carries more weight than geography. Boaz's field is the one place where Ruth has been recognized, protected, fed, and given access. Every other field is the field of a stranger where she is just another Moabite gleaner with no protector. Naomi's counsel is both practical and strategic: stay where the go'el can see you.

Translator Notes

1. The chapter closes with the verb vattidbaq ('she clung, she stayed close') — the same root davaq that described Ruth's clinging to Naomi in 1:14 and Boaz's instruction in 2:8. Ruth is now bound to Boaz's household by daily habit, even as she remains bound to Naomi at home. The verb quietly stitches together every relationship in the book.
2. The time summary — qetsir hasse'orim uqetsir hachittim ('the barley harvest and the wheat harvest') — spans roughly seven weeks, from Passover to Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks). Ruth has gleaned through two full harvest cycles, establishing herself as a known presence in Boaz's field. The closing note vatteshev et-chamotah ('and she lived with her mother-in-law') returns us to the domestic frame: whatever happens in the field, Ruth comes home to Naomi. The chapter opened with Ruth going out; it closes with her dwelling in. Between departure and return, everything has changed.