Text -- Ruth 2:9 (NET)

2:9 Take note of the field where the men are harvesting and follow behind with the female workers. I will tell the men to leave you alone. When you are thirsty, you may go to the water jars and drink some of the water the servants draw.”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Rut 2:9

¹ tn Heb “let your eyes be upon” (KJV, NASB similar).

² tn Heb “they.” The verb is masculine plural, indicating that the male workers are the subject here.

³ tn Heb “and go after them.” The pronominal suffix (“them”) is feminine plural, indicating that the female workers are referred to here.

⁴ tn Male servants are in view here, as the masculine plural form of the noun indicates (cf. KJV, NAB, NRSV “the young men”).

⁵ tn Heb “Have I not commanded the servants not to touch [i.e., “harm”] you?” The idiomatic, negated rhetorical question is equivalent to an affirmation (see v. 8). The perfect is either instantaneous, indicating completion of the action concurrent with the statement (see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 107, 121-22, who translates, “I am herewith ordering”) or emphatic/rhetorical, indicating the action is as good as done.

⁶ tn The juxtaposition of two perfects, each with vav consecutive, here indicates a conditional sentence (see GKC 337 §112.kk).

⁷ tn Heb “vessels (so KJV, NAB, NRSV), receptacles”; NCV “water jugs.”

⁸ tn Heb “drink [some] of that which” (KJV similar); in the context “water” is implied.

⁹ tn The imperfect here either indicates characteristic or typical activity, or anterior future, referring to a future action (drawing water) which logically precedes another future action (drinking).