Ruth 1:22

1:22 So Naomi returned, accompanied by her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, who came back with her from the region of Moab. ¹  (Now they ²  arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.) ³ 

Ruth 2:23

2:23 So Ruth ⁴  worked beside ⁵  Boaz’s female servants, gathering grain until the end of the barley harvest as well as the wheat harvest. ⁶  After that she stayed home with her mother-in-law. ⁷ 

Amos 4:9

4:9 “I destroyed your crops ⁸  with blight and disease.

Locusts kept ⁹  devouring your orchards, ¹⁰  vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Habakkuk 3:17

3:17 When ¹¹  the fig tree does not bud,

and there are no grapes on the vines;

when the olive trees do not produce, ¹² 

and the fields yield no crops; ¹³ 

when the sheep disappear ¹⁴  from the pen,

and there are no cattle in the stalls,

¹ tn Heb “and Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, the one who returned from the region of Moab.”

² tn The pronoun appears to be third person masculine plural in form, but it is probably an archaic third person dual form (see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 94).

³ tn This statement, introduced with a disjunctive structure (vav [ו] + subject + verb) provides closure for the previous scene, while at the same time making a transition to the next scene, which takes place in the barley field. The reference to the harvest also reminds the reader that God has been merciful to his people by replacing the famine with fertility. In the flow of the narrative the question is now, “Will he do the same for Naomi and Ruth?”

⁴ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Ruth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “and she stayed close with”; NIV, NRSV, CEV “stayed close to”; NCV “continued working closely with.”

⁶ sn Barley was harvested from late March through late April, wheat from late April to late May (O. Borowski, Agriculture in Ancient Israel, 88, 91).

⁷ tn Heb “and she lived with her mother-in-law” (so NASB). Some interpret this to mean that she lived with her mother-in-law while working in the harvest. In other words, she worked by day and then came home to Naomi each evening. Others understand this to mean that following the harvest she stayed at home each day with Naomi and no longer went out looking for work (see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 140). Others even propose that she lived away from home during this period, but this seems unlikely. A few Hebrew mss (so also Latin Vulgate) support this view by reading, “and she returned to her mother-in-law.”

⁸ tn Heb “you.” By metonymy the crops belonging to these people are meant. See the remainder of this verse, which describes the agricultural devastation caused by locusts.

⁹ tn The Hiphil infinitive construct is taken adverbially (“kept”) and connected to the activity of the locusts (NJPS). It also could be taken with the preceding sentence and related to the Lord’s interventions (“I kept destroying,” cf. NEB, NJB, NIV, NRSV), or it could be understood substantivally in construct with the following nouns (“Locusts devoured your many orchards,” cf. NASB; cf. also KJV, NKJV).

¹⁰ tn Or “gardens.”

¹¹ tn Or “though.”

¹² tn Heb “the produce of the olive disappoints.”

¹³ tn Heb “food.”

¹⁴ tn Or “are cut off.”