Ruth 1:7

Ruth Returns with Naomi

1:7 Now as she and her two daughters-in-law began to leave the place where she had been living to return to the land of Judah, ¹ 

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. ²  (Now they ³  arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.) ⁴ 

Ruth 3:17

3:17 She said, “He gave me these sixty pounds of barley, for he said to me, ⁵  ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’” ⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “and she went out from the place she had been, and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.”

² tn Heb “and Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, the one who returned from the region of Moab.”

³ 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).

⁴ 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?”

³ tc The MT (Kethib) lacks the preposition אֵלַי (’elay, “to me”) which is attested in the marginal reading (Qere).

⁴ sn ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’ In addition to being a further gesture of kindness on Boaz’s part, the gift of barley served as a token of his intention to fulfill his responsibility as family guardian. See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 225-26, and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 187.