Leviticus 19:9-10

Leaving the Gleanings

19:9 “‘When you gather in the harvest ¹  of your land, you must not completely harvest the corner of your field, ²  and you must not gather up the gleanings of your harvest. 19:10 You must not pick your vineyard bare, ³  and you must not gather up the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 23:22

23:22 When you gather in the harvest ⁴  of your land, you must not completely harvest the corner of your field, ⁵  and you must not gather up the gleanings of your harvest. You must leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.’” ⁶ 

Ruth 2:16

2:16 Make sure you pull out ⁷  ears of grain for her and drop them so she can gather them up. Don’t tell her not to!” ⁸ 

Psalms 41:1

Psalm 41 ⁹ 

For the music director; a psalm of David.

41:1 How blessed ¹⁰  is the one who treats the poor properly! ¹¹ 

When trouble comes, ¹²  the Lord delivers him. ¹³ 

[19:9]  ¹ tn Heb “And in your harvesting the harvest.”

[19:9]  ² tn Heb “you shall not complete the corner of your field to harvest.”

[19:10]  ³ tn Heb “And you shall not deal severely with your vineyard.”

[23:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “And when you harvest the harvest.”

[23:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “you shall not complete the corner of your field in your harvest.”

[23:22]  ⁶ sn Compare Lev 19:9-10.

[2:16]  ⁷ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis. Here שָׁלַל (shalal, “pull out”) is a homonym of the more common Hebrew verb meaning “to plunder.” An Arabic cognate is used of drawing a sword out of a scabbard (see BDB 1021 s.v.).

[2:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “do not rebuke her” (so NASB, NRSV); CEV “don’t speak harshly to her”; NLT “don’t give her a hard time.”

[41:1]  ⁹ sn Psalm 41. The psalmist is confident (vv. 11-12) that the Lord has heard his request to be healed (vv. 4-10), and he anticipates the joy he will experience when the Lord intervenes (vv. 1-3). One must assume that the psalmist is responding to a divine oracle of assurance (see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 319-20). The final verse is a fitting conclusion to this psalm, but it is also serves as a fitting conclusion to the first “book” (or major editorial division) of the Psalter. Similar statements appear at or near the end of each of the second, third, and fourth “books” of the Psalter (see Pss 72:19, 89:52, and 106:48 respectively).

[41:1]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see Pss 1:1, 3; 2:12; 34:9; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).

[41:1]  ¹¹ sn One who treats the poor properly. The psalmist is characterizing himself as such an individual and supplying a reason why God has responded favorably to his prayer. The Lord’s attitude toward the merciful mirrors their treatment of the poor.

[41:1]  ¹² tn Heb “in the day of trouble” (see Ps 27:5).

[41:1]  ¹³ tn That is, the one who has been kind to the poor. The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive of prayer (“may the Lord deliver,” see v. 2), but the preceding parallel line is a declaration of fact, not a prayer per se. The imperfect can be taken here as future (“will deliver,” cf. NEB, NASB) or as generalizing (“delivers,” cf. NIV, NRSV). The parallel line, which has a generalizing tone, favors the latter. At the same time, though the psalmist uses a generalizing style here, he clearly has himself primarily in view.