Ruth 1:18

1:18 When Naomi ¹  realized that Ruth ²  was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to dissuade her. ³ 

Ruth 2:18

Ruth Returns to Naomi

2:18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw ⁴  how much grain ⁵  she had gathered. Then Ruth ⁶  gave her the roasted grain she had saved from mealtime. ⁷ 

Ruth 3:8

3:8 In the middle of the night he was startled ⁸  and turned over. ⁹  Now ¹⁰  he saw a woman ¹¹  lying beside him! ¹² 

[1:18]  ¹ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Naomi) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:18]  ² tn Heb “she”; the referent (Ruth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:18]  ³ tn Heb “she ceased speaking to her.” This does not imply that Naomi was completely silent toward Ruth. It simply means that Naomi stopped trying to convince her to go back to Moab (see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 84-85).

[2:18]  ⁴ tc MT vocalizes ותרא as the Qal verb וַתֵּרֶא (vattere’, “and she saw”), consequently of “her mother-in-law” as subject and “what she gathered” as the direct object: “her mother-in-law saw what she gathered.” A few medieval Hebrew mss (also reflected in Syriac and Vulgate) have the Hiphil וַתַּרְא (vattar’, “and she showed”), consequently taking “her mother-in-law” as the direct object and “what she gathered” as the double direct-object: “she showed her mother-in-law what she had gathered” (cf. NAB, TEV, CEV, NLT). Although the latter has the advantage of making Ruth the subject of all the verbs in this verse, it would be syntactically difficult. For one would expect the accusative sign אֶת (’et) before “her mother-in-law” if it were the direct object of a Hiphil verb in a sentence with a double direct object introduced by the accusative sign אֶת, e.g., “to show (Hiphil of רָאָה, ra’ah) your servant (direct object marked by accusative sign אֶת) your greatness (double direct object marked by accusative sign אֶת) (Deut 3:24). Therefore the MT reading is preferred.

[2:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “that which”; the referent (how much grain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Ruth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “and she brought out and gave to her that which she had left over from her being satisfied.”

[3:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “trembled, shuddered”; CEV, NLT “suddenly woke up.” Perhaps he shivered because he was chilled.

[3:8]  ⁸ tn The verb לָפַת (lafat) occurs only here, Job 6:18, and Judg 16:29 (where it seems to mean “grab hold of”). Here the verb seems to carry the meaning “bend, twist, turn,” like its Arabic cognate (see HALOT 533 s.v. לפת, and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 163).

[3:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, NASB). The narrator invites the reader to view the situation through Boaz’s eyes.

[3:8]  ¹⁰ sn Now he saw a woman. The narrator writes from Boaz’s perspective. Both the narrator and the reader know the night visitor is Ruth, but from Boaz’s perspective she is simply “a woman.”

[3:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[at] his legs.” See the note on the word “legs” in v. 4.