Ruth 1:15

1:15 So Naomi ¹  said, “Look, your sister-in-law is returning to her people and to her god. ²  Follow your sister-in-law back home!”

Ruth 3:2

3:2 Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, is our close relative. ³  Look, tonight he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor. ⁴ 

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

² tn Or “gods” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, CEV, NLT), if the plural form is taken as a numerical plural. However, it is likely that Naomi, speaking from Orpah’s Moabite perspective, uses the plural of majesty of the Moabite god Chemosh. For examples of the plural of majesty being used of a pagan god, see BDB 43 s.v. אֱלֹהִים 1.d. Note especially 1 Kgs 11:33, where the plural form is used of Chemosh.

³ tn Heb “Is not Boaz our close relative, with whose female servants you were?” The idiomatic, negated rhetorical question is equivalent to an affirmation (see Ruth 2:8-9; 3:1) and has thus been translated in the affirmative (so also NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

⁴ tn Heb “look, he is winnowing the barley threshing floor tonight.”

sn Winnowing the threshed grain involved separating the kernels of grain from the straw and chaff. The grain would be thrown into the air, allowing the wind to separate the kernels (see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 65-66). The threshing floor itself was usually located outside town in a place where the prevailing west wind could be used to advantage (Borowski, 62-63).