Ruth 2:13

2:13 She said, “You really are being kind to me, ¹  sir, ²  for you have reassured ³  and encouraged ⁴  me, your servant, ⁵  even though I am ⁶  not one of your servants!” ⁷ 

Ruth 2:15

2:15 When she got up to gather grain, Boaz told ⁸  his male servants, “Let her gather grain even among ⁹  the bundles! Don’t chase her off! ¹⁰ 

Ruth 2:21

2:21 Ruth the Moabite replied, “He even ¹¹  told me, ‘You may go along beside my servants ¹²  until they have finished gathering all my harvest!’” ¹³ 

Ruth 3:2

3:2 Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, is our close relative. ¹⁴  Look, tonight he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor. ¹⁵ 

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¹ tn Heb “I am finding favor in your eyes.” In v. 10, where Ruth uses the perfect, she simply states the fact that Boaz is kind. Here the Hebrew text switches to the imperfect, thus emphasizing the ongoing attitude of kindness displayed by Boaz. Many English versions treat this as a request: KJV “Let me find favour in thy sight”; NAB “May I prove worthy of your kindness”; NIV “May I continue to find favor in your eyes.”

² tn Heb “my master”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “my lord.”

³ tn Or “comforted” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

⁴ tn Heb “spoken to the heart of.” As F. W. Bush points out, the idiom here means “to reassure, encourage” (Ruth, Esther [WBC], 124).

⁵ tn Ruth here uses a word (שִׁפְחָה, shifkhah) that describes the lowest level of female servant (see 1 Sam 25:41). Note Ruth 3:9 where she uses the word אָמָה (’amah), which refers to a higher class of servant.

⁶ tn The imperfect verbal form of הָיָה (hayah) is used here. F. W. Bush shows from usage elsewhere that the form should be taken as future (Ruth, Esther [WBC], 124-25).

⁷ tn The disjunctive clause (note the pattern vav [ו] + subject + verb) is circumstantial (or concessive) here (“even though”).

⁸ tn Or “commanded” (so KJV, NASB, NCV).

⁹ tn Heb “even between”; NCV “even around.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “do not humiliate her”; cf. KJV “reproach her not”; NASB “do not insult her”; NIV “don’t embarrass her.” This probably refers to a verbal rebuke which would single her out and embarrass her (see v. 16). See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 176-77, and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 126.

¹¹ tn On the force of the phrase גָּם כִּי (gam ki) here, see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 138-39.

¹² tn Heb “with the servants who are mine you may stay close.” The imperfect has a permissive nuance here. The word “servants” is masculine plural.

¹³ tn Heb “until they have finished all the harvest which is mine”; NIV “until they finish harvesting all my grain.”

¹⁴ 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).

¹⁵ 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).