Ruth 2:18

Ruth Returns to Naomi

2:18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw 1  how much grain 2  she had gathered. Then Ruth 3  gave her the roasted grain she had saved from mealtime. 4 

Ruth 2:23

2:23 So Ruth 5  worked beside 6  Boaz’s female servants, gathering grain until the end of the barley harvest as well as the wheat harvest. 7  After that she stayed home with her mother-in-law. 8 

1 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 tn Heb “that which”; the referent (how much grain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

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

4 tn Heb “and she brought out and gave to her that which she had left over from her being satisfied.”

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

6 tn Heb “and she stayed close with”; NIV, NRSV, CEV “stayed close to”; NCV “continued working closely with.”

7 sn Barley was harvested from late March through late April, wheat from late April to late May (O. Borowski, Agriculture in Ancient Israel, 88, 91).

8 tn Heb “and she lived with her mother-in-law” (so NASB). Some interpret this to mean that she lived with her mother-in-law while working in the harvest. In other words, she worked by day and then came home to Naomi each evening. Others understand this to mean that following the harvest she stayed at home each day with Naomi and no longer went out looking for work (see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther [WBC], 140). Others even propose that she lived away from home during this period, but this seems unlikely. A few Hebrew mss (so also Latin Vulgate) support this view by reading, “and she returned to her mother-in-law.”