Ruth 2:21

2:21 Ruth the Moabite replied, “He even ¹  told me, ‘You may go along beside my servants ²  until they have finished gathering all my harvest!’” ³ 

Ruth 3:17

3:17 She said, “He gave me these sixty pounds of barley, for he said to me, ⁴  ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’” ⁵ 

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¹ tn On the force of the phrase גָּם כִּי (gam ki) here, see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 138-39.

² 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.

³ tn Heb “until they have finished all the harvest which is mine”; NIV “until they finish harvesting all my grain.”

⁴ tc The MT (Kethib) lacks the preposition אֵלַי (’elay, “to me”) which is attested in the marginal reading (Qere).

⁵ sn ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’ In addition to being a further gesture of kindness on Boaz’s part, the gift of barley served as a token of his intention to fulfill his responsibility as family guardian. See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 225-26, and F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 187.