¹ tn Heb “Why would you want to come with me?” Naomi’s rhetorical question expects a negative answer. The phrase “to Judah” is added in the translation for clarification.

² tn Heb “Do I still have sons in my inner parts that they might become your husbands?” Again Naomi’s rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

³ sn Too old to get married again. Naomi may be exaggerating for the sake of emphasis. Her point is clear, though: It is too late to roll back the clock.

⁴ tn Verse 12b contains the protasis (“if” clause) of a conditional sentence, which is completed by the rhetorical questions in v. 13. For a detailed syntactical analysis, see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 78-79.

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.”