Discovery BoxRuth 2:17 
Context2:17 So she gathered grain in the field until evening. When she threshed 1 what she had gathered, it came to about thirty pounds 2 of barley!
Ruth 3:2
Context3:2 Now Boaz, with whose female servants you worked, is our close relative. 3 Look, tonight he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor. 4
Ruth 3:17
Context3:17 She said, “He gave me these sixty pounds of barley, for he said to me, 5 ‘Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’” 6
1 tn Heb “she beat out” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT). Ruth probably used a stick to separate the kernels of grain from the husks. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.
2 tn Heb “there was an ephah.” An ephah was a dry measure, equivalent to one-tenth of a homer (see HALOT 43 s.v. אֵיפָה). An ephah was equivalent to a “bath,” a liquid measure. Jars labeled “bath” found at archaeological sites in Israel could contain approximately 5.8 gallons, or one-half to two-thirds of a bushel. Thus an ephah of barley would have weighed about 29 to 30 pounds (just over 13 kg). See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 179.
sn This was a huge amount of barley for one woman to gather in a single day. It testifies both to Ruth’s industry and to Boaz’s generosity.
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).
5 tc The MT (Kethib) lacks the preposition אֵלַי (’elay, “to me”) which is attested in the marginal reading (Qere).
6 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.
