Miscellaneous Short Bible Studies

By William Flewelling

These are bible studies of a limited scale, developed and led by the author with two of the congregations he served. The first congregation was in Mantua OH in the late 1970s, from which the first three bible studies arose: Ruth, Lamentations, and The Infancy Narratives. The second congregation was in New Martinsville WV from 1998 through 2003, these being done is a slightly different style: Psalms of Ascent, Selected Psalms, The Speech of Stephan, Encountering God, Matthew 5 and Matthew 6 & 7. I sought to bring a serious, somewhat scholarly approach to the study of the bible among those congregation members who chose to attend. This revisiting of those studies prove once again their value to me. I hope they prove to be so for you as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823004053

William Flewelling

I am a retired minister from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) living in central Illinois. Led by a request from Mildred Corwin of Manua OH when I arrived there in 1976, I long developed and led a series of bible studies there and in LaPorte IN and New Martinsville WV. These studies proved to be very feeding to me in my pastoral work and won a certain degree of following in my congregations. My first study was on 1 Peter, chosen because I knew almost nothing about the book. I now live quietly in retirement with my wife of 54 years, a pair of dogs and several cats.

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© 2023 William Flewelling. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 03/17/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0406-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0405-3 (e)

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Contents

Foreword

Notes On Ruth

Notes on Ruth 1:1-6

Notes on Ruth 1:7-22

Notes on Ruth 2

Notes on Ruth 3

Notes on Ruth 4:1-12

Notes on Ruth 4:13-22

Movement With Yahweh in the Book of Ruth

Notes On The Book Of Lamentations

Notes on Lamentations 1:1-22

Notes on Lamentations 2:1-22

Notes on Lamentation 3:1-66

Notes on Lamentations 4

Notes on Lamentations 5

Study Notes On The Birth Of Jesus:

Introduction to the Infancy Narratives

Theology of Luke’s Infancy Narrative

Added Note on Perspective

Theology of Matthew’s Infancy Narrative

Luke’s Genealogy of Jesus

Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus

Conception of Jesus: Matthew 1:18-25

The Magi: Matthew 2:1-12

Herod and the Flight: Matthew 2:13-23

Annunciation to Zechariah: Luke 1:5-25

The Annunciation to Mary: Luke 1:26-38

Mary’s visit to Elizabeth: Luke 1:39-56

The Birth and Naming of John: Luke 1:57-80

The Birth and Naming of Jesus: Luke 2:1-21

The Presentation in the Temple: Luke 2:22-40

Jesus in the Temple at Twelve: Luke 2:41-52

Psalms Of Ascent:

1    Psalm 120 and 121

2    Psalm 122, 123 and 124

3    Psalm 125 and 126

4    Psalm 127 and 128

5    Psalm 129 and 130

6    Psalm 131, 133 and 134

7    Psalm 132

Selected Psalms

1    Psalms 93 and 95

2    Psalms 96 and 97

3    Psalms 98 and 99

4    Psalms 100 and 101

The Speech Of Stephen

1    Acts 7:2-8 and Acts 7:9-16

2    Acts7:17-22 and Acts 7:23-29

3    Acts 7:30-43

4    Acts 7:44-53 and Acts 7:54-60

Encountering God

1    Isaiah 6:1-13

2    Isaiah 40:1-11

3    Jeremiah 1:4-10

4    Jeremiah 20:7-13

5    Revelation 4

6    Revelation 5

On Matthew 5

Part 1

I: Matthew 5:1-2

II: Matthew 5:3

III: Matthew 5:4

IV: Matthew 5:5

Part 2

V: Matthew 5:6

VI: Matthew 5:7

VII: Matthew 5:8

VIII: Matthew 5:9

Part 3

IX: Matthew 5:10

X: Matthew 5:11-12

XI: Matthew 5:13

XIII: Matthew 5:14-16

Part 4

XIII: Matthew 5:17-20

XIV: Matthew 5:21-26

Part 5

XV: Matthew 5:27-32

XVI: Matthew 5:33-37

Part 6

XVII: Matthew 5:38-42

XVIII: Matthew 5:43-48

On Matthew 6 & 7

Part 1

I: Matthew 6:1-4

II: Matthew 6:5-8

Part 2

III: Matthew 6:9

IV: Matthew 6:10-11

V: Matthew 6:12-13

VI: Matthew 6:14-15

Part 3

VII: Matthew 6:16-21

VIII: Matthew 6:22-24

IX: Matthew 6:25-34

Part 4

X: Matthew 7:1-6

XI: Matthew 7:7-12

Part 5

XII: Matthew 7:13-14

XIII: Matthew 7:15-20

Part 6

XIV: Matthew 7:21-23

XV: Matthew 7:24-27

XVI: Matthew 7:28-29

About the Author

Foreword

Over the years, I developed a series of Bible Studies, most of which have been self-published with AuthorHouse.com. They all began with Mildred Corwin asking me, shortly after I arrived in my first congregation after Seminary, if I did Bible Studies. I said I could, if I could do them my way. She agreed and that led to my starting off with a study of 1 Peter, chosen because I knew almost nothing about it.

Most of the studies over the years have fallen into categories that clumped into volumes like From The Catholic Epistles or From the Minor Prophets, or Letters Pauline and Pastoral in addition to volumes on one book or another. I was left with a few small books and short studies which I call Miscellaneous. These comprise this last collection, brief studies of Ruth and Lamentations and The Nativity Narratives from my years in Mantua, Ohio and then a series of short studies on a variety of themes. These comprise this volume and are listed on the Title Page and in the Table of Contents.

Revisiting these studies has been particularly pleasing to me. So much of what I have learned and developed over the last half century is grounded in this series – covering short books from the Old Testament and parts of the Psalter, segments from Acts and a series aimed at Encountering God.

These studies and the other sets of books, loosely classed as Inn-by-the-Bye Stories, Devotional materials, Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime, Poetry, represent the way I have invested my life, so far as that can be contained. I have not pursued sermons nor leaflets nor newsletter essays among the more comprehensive of the categories left. I have represented little of correspondence or of liturgical work. But what is available does underline the developments that undergird the pastoral life I have lived, that which was public in ways this material was not, and reversed the situation – that which is public now was relatively obscure then; that which was public then is left as tacit now.

I hope you find these studies in this volume of interest. The rest is in support and left as what I found developed on the basis of this work.

William Flewelling

Notes On Ruth

[Prepared and Presented in the Spring of 1980]

***

Bibliographic References:

BDB = Brown, Francis, Driver S. R., and Briggs, Charles A., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of The Old Testament, Oxford University Press, London. 1972.

Campbell, Edward E., Ruth: A New Translation with Commentary, The Anchor Bible, Doubleday and Co., Inc., GardenCity, N. J., 1975.

GKC = Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, edited and enlarged by E. Kautzsch, Second English Edition, revised by A.E. Cowley, Oxford University Press, London, 1974.

MT = Massoretic Text: Biblia Hebraica, edited by Rudolf Kittle, Wütemburgische Bibleanstalt Stuttgart, 1971 was used.

Sasson, Jack M., Ruth: A New Translation with a Philological Commentary and a Formalist-Folklorist Interpretation, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1979.

Sakenfeld, Katherine Doob, The Meaning of Hesed in the Hebrew Bible: A New Inquiry, Harvard Semitic Monographs, No. 17, Scholars Press for The Harvard Semitic Museum, Missoula, MT, 1978.

TDNT = Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Kittle and Gerhard Friedrich, nine volumes plus an index volume, of various dates. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids.

TDOT – Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, then three volumes, now fifteen, of various dates, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids

Notes on Ruth 1:1-6

First the text:

1. And it was in the days of judging of the judges

that there was a hunger/famine in the land.

And a man from Beth-lehem of Judah went forth

to sojourn in the open country of Moab.

2.            And the name of the man was ‘elimelek;

and the name of his wife was Na ‘aomi;

and the names of his two sons were

Mahlon and Kilyon:

‘ephrathites from Beth-lehem of Judah.

And they entered the open country of Moab,

and they were there.

3. Now ‘elimelek, husband/man of Na‘omi, died;

and she remained – she and her two sons.

4.            Then she took for them Moabite wives;

the name of the one [was] ‘orpah

and the name of the second [was] Ruth.

And they dwelt there about ten years.

5. Now they died – also her two, Mahlon and Kilyon.

And she remained, from her two children

and her man.

6. And she arose – she and her daughters-in-law,

and they returned/turned back from the open country

of Moab

for she had heard in the open country of Moab

that Yahweh had attended to his people,

to give them bread [lehem].

The Book of Ruth tells a story. In a way, we can comment as we go along. But it is far more realistic to realize that we will only be bringing ourselves to look at the story in its details, and to illumine the ways in which the story is unfolding. But we must never forget the truth that the story means itself. We do not observe stories; we enter them – which is why the implied answer to the spiritual ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord?’ is, for the Christian, Yes. Our work here is to make sure that we see the unfolding elements of the story clearly, and in their inter-relatedness.

Having said that, let me temper it a bit – perhaps in the way one tempers steel, to harden it. There is a common difficulty people have when looking at a story as something itself rather than as something flowery or pretty – dramatic, perhaps – which really may be distilled into something else, something short, direct, simple: a moral, in other words. That difficulty is developing a grand sense of cool generality, oohing and aahing over the story – sunset raving was Robert Frost’s phrase for it. With that, we abandon the highly intellectual task of extracting a moral from a story [a task usually on the order of the Spanish Inquisition] and pass into a confused state of dealing with this Thing, so much bigger and fluffier than we have ever been accustomed to seeing, wherein we respond like a love-sick adolescent: it is a difficult stage – and is always embarrassing to look back upon. We must get beyond the moonstruck to meet the story of Ruth.

The story begins in neatly historical fashion: ‘And it was in the days of …’. This is an established pattern in the Bible to refer to events gone by: ‘one upon a time …’ would be an inaccurate translation, even though the time period pointed out is very blurry – marked by Joshua on the one side and Saul, some 200 years later, on the other. There is a realistic tone given from the beginning. The prevalent political reality is that the judges were active and prominent in setting things aright in Israel. The times were, in particular, hard: it was a time of famine. The judges ruled in their traditionally loose fashion. Rain was scarce, making bread scarce, making hunger the rule in the land. Notice how quickly we find ourselves established in time, place, and circumstance. We know we are hearing a ‘historical’ story, set in a given though vague period of time and in a remembered state of society [much looser than at any later period] and threatened with its own enemies. We also have impressed by a state of hunger in the land [’aretz is used, a term usually bearing the connotations of a politically defined region]. Seven words in Hebrew have been used.

Now we hear of a man going from Bethlehem [Jerome, the 4th century monk in Bethlehem, gave the etymology as ‘house of bread’ – though more recent work suggests otherwise, the old tradition fits neatly here] to the fields or open country of Moab. Moab is on the east side of the Jordan, one of Israel’s not-always-friendly neighbors. Moab is situated toward the desert but must have been blessed with food at the time of the story. Moab has the characteristics of being nearby, well known to Israel – and it is definitely alien, clearly Other than Israel. Hunger from lack of food brought the man from the House of Bread [an empty bakery?] to Moab. With him came his wife and two sons. Hunger brings emigration to a foreign land for this family. That part of the story took up another twelve words in Hebrew.

The man is named ’elimelek: that is, My God is King, my El [a proper name] is king, my God/El is Milku [changing the vowels]. However, it may have been originally, by the time the name settled into an Israelite and basically Yahwistic milieu, the name must have been understood as My God/El is king. The wife is also named – Na‘omi: that is, My Pleasant/Delightful/Lovely One – or, alternatively, She is of Pleasance/Loveliness/Delight. The sons are also named – Mahlon and Kilyon. These rhyming names occur together in 1:2, 5; 4:9 with Mahlon occurring once more in 4:10, alone. The rhyme, suggests Sasson [in his 1979 commentary on Ruth] is mnemonic in purpose. The brother’s names seem, according to Sasson again, to mean Weakening and Pining or Blot out and Perish – for the order Mahlon and Kilyon.

The family were Ephrathites, from Bethlehem. Little is known of this background, and what is known is somewhat confusing. They belonged to an area which seems to have borne the name Ephrathah and included Bethlehem. There seems to be a difference between Ephrathah and Ephraim. Otherwise, there is at best a link via the late 1 Chronicles 2:10-24, 42-50a to Caleb of Judah’s line. Campbell believes that Ephrathah was a part of Judah’s population and territory; it might have been a sort of sub-tribe which bore a separate identity even though they might have been geographically mingled with the others. For now, we can only affirm that there is a difference of some sort or another.

Now we know who is in the story, at least as Israelites, where they came from, what is their heritage and where they were going. By the time the 20 words of verse 2 are concluded, we know they arrived and were there, i.e., settled in a bit.

Verse 3 gives us the death of Elimelek, his burial [presumed] and the remaining in Moab of Naomi and her sons. In Moab, they remain Elimelek’s family. With the father deceased, mobility may have lessened … though that is unknown and the likelihood in this story is that the threat of famine must have continued in Bethlehem and not in Moab. Naomi continued to settle-in and then to provide wives for the sons: ‘orpah and Ruth, Moabitesses both. [Sasson offers ‘a handful of water’ and ‘drenching/irrigating’ for the meanings of the respective names.] The time span for all this is ten years; then the sons died [verse 5], leaving Naomi and their widows bereaved.

Our personnel has changed over these five short verses.

(1) We began with Elimelek and Naomi, their two sons, Mahlon and Kilyon.

(2) Naomi and her two sons after Elimelek died.

(3) Naomi, two sons and two daughters-in-law.

(4) Naomi and her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth after the sons had died.

Our location has changed.

(1) Bethlehem of Judah: a village, confined, defined neatly.

(2) The open country of Moab: foreign, general, other.

Our ethnics have changed.

(1) An Ephrathite, Judahite, Israelite family

(2) Subtract the father, add two Moabitess wives

(3) Subtract the sons, leaving an Ephrathite woman and her two loosely-connected Moabitess women.

Naomi remains the link back to Bethlehem and to Israel; she is the only link which serves to make this an Israelite story at all.

We learn that the times were changing, and that Naomi heard while in Moab that there was bread [lehem] instead of hunger in Bethlehem [House of Bread] because Yahweh had acted. So, she arose and set out to return from Moab to Bethlehem, taking her daughters-in-law with her – although it is clear only that the young women rose with her.

Note that this rising action – qum in Hebrew – is characteristic of the commands from Yahweh to the prophets, and that turning back/returning – shub – is characteristic of call of the prophets or of Yahweh. These then suggest that the pressing desires of God are active, even in the action of arising and moving to return. The vocabulary choices are interesting, to say the least.

At this point, we need to stop and consider together the opening of the story. Notice its economy: much is said in little space. In Hebrew it takes only 89 words. The central focus of the story does not begin until next week. So, for now:

how are we beginning to move with the story of Ruth?

Notes on Ruth 1:7-22

First the text:

7. And she went out from the place whence she had gone

and her two daughters-in-law with her.

And they went in the way of returning unto the land

of Judah.

8. And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law:

Go! Return! [each] lady to her mother’s house.

Yahweh do/make with you hesed [covenant loyalty]

according to your doings with the dead and

with me.

9.             Yahweh give to you and you find a resting place/rest

[each] lady, her husband’s house.

And she kissed them.

And they lifted up their voice and wept/bewailed.

10.             And they said to her:

For with you shall we return, to your people.

11.             Naomi said:

Return, my daughters!

Why will you walk with me?

Are there yet sons in my belly

that they might be to you

for husbands?

12.                        Return, my daughters! Go!

I am old from being to a man.

For should I say there is hope for me,

yes, I will be this night to a man

and, moreover, I will bear sons?

13.                         On this account should you wait

                        until they become great?

On account of this, should you

                        shut yourselves in

            not to be to a man?

No, my daughters,

            for it is very bitter to me for you

            that departed from me is

                        the hand of Yahweh.

14. And they lifted their voice and wept, again.

Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law

and Ruth clung/kept close to her.

15. And she said:

Behold, your sister-in-law has returned

            unto her people

            and unto her gods.

Return after your sister-in-law.

16. And Ruth said:

Entreat me not to leave/forsake/abandon you,

            to turn back/return from after you.

For unto which you walk, I will walk

            and in which you lodge, I will lodge.

            Your people: my people

            and your God: my God.

17.                         In which you die, I will die

            and there I will be buried.

Thus may Yahweh do to me

            and thus in addition

should the death make a division between me

                                    and you.

18. And she saw that she is confirmed to go/walk

                                    with her

and she ceased speaking to her anymore.

19. Now, the two of them walked until they entered Beth-lehem.

And it was [that] as they entered Beth-lehem,

all the city murmured/roared upon them;

            and they said: Is this Na‘omi?

20.             And she said unto them:

            Do not call me Na‘omi

            call me Mara

            for the bitterness of Shaddai is to me,

                                    exceedingly.

21.             I went full

and empty has Yahweh caused me

                        to return.

Why do you call me Na‘omi

when Yahweh has afflicted me

and Shaddai did hurt/evil to me?

22. So Na‘omi returned

and Ruth, the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law

                        with her,

the One returning from the open country of Moab.

And they, they entered Beth-lehem

in the beginning of harvesting of barley.

Last week, we left Ruth, Orpah and Naomi about to return from Moab [actually, only Naomi could return, the others began to come from Moab] to Bethlehem in Judah. [The MT splits the name: Beth-lehem.] We noted the literally quick change in personnel and in the ethnic mix as the story moved through its beginnings. We have set our stage for the next – really, the first – piece of the drama.

Naomi is the focus of the tale; the daughters-in-law are with her, accompaniments to the central figure – in this scene at least. Naomi starts off toward the place whence she had gone. A person’s place marks his/her identifying focus, his/her home. For Naomi, that place remained Beth-lehem; Moab was only a place of sojourn and, while she was gone, she was away from the place whence she was gone: from home. [This is very different from a migration, where the place moves, too.] Hence it is that the journey is really a returning, a going-home for Naomi; this is the person for whom it is literally so; but, for the daughters-in-law, it is so only insofar as they have bound their identity with the [in terms of local knowledge, at least] family of their deceased husbands. This was reduced to a mother-in-law, with only a stretched degree of legal relationship patterns involved.

Naomi recognized the difference in people between herself and her daughters-in-law. And so, she addresses them – only as daughter and not daughter-in-law, marking a difference in perspective. Is she really offering them a place in the people of Judah, contrary to the pleas she is making for them to return? Is this the point at which Ruth becomes much more sensitive than Orpah? Is there a difference between the plain sight and an implied vision, between Moabitess daughters-in-law and the calling of these women as daughters? Or does it not matter so much?

It is of interest to note the dominance of the theme/idea of return. The appropriate word is shub in Hebrew; it is found in verses 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 15, 16, 21, 22, 22. Of these verses 7, 10, 21, 22, 22 refer to the return of Naomi to Beth-lehem; the remainder point back to Moab, the origin of Ruth and Orpah. The action of returning/turning back is clearly that of going to one’s proper place, the place which owns one. Could it be that one of the questions here is that of what determines one’s place and one’s people [those of whom one belongs]? And that the original and normal assumption is that origin determines place, particularly in the mind of Naomi whose time in Moab was forever only a sojourn.

Naomi was returning to Beth-lehem, her place. Ruth and Oprah followed with her. Naomi turns to the young women and tells them to go, to return, each one to her mother’s home/house. Go and return to your place, even as Naomi was returning to her own place, in Judah, in Beth-lehem. They had been loyal to Naomi, even beyond normal expectations: this was an unusual display of hesed – translated in RSV as ‘steadfast love’; now she was bidding them to return, with the invocation of divine hesed in her stead. [This is the suggestion of Sakenfeld in her dissertation, p.108f.]

Let us look now at the overall structure, to seek a hint at our further direction at looking at this piece of the story of Ruth.

(1) Naomi leaves her sojourn, seeking her place, Beth-lehem

(2) Naomi says go, return:

She invokes Yahweh’s hesed on her daughters.

She kisses them.

They lift their voices and weep/wail.

They say they will go with her.

(3) Naomi says Return:

She questions them for following, focus is on

impossible sons and husbands.

(4) Naomi says Return

She is too old for sons,

questions their waiting,

urges their return.

They lift their voices and weep/wail.

Orpah kisses Naomi; Ruth stays.

(5) Naomi says to return with Orpah;

Ruth says no, gives an extended reason and oath.

(6) Naomi says no more; the subject is closed.

(7) They come to Bethlehem and are greeted.

There is an exchange on Naomi and Mara.

Setting of time for the continuing story.

The obvious pattern common to nos. 2 and 4 [3 may be considered as abbreviated] is: command to return – weeping – response on daughter-in-law. 2 inserts a benedictory invocation and a kiss from Naomi. 3, shortened, has the command and replaces the benediction by a questioning of rationale: is this a tactic or an attitude which changes? 4 expands the questioning and repeats the urging to return. [Indeed, it is conceivable that the invocation and the kiss in 2 and all of 3 through the final urging to return in 4 may be considered as parallel sections, bearing the force of the urging to return: in this case, the argument for the young women to return becomes stronger in the second pattern repeat, taking on a more negative tone and tack since the blessing/invocation did not produce the desired results. But again, what is the work of calling them daughters doing to the force of the command by the mother-in-law? Could it be that Naomi was more important than her loving opinions with regard to Place?] 5 goes on to repeat the urging of Ruth; here the command is short, and the response of Ruth is long, pointed and rational, concluding in an oath, invoking Yahweh – Naomi’s God – as the witness.

Now, we see the points of argument Naomi uses:

I            1.             Place – her mother’s house [beth-‘immah]

       2.             The benedictory invocation of divine hesed

       3.             A resting place with a new mate [each in her

                                   husband’s house [Beth-‘ishah]

II           1.             Naomi will have no sons to become their husbands.

       2.             Even if she could, why wait?

       3.             Naomi finds fate bitter on their account.

III         1.             Orpah left: Ruth should join her.

The concern is for people, the people of their belonging, for place and for husbands. For these young women, things should go as is socially expected. Orpah is forgotten in the story because, eventually – and on the argument of waiting for unconceived children to be born, raised and become of marriageable age [always assuming the chance of male offspring] – she had heeded her mother-in-law’s pleas.

Notice the answer of Ruth, in modern times put into song and sometimes used at weddings. Yet, it is addressed to a mother-in-law by her now-widowed daughter-in-law. In a direct way, Ruth picks up the arguments of Naomi with respect to Place – it is to be Naomi’s way, her lodging place, her grave site which will be, indeed is becoming, Ruth’s Place. Is this any less than a transformation of perspective? Note also the identification of your God with my God, your people with my people. And the oath is sealed in the name of Yahweh, the God Naomi invoked for hesed. Yahweh was not regularly recognized nor worshiped in Moab.

Naomi would send Orpah and Ruth to the ‘house of her mother’ [Beth-‘immah], thence to the ‘house of her husband’ [Beth-‘ishah], to then go herself to Beth-lehem [house of bread]. Again, it is the notion of place that dominate. And that place is determined by the House of … .

Finally, we have their arrival at Beth-lehem: ‘Is this Naomi?’ In view of the trials of her sojourn – she had complained of the bitterness [mar] of her life with the hand of Yahweh being departed – she called herself now Mara [Bitter one – not Pleasant One]. She sets her sorrow in the framework of Shaddai and Yahweh – names originally separate but brought together some time in Israelite history. [Shaddai is often translated Almighty but the name is obscure; some say it refers to a mountain god, others note shad means breast and make some deductions from that similarity. I leave it as transliterated from the Hebrew.] What is clear is that Naomi views God as ultimately at the very center of all things, that her experience had been bitter and in bitterness was she returning, as God had caused her to do. And Ruth was with her as they arrived in Beth-lehem at the time of the barley harvest. Thus is the set made ready for the next scene in the dramatic story of Ruth.

How does the story of Ruth become our own?

Notes on Ruth 2

First the text:

1. Now to Na‘omi [there was] a kinsman to her husband,

a strong/mighty, wealthy man

from the clan of ’elimalek; and his name was Bo‘az.

2. And Ruth the Moabitess said to Na‘omi:

let me go – na’ – [to] the field,

and let me glean among the ears of grain,

            after which I may find favor in his eyes.

And she said to her: Go, my daughter.

3.             Then she went, and she entered, and she gleaned

            in the field, after the reapers/harvesters.

            And chance happened, the part of the field

                        [belonging] to Bo‘az.

4.             And behold! Bo‘az entered from Beth-lehem

and he said to the reapers:

            Yahweh be with you [plural];

And they said to him:

            Yahweh bless you.

5.             Then Bo‘az said to his youth, the one appointed

            over the reapers:

Whose is that maiden [i.e., female youth –

            na‘arah]?

6.             And the youth appointed over the reapers answered

and he said:

            the youthful woman is a Moabitess;

            she returned with Naomi from the open

                        country of Moab.

7.                         And she said: Let me glean – na’,

                        and I will gather among the sheaves,

                                    after the reapers;

            then she entered and she stood firm

            from the time of the morning

                                    until now;

            thus her sabbath/rest of the house

                                    is but a little.

8.             Now Bo‘az said unto Ruth:

            shall you not hear, my daughter?

            Walk not to glean in another field;

                        and also, do not cross over

                                                from this [one]

            and thus, keep close to my maidens.

9.                         Your eyes [be] on the field which

                                                they are reaping

                        and walk after them.

            Have I not commanded the young men

                        that they not strike you?

            And, if you are thirsty,

                        then go to the containers and drink

                                    of what the youths drew.

10.             And she fell on her face and struck it

                                    upon the ground

and she said to him:

            Wherefore have I found favor in your eyes,

                        to recognize me [lehakkirenu],

                        and I am a foreign woman

                                    [nakriyah]?

11.             And Bo ‘az answered, and he said to her:

            it has been tellingly told to me

            all you have done for your mother-in-law

                        after the death of your husband;

            how you left your father and your mother

                                    and your birth-land

            and you went unto a people

                                    you knew not before.

12.                         May Yahweh make whole your work

                        and may your reward/wage

                                    be complete

            from with Yahweh, God of Israel,

            to whom you came to seek refuge

                                    under his wings.

13.             Then she said:

            I have found favor in your eyes, my lord,

            for you have comforted me

            and you have spoken upon