Paragraph 2:3

2:3a

So: After receiving permission from Naomi, Ruth went and began to glean. The Berean Standard Bible (and other English versions) connects 2:3 to 2:2 with the conjunction So to indicate that what Ruth did was as a result of what Naomi said in 2:2c (“Go”). Connect these verses in a way that is natural in your language.

Ruth departed and went out into the field and gleaned: Ruth left her home in the village and went out to the fields. She chose a field in which to work and started to gather the leftover grain there.

gleaned: See the translation advice at 2:2 under “and glean heads of grain.”

after the harvesters: This means that Ruth walked along picking up grain after and behind the workers who were harvesting the grain.

harvesters: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as harvesters refers to workers who cut or reap grain or grass using some type of cutting tool. The harvesters in Ruth’s time would have used a curved knife called a sickle. Here the term may be used to include all the workers who had a part in the harvest, both the cutters and those who followed behind to gather the cut grain.

2:3b

And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz: The Hebrew words that the Berean Standard Bible translate as she happened to are more literally “her chance chanced upon.” Of the many fields in which she could have chosen to glean, Ruth happened to go to one that belonged to Boaz, a relative of her deceased father-in-law, Elimelech. From a human point of view, this was an accidental or unplanned event. It appears that Ruth did not know who owned the field in which she worked. At the same time, the reader of the book of Ruth can understand that God was behind the choice of field.

You should translate this in a way that indicates that Ruth’s choice of this particular field was not intentional on her part. It was coincidental. Here are some other ways to translate these words:

and, as luck would have it, it was the piece of land belonging to Boaz (Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures)
-or-
Chance led her to a plot of land belonging to Boaz (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
It just so happened that the field belonged to Boaz (New Century Version)

2:3c

who was from the clan of Elimelech: Boaz was from the same clan or extended family as Elimelech, Ruth’s father-in-law. This is repeated here for emphasis.

© 2024 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.