3:17a-b

And she said, “He gave me these six measures of barley, for he said, ‘Do not go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”: The quotation of what Boaz said gives the reason that he gave Ruth the barley. In some languages, it may be more natural to reverse the order of these clauses. For example:

She added, “He told me I must not come back to you empty-handed, so he gave me all this barley.” (Good News Translation)

3:17a

And she said, “He gave me these six measures of barley…”: The Hebrew text emphasizes the phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as these six measures of barley. That emphasis implies that it was a very large gift. The size of the gift showed that Boaz was concerned for Naomi and Ruth’s welfare.

If you can communicate this emphasis in your language, then you should do so. One way to show the emphasis is to add a word like “all.” For example:

She also said, “He gave me ⌊all⌋ these six measures of barley.”
-or-
She said to Naomi, ‘He also gave me all this barley. (Easy English Bible)

3:17b

for he said, ‘Do not go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed’: The Hebrew clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Do not go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed is a quotation inside another quotation. Ruth was telling Naomi exactly what Boaz said. In many languages, it will be necessary to translate this as indirect speech. For example:

Boaz said that I should not return to you without bringing ⌊a gift⌋.

empty-handed: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as empty-handed is the same word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as “empty” in 1:21a. There, Naomi said that the LORD had brought her back to Israel empty. She meant that her husband and sons had died and she was poor. If you can translate the word the same in both verses, it would be good. However, in some languages it may necessary to say here that Boaz wanted Ruth to return with something, or with hands full of grain. For example:

© 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.