In Hebrew verse 4 begins with an adverbial expression often translated “behold.” This is primarily a device to call special attention to the following expression, which in this case is the name of Boaz. However, in other languages a term denoting “behold” or “note” or “look” is often not appropriate. In English an equivalent expression might be “and there was Boaz coming” (New English Bible).
The verb arrived translates a perfect tense form in Hebrew, which suggests that the arrival of Boaz took place several hours after the events described in verse 3. This suggestion is confirmed by the statement in verse 7, which indicates that Ruth had already worked for some time in the field. Because of the lapse of time between verses 3 and 4, Good News Translation introduces a temporal transition at the beginning of verse 4, Some time later. This could also be expressed as “Then after several hours Boaz himself came.”
The expressions The LORD be with and The LORD bless you are conventional formulas of greetings still current in some related Semitic languages. There is no reason to see in these greetings an expression of a pious attitude (so Bertholet, op. cit., ad loc.) or to evaluate them as typical “harvest greetings” (so H. Gunkel, Ruth, Reden und Aufsätze, 1913, pages 65-92). Compare Arabic allah ma‘akum (“Allah be with you”) and the answer allah yachphadak (“may Allah protect you”). In the nominal phrase in Hebrew a verbal form with optative mood is implicit. See Joüon, par. 163. The Hebrew verb translated “bless” sometimes has the meaning of “greet,” as in 1 Samuel 13.10 and 2 Samuel 13.25 (a parting salutation). The expressions The LORD be with you and The LORD bless you have a strictly liturgical value in present-day language, and they may seem quite strange in receptor languages as expressions of greeting. Some translators feel that it may be useful to introduce at this point typical indigenous greetings and responses—Boaz might say, for example, to the harvesters, “Did you work well?” or even “How are you today?”—but this type of cultural adaptation fails to provide the religious setting to the greetings which is so important to this context. The fact that these expressions are greetings can, of course, be identified by the verb chosen to introduce them; for example, “Boaz greeted the workers by saying, ‘The LORD be with you,’ and the workers responded by greeting him in turn, ‘The LORD bless you.’ ” It is interesting to note that the Syriac translator in reading “peace with you” makes a type of cultural adaptation.
It seems perfectly appropriate to us to say in English The LORD be with you, but in some languages this is quite impossible, both semantically and grammatically; one cannot make this kind of command in the third person. It is possible, however, in some languages to employ an expression of direct discourse; for example, “I ask the LORD to be with you” or “I pray to the LORD that he will be with you.” Simply having the LORD “with a person” may not imply any special relationship, and therefore in some languages one must say “I pray that the LORD will help you” or “I ask that the LORD be good to you.”
Similarly, in the translation of The LORD bless you, it may be necessary for the workers to respond: “We pray that the LORD will be good to you” or “We ask that the LORD will show you favor.” The choice of an appropriate term for bless is particularly difficult in some languages, since there may be at least three different terms which render the English expression “bless”: (1) the blessing of a superior to an inferior (for example, “do good to” or “show favor to”); (2) the blessing of an inferior to a superior (for example, “praise”); and (3) a request for God to bless some object or person.
The position of expressions introducing direct discourse (in this case, the blessing formulas) must be determined by what is natural in the receptor language. More often than not, expressions introducing direct discourse (even such formulas as blessing and greetings) must occur before the direct discourse, rather than after it as in Good News Translation.
Quoted with permission from de Waard, Jan and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Ruth. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .