12Come, my beloved,
Let us go into the open;
Let us lodge e-among the henna shrubs.-e
13Let us go early to the vineyards;
Let us see if the vine has flowered,
If its blossoms have opened,
If the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give my love to you.
14The mandrakes yield their fragrance,
At our doors are all choice fruits;
Both freshly picked and long-stored
Have I kept, my beloved, for you.
8
If only it could be as with a brother,
As if you had nursed at my mother’s breast:
Then I could kiss you
When I met you in the street,
And no one would despise me.
2I would lead you, I would bring you
To the house of my mother,
Of her who taughta me—
I would let you drink of the spiced wine,
Of my pomegranate juice.
3His left hand was under my head,
His right hand caressed me.
4I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem:
Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!
5Who is she that comes up from the desert,
Leaning upon her beloved?
Under the apple tree I roused you;
It was there your mother conceived you,
There she who bore you conceived you.
6Let me be a seal upon your heart,
Like the seal upon your hand.b
For love is fierce as death,
Passion is mighty as Sheol;
Its darts are darts of fire,
A blazing flame.
7Vast floods cannot quench love,
Nor rivers drown it.
If a man offered all his wealth for love,
He would be laughed to scorn.
8“We have a little sister,
Whose breasts are not yet formed.
What shall we do for our sister
When she is spoken for?
9If she be a wall,
We will build upon it a silver battlement;
If she be a door,
We will panel it in cedar.”
10I am a wall,
My breasts are like towers.
So I became in his eyes
As one who finds favor.
11Solomon had a vineyard
In Baal-hamon.
He had to post guards in the vineyard:
A man would give for its fruit
A thousand pieces of silver.
12I have my very own vineyard:
You may have the thousand, O Solomon,
And the guards of the fruit two hundred!
13O you who linger in the garden,c
A loverc is listening;
Let me hear your voice.
14“Hurry, my beloved,
Swift as a gazelle or a young stag,
To the hills of spices!”
a Or “concerning.”
b-b Heb. “Let him give me of the kisses of his mouth!”
c Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
d-d Emendation yields “Brimg me, O king, to your chambers.”
e-e Understanding mesharim as related to tirosh; cf. Aramaic merath.
f As a pretext for coming.
a Lit. “crocus.”
b-b Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
c Or “singing.”
d-d Emendation yields “declines”; cf. Jer. 6.4.
e Septuagint reads “lengthen”; cf. Jer. 6.4.
f Heb. bather of uncertain meaning; 8.14 reads besamim, “spices.”
a I.e., in a dream.
b-b Lit. “The watchmen met me.”
c Cf. Akkadian ahāzu, “to learn.”
d Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
e-e Emendation yields “ebony, / O maidens of Jerusalem!”
a Cf. 6.6; exact nuance of qesuboth uncertain, perhaps “shorn ones.”
b-b Apparently a poetic figure for jewelry; meaning of Heb. uncertain.
c See notes at 2.17.
d Cf. Deut. 3.9.
e Emendation yields “lairs”; cf. Nah. 2.13.
f Lit. “sister”; and so frequently below.
g-g Emendation yields “The spring in my garden / Is a well of fresh water.”
a In vv. 2–8 the maiden relates a dream.
b-b Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
c-c Many manuscripts and editions read “within me” (‘alai).
d-d Change of vocalization yields “because of him.”
e See note at 3.3.
f Or “What sort of beloved is your beloved?”
g-g Septuagint vocalizes as participle, “producing.”
a-a Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
a With many manuscripts and editions; others read “like.” Meaning of entire line uncertain.
b-b So Ibn Janah and Ibn Ezra, taking karmel as a by-form of karmil: cf. 2 Chron. 2.6, 13; 3.14.
c-c Meaning of Heb. uncertain.
d See note at 1.4 end.
e-e Or “in the villages.”
a Emendation yields “bore”; cf. 6.9; 8.5.
b Lit. “arm.”
c Heb. plural. Meaning of verse uncertain.
Ruth
1 In the days when the chieftainsa ruled, there was a famine in the land; and a man of Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the country of Moab. 2The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and his two sons were named Mahlon and Chilion—Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. They came to the country of Moab and remained there.
3Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons. 4They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth, and they lived there about ten years. 5Then those two—Mahlon and Chilion—also died; so the woman was left without her two sons and without her husband.
6She started out with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab; for in the country of Moab she had heard that the LORD had taken note of His people and given them food. 7Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living; and they set out on the road back to the land of Judah.
8But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Turn back, each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me! 9May the LORD grant that each of you find security in the house of a husband!” And she kissed them farewell. They broke into weeping 10and said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”
11But Naomi replied, “Turn back, my daughters! Why should you go with me? Have I any more sons in my body who might be husbands for you? 12Turn back, my daughters, for I am too old to be married. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I were married tonight and I also bore sons, 13should you wait for them to grow up? Should you on their account debar yourselves from marriage? Oh no, my daughters! My lot is far more bitter than yours, for the hand of the LORD has struck out against me.”
14They broke into weeping again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law farewell. But Ruth clung to her. 15So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and her gods. Go follow your sister-in-law.” 16But Ruth replied, “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. b-Thus and more may the LORD do to me-b if anything but death parts me from you.” 18When [Naomi] saw how determined she was to go with her, she ceased to argue with her; 19and the two went on until they reached Bethlehem.
When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole city buzzed with excitement over them. The women said, “Can this be Naomi?” 20“Do not call me Naomi,”c she replied. “Call me Mara,d for Shaddaie has made my lot very bitter. 21I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. How can you call me Naomi, when the LORD has f-dealt harshly with-f me, when Shaddai has brought misfortune upon me!”
22Thus Naomi returned from the country of Moab; she returned with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabite. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
2 Now Naomi had a kinsman on her husband’s side, a man of substance, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz.
2Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “I would like to go to the fields and glean among the ears of grain, behind someone who may show me kindness.” “Yes, daughter, go,” she replied; 3and off she went. She came and gleaned in a field, behind the reapers; and, as luck would have it, it was the piece of land belonging to Boaz, who was of Elimelech’s family.
4Presently Boaz arrived from Bethlehem. He greeted the reapers, “The LORD be with you!” And they responded, “The LORD bless you!” 5Boaz said to the servant who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose girl is that?” 6The servant in charge of the reapers replied, “She is a Moabite girl who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. 7She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the reapers.” She has been on her feet ever since she came this morning. a-She has rested but little in the hut.”-a
8Boaz said to Ruth, b-“Listen to me, daughter.-b Don’t go to glean in another field. Don’t go elsewhere, but stay here close to my girls. 9Keep your eyes on the field they are reaping, and follow them. I have ordered the men not to molest you. And when you are thirsty, go to the jars and drink some of [the water] that the men have drawn.”
10She prostrated herself with her face to the ground, and said to him, “Why are you so kind as to single me out, when I am a foreigner?”
11Boaz said in reply, “I have been told of all that you did for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and came to a people you had not known before. 12May the LORD reward your deeds. May you have a full recompense from the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have sought refuge!”
13She answered, “You are most kind, my lord, to comfort me and to speak gently to your maidservant—though I am not so much as one of your maidservants.”
14At mealtime, Boaz said to her, “Come over here and partake of the meal, and dip your morsel in the vinegar.” So she sat down beside the reapers. He handed her roasted grain, and she ate her fill and had some left over.
15When she got up again to glean, Boaz gave orders to his workers, “You are not only to let
