Ulangan 11:22

11:22 For if you carefully observe all of these commandments ¹  I am giving you ²  and love the Lord your God, live according to his standards, ³  and remain loyal to him,

Ulangan 13:4

13:4 You must follow the Lord your God and revere only him; and you must observe his commandments, obey him, serve him, and remain loyal to him.

Ulangan 30:20

30:20 I also call on you ⁴  to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually ⁵  in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Yosua 23:8

23:8 But you must be loyal to ⁶  the Lord your God, as you have been ⁷  to this very day.

Rut 1:14

1:14 Again they wept loudly. ⁸  Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, ⁹  but Ruth ¹⁰  clung tightly to her. ¹¹ 

Rut 1:2

1:2 (Now the man’s name was Elimelech, ¹²  his wife was Naomi, ¹³  and his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. ¹⁴  They were of the clan of Ephrath ¹⁵  from Bethlehem in Judah.) They entered the region of Moab and settled there. ¹⁶ 

1 Raja-raja 18:6

18:6 They divided up the land between them; Ahab went ¹⁷  one way and Obadiah went the other.

Mazmur 119:31

119:31 I hold fast ¹⁸  to your rules.

O Lord, do not let me be ashamed!

Yesaya 38:3

38:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ¹⁹  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ²⁰  and how I have carried out your will.” ²¹  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ²² 

[11:22]  ¹ tn Heb “this commandment.” See note at Deut 5:30.

[11:22]  ² tn Heb “commanding you to do it.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation and “to do it” has been left untranslated.

[11:22]  ³ tn Heb “walk in all his ways” (so KJV, NIV); TEV “do everything he commands.”

[30:20]  ⁴ tn The words “I also call on you” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 19-20 are one long sentence, which the translation divides into two.

[30:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “he is your life and the length of your days to live.”

[23:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “hug.”

[23:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “done.”

[1:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “they lifted their voice[s] and wept” (so NASB; see v. 9). The expression refers to loud weeping employed in mourning tragedy (Judg 21:2; 2 Sam 13:36; Job 2:12).

[1:14]  ⁹ tc The LXX adds, “and she returned to her people” (cf. TEV “and went back home”). Translating the Greek of the LXX back to Hebrew would read a consonantal text of ותשׁב אל־עמה. Most dismiss this as a clarifying addition added under the influence of v. 15, but this alternative reading should not be rejected too quickly. It is possible that a scribe’s eye jumped from the initial vav on ותשׁב (“and she returned”) to the initial vav on the final clause (וְרוּת [vÿrut], “and Ruth”), inadvertently leaving out the intervening words, “and she returned to her people.” Or a scribe’s eye could have jumped from the final he on לַחֲמוֹתָהּ (lakhamotah, “to her mother-in-law”) to the final he on עַמָּהּ (’ammah, “her people”), leaving out the intervening words, “and she returned to her people.”

[1:14]  ¹⁰ tn The clause is disjunctive. The word order is conjunction + subject + verb, highlighting the contrast between the actions of Orpah and Ruth.

[1:14]  sn Orpah is a literary foil for Ruth. Orpah is a commendable and devoted person (see v. 8); after all she is willing to follow Naomi back to Judah. However, when Naomi bombards her with good reasons why she should return, she relents. But Ruth is special. Despite Naomi’s bitter tirade, she insists on staying. Orpah is a good person, but Ruth is beyond good – she possesses an extra measure of devotion and sacrificial love that is uncommon.

[1:14]  ¹¹ sn Clung tightly. The expression suggests strong commitment (see R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth [NICOT], 115).

[1:2]  ¹² sn The name “Elimelech” literally means “My God [is] king.” The narrator’s explicit identification of his name seems to cast him in a positive light.

[1:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “and the name of his wife [was] Naomi.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:2]  sn The name Naomi (נָעֳמִי, na’omi) is from the adjective נֹעַם (noam, “pleasant, lovely”) and literally means “my pleasant one” or “my lovely one.” Her name will become the subject of a wordplay in 1:20-21 when she laments that she is no longer “pleasant” but “bitter” because of the loss of her husband and two sons.

[1:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the name[s] of his two sons [were] Mahlon and Kilion.”

[1:2]  sn The name Mahlon (מַחְלוֹן, makhlon) is from מָלָה (malah, “to be weak, sick”) and Kilion (כִליוֹן, khilyon) is from כָלָה (khalah, “to be frail”). The rate of infant mortality was so high during the Iron Age that parents typically did not name children until they survived infancy and were weaned. Naomi and Elimelech might have named their two sons Mahlon and Kilion to reflect their weak condition in infancy due to famine – which eventually prompted the move to Moab where food was abundant.

[1:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “[They were] Ephrathites.” Ephrathah is a small village (Ps 132:6) in the vicinity of Bethlehem (Gen 35:16), so close in proximity that it is often identified with the larger town of Bethlehem (Gen 35:19; 48:7; Ruth 4:11; Mic 5:2 [MT 5:1]; HALOT 81 s.v. אֶפְרָתָה); see F. W. Bush, Ruth, Esther (WBC), 64. The designation “Ephrathites” might indicate that they were residents of Ephrathah. However, the adjectival form אֶפְרָתִים (ephratim, “Ephrathites”) used here elsewhere refers to someone from the clan of Ephrath (cf. 1 Chr 4:4) which lived in the region of Bethlehem: “Now David was the son of an Ephrathite from Bethlehem in Judah whose name was Jesse” (1 Sam 17:12; cf. Mic 5:2 [MT 5:1]). So it is more likely that the virtually identical expression here – “Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah” – refers to the clan of Ephrath in Bethlehem (see R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth [NICOT], 91).

[1:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and were there”; KJV “continued there”; NRSV “remained there”; TEV “were living there.”

[18:6]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text has “alone” here and again in reference to Obadiah toward the end of the verse.

[119:31]  ¹⁸ tn Or “cling to.”

[38:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.

[38:3]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and with a complete heart”; KJV, ASV “with a perfect heart.”

[38:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

[38:3]  ²² tn Heb “wept with great weeping”; NCV “cried loudly”; TEV “began to cry bitterly.”