Hakim-hakim 6:19

6:19 Gideon went and prepared a young goat, ¹  along with unleavened bread made from an ephah of flour. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot. He brought the food ²  to him under the oak tree and presented it to him.

Rut 2:17

2:17 So she gathered grain in the field until evening. When she threshed ³  what she had gathered, it came to about thirty pounds ⁴  of barley!

Rut 2:1

Ruth Works in the Field of Boaz

2:1 Now Naomi ⁵  had a relative ⁶  on her husband’s side of the family named Boaz. He was a wealthy, prominent man from the clan of Elimelech. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 1:24

1:24 Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah ⁸  of flour, and a container ⁹  of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young. ¹⁰ 

[6:19]  ¹ tn Heb “a kid from among the goats.”

[6:19]  ² tn The words “the food” are not in the Hebrew text (an implied direct object). They are supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

[2:17]  ³ tn Heb “she beat out” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT). Ruth probably used a stick to separate the kernels of grain from the husks. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 63.

[2:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “there was an ephah.” An ephah was a dry measure, equivalent to one-tenth of a homer (see HALOT 43 s.v. אֵיפָה). An ephah was equivalent to a “bath,” a liquid measure. Jars labeled “bath” found at archaeological sites in Israel could contain approximately 5.8 gallons, or one-half to two-thirds of a bushel. Thus an ephah of barley would have weighed about 29 to 30 pounds (just over 13 kg). See R. L. Hubbard, Jr., Ruth (NICOT), 179.

[2:17]  sn This was a huge amount of barley for one woman to gather in a single day. It testifies both to Ruth’s industry and to Boaz’s generosity.

[2:1]  ⁵ tn The disjunctive clause (note the vav [ו] + prepositional phrase structure) provides background information essential to the following narrative.

[2:1]  ⁶ tc The marginal reading (Qere) is מוֹדַע (moda’, “relative”), while the consonantal text (Kethib) has מְיֻדָּע (miyudda’, “friend”). The textual variant was probably caused by orthographic confusion between consonantal מְיֻדָּע and מוֹדַע. Virtually all English versions follow the marginal reading (Qere), e.g., KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV “kinsman”; NIV, NCV, NLT “relative.”

[2:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “and [there was] to Naomi a relative, to her husband, a man mighty in substance, from the clan of Elimelech, and his name [was] Boaz.”

[1:24]  ⁸ sn The ephah was a standard dry measure in OT times; it was the equivalent of one-tenth of the OT measure known as a homer. The ephah was equal to approximately one-half to two-thirds of a bushel.

[1:24]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term translated “container” may denote either a clay storage jar (cf. CEV “a clay jar full of wine”) or a leather container (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “a skin of wine”; NCV “a leather bag filled with (full of TEV) wine.”

[1:24]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “and the boy was a boy.” If the MT is correct the meaning apparently is that the boy was quite young at the time of these events. On the other hand, some scholars have suspected a textual problem, emending the text to read either “and the boy was with them” (so LXX) or “and the boy was with her” (a conjectural emendation). In spite of the difficulty it seems best to stay with the MT here.