Ruth 2:7

The steward continues his account of Ruth. She had respectfully solicited leave to glean. She said, Let me glean, I pray thee, and gather in bundles after the reapers. The expression, "and gather in bundles," is in Hebrew וְאָסַפְתִּי בָעֳמָרִים and is rendered in King James's version, as also by Coverdale, Tremellius, Castellio, Luther, Michaelis, "and gather among" or "beside the sheaves." But such a request on the part of Ruth would seem to be too bold, the more especially as we find Boaz afterwards giving instructions to the young men to allow her, without molestation, to glean "even between the sheaves" (verse 15). Hence Pagnin's free version is to be preferred, " and gather bundles" ( et congregabo manipulos ). Carpzov pleads for the same interpretation, and translates thus: "Let me, I pray thee, glean, and collect the gleanings into bundles ( colligam obsecro spicas, collectasque accumulem in manipules ). Montanus too adopts it, and Raabe likewise ( und sammele zu Haufen ). The steward praises Ruth s industry. And she came, and has remained ever since the morning until just now. She had worked with scarcely any intermission, diligently, from early morning. Drusius says that the following expression, rendered in King James's version that she tarried a little in the house, occasioned him critical torture ( locus hie et diu et acriter me torsit ). Coverdale also had been inextricably perplexed. He renders it, " And within a litel whyle she wolde have bene gone home agayne ." The word house troubled these and many other interpreters, as if the reference were to Naomi s dwelling-house in the town. The reference, however, is evidently to a temporary but, shed, tent, or booth erected in the harvest-field for the siesta of the workers, and the accommodation of the master, when he was visiting by day, or exercising supervision by night. We would translate the clause thus—"Her resting at the hut (has been) little." Her siesta in the shade of the but was trot brief. She felt as if she could not afford a long repose.