Ruth 2:12; 3:9
Under God's wings, under Boaz's wing
Boaz prays that Ruth will be rewarded by the God under whose wings (kanaph) she has taken refuge. At the threshing floor Ruth asks him to spread his kanaph over her. The Hebrew uses the same word; most translations hide it.
Read Ruth 2:12; 3:9 in every edition
Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
What the echo means
- Refuge
- God's wings are a picture of protection (Psalm 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 91:4).
- Marriage
- Spreading the garment's corner over a woman signifies marriage (Ezekiel 16:8).
- The point
- Ruth asks Boaz to be the means of the protection he prayed God would give her.
Every witness, in order
Unknown (debated)
Original Ruth
No original survives.
Translated c. 2nd–1st century BC
Septuagint (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
tu étendras ton aile sur ta servante (3:9)
you will spread your wing over your servant
Keeps "wing" in 3:9. One Greek text via Giguet's French; not checked against Quast's Göttingen edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
expande pallium tuum super famulam tuam (3:9)
spread your cloak over your servant
"Cloak": the echo with 2:12 (sub cujus confugisti alas) is lost.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
וּפָרַשְׂתָּ כְנָפֶךָ עַל־אֲמָתְךָ (3:9)
and spread your wing over your handmaid
2:12: אֲשֶׁר־בָּאת לַחֲסוֹת תַּחַת־כְּנָפָיו, "under whose wings you came to take refuge."
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid (3:9)
"Wings" in 2:12 but "skirt" in 3:9.
What changed, and why
A literary connection in the Hebrew, not a manuscript variant. The library's Greek keeps it; the Vulgate and KJV lose it in 3:9.
What the evidence shows
- The Hebrew uses kanaph in both 2:12 and 3:9.
Sources
- R. L. Hubbard Jr., The Book of Ruth (NICOT, 1988)
Related lessons
- The Foreign Gleaner, Boaz and Safety →Ruth goes to glean behind the reapers and "happens" to come to the field of Boaz, a relative of Elimelech. He asks who she is, tells her to stay in his field, orders his young men not to touch her, and gives her water. He has heard of her loyalty: may the LORD reward you, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
- The Threshing Floor and the Nearer Redeemer →Naomi sends Ruth, washed and anointed, to the threshing floor at night, to uncover Boaz's feet and lie down. At midnight he wakes startled. Ruth asks him to spread his garment's wing over her, for he is a redeemer. Boaz praises her, promises to act, but warns that a nearer redeemer has the first right. He sends her home before dawn with six measures of barley.