Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

The narrative prologue sets the stage for the exclamatory dialogue that ensues (vv. 17b–18). Verse 17b stresses the large quantity of grain Ruth has threshed47 from her gleanings in the field of Boaz—“an ephah” (v. 17) of barley. Commentators, with the exception of Sasson,48 usually give some kind of conversion figure for an ephah and end at that. Nielsen in her commentary concludes: “Of course, the important thing is not to find out exactly the actual weight but to be overwhelmed by Boaz’s generosity to Ruth.”49 While the text is obviously giving this data in order to demonstrate Boaz’s hesed toward the two widows, Ruth and Naomi, what are the practical, real-life implications? Certainly this note about the significant amount of grain gleaned by Ruth is not given to the reader in order “to add to her list of virtues that she was as strong as an ox.”50 It must have had some tangible, utilitarian value. An ephah was one-tenth of a homer. A homer was apparently the amount that one donkey could carry, which lies somewhere about ninety kilograms (two hundred pounds), fixing the assload of barley at about one hundred fifty liters or the assload of wheat at about one hundred twenty liters. Even allowing for uncertainties and upward adjustment by redefinition of norms, the natural assload can hardly have exceeded two hundred liters. Because of diachronic and political circumstances, it seems likely that there were a number of homer norms in the preexilic period. The probable para...