What Does Ruth 4:13 Mean in the King James?
So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse joins intimacy to gift: conception is received, and the child opens a lineage that reaches beyond the couple.
THE MEANING
The verse holds human intimacy and divine giving together: conception is received within a relationship, not treated as a possession. A child is both present life and the beginning of a line that reaches beyond those who receive him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a child’s beginning belongs solely to human action dissolves here: intimacy is named, and conception is attributed to the LORD.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתֵּן
vayyitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
The verse uses the root נתן for “gave”: conception is described as something given, even as it comes within human intimacy. The same root can speak of giving a gift or placing something, bringing the language of received life and the language of giving into one seed.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the root verb behind “gave,” holding the act of giving together with setting or placing.
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s language of conception as something given especially vivid.
וַתֵּלֶד
vattēled
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To bear or bring forth a child.
“bare” in this verse is vattēled. The verb for bearing shares its root with the word for “child” and with תּוֹלְדוֹת (toledot), the generations that unfold from a birth. English separates labor from lineage; this root lets a child’s birth open directly into the generations ahead.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The same root names both the act of bearing and the child brought forth.
toledot: Generations or descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch shows how a single birth belongs to a continuing line.
THE PATTERN
Human participation and divine giving meet in the arrival and growth of life.
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.THE THREAD
Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.The verb וַתֵּלֶד (vattēled), “she bare,” shares the root ילד (y-l-d) with the birth language in Ruth 4:13. In both verses, a child’s arrival opens into a life and a family line beyond the moment of birth.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us