What Does Ruth 4:13 Mean?
So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, the LORD gave her to conceive, and she bore a son.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 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.
“bore” 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.
Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.When the days had come around, Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, the asked-for one, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.I planted, Apollos gave to drink, but God made it grow.THE THREAD
When the days had come around, Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, the asked-for one, 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.
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