006_kim_589-601 13/02/15 12:50 Pagina 589 ANIMADVERSIONES The Agent of ḥesed in Naomi’s Blessing (Ruth 2,20) * I. Introduction: syntactic ambiguities in Ruth 2,20 Commentators and linguists give some attention to the first sentence of Ru 2,20 because of its syntactic ambiguities. The paragraph in which this verse is embedded (vv. 18-23) can be summarized as follows. Ruth comes back home from Boaz’s field with the grain she gleaned and the leftovers from the meal he shared with her. Naomi, surprised by what her daughter-in-law has brought home, asks her where she worked that day and blesses the benefactor. Then Ruth reveals his name. The new information triggers Naomi’s additional, longer blessing which is phrased as follows: ~ytmh-taw ~yyxh-ta wdsx bz[-al rva hwhyl awh $wrb (Ru 2,20) Two syntactic ambiguities have been noticed in this blessing 1. One concerns the antecedent of the relative pronoun rva. The other is about the subject of the subordinate clause. Unlike the former ambiguity, the resolution of the latter does not make a significant difference to the un- derstanding of the utterance. That is, we can hardly find a meaningful dif- ference between “[…] whose faithfulness did not abandon the living and the dead” and “[…] who did not abandon his faithfulness with the living and the dead”. In addition, the identity of “who/whose” can only be de- termined by the resolution of the former ambiguity. Therefore, this article focuses on the ambiguity regarding the an- tecedent of the relative pronoun. After examining ancient and modern translations of the sentence, we will discuss the syntactic and semantic arguments to disentangle the ambiguity. Then the matter will be discussed in a broader context. * This work was supported by a research grant from Seoul Women’s Uni- versity (2012). 1 B.A. REBERA, “Yahweh or Boaz? Ruth 2.20 Reconsidered”, BT 36 (1985) 317-327, here 317. BIBLICA 95.4 (2014) 589-601