Ruth 4:1–Maybe They Got It from my Mom

Ruth 4:1–Maybe They Got It from my Mom

The lesson of Ruth is that if you step up to the plate and do what is right, you go down in history with your name intact. But if you don’t, the books record you as “so-and-so.” What kind of a dorky name is “so-and-so?” Who would want to get stuck with that?

Maybe the clunkiness is peculiar to the New World Translation, one might think. But a check at BibleGateway, where dozens of translations are compared, shows that many are even worse. The King James Version says: “Ho, such a one! turn aside, sit down here.” Numerous translations put it that way or close. Ho—would you rather be known as “such a one?” I’ll take “so-and-so” any day over that.

About half the BibleGateway translations turn him into a “friend.” “Come and sit here, friend,” says ERV. But he is not a “friend” per se. If you call him that, it is just making pleasant chit-chat. Boaz knew the guy, no doubt, and might have said that. But the narrator himself uses the Hebrew word “peloni.” It stresses anonymity, as though a “John Doe.” Or maybe even a “Hey, you!” as in the Rolling Stones’ “Hey! You! Get off of my cloud.” But that’s going too far. Confrontation is not implied. But neither is chumminess. The fellow runs away from responsibility, which the narrator disapproves of. Sure, he’ll take the land offered, until he learns there’s a price tag more than just money. The lout! So the literal rendering is “such-and-such” or some such label emphasizing anonymity—the writer doesn’t want to say his name even though he knows it. (No translation calls him “lout.”)

Some translations avoid using any placeholder word at all, even though there is one. CSB says, “Boaz said, “Come over here and sit down.” So there. NET calls him “what’s-your-name.” I’d give five dollars for one to go full contemporary and call him “what’s-your-face.”

EHV says “dear friend.” MSG says “old friend.” Sheesh! If even friend is a liberty taken for smoothness, he certainly wasn’t an “old friend,” let alone a “dear friend.” It calls to mind the guy who uses the urinal next to you when there are ten others to choose from.

“So-and-so” will have to do. Thing is, as a boy, I recall my mom describing difficult people as, “He’s a real so-and-so.” Where does that come from? The King James says “such a one” and the NWT, which does say “so-and-so,” hadn’t been released yet. There are a few others, later still. The Expanded Bible (2011) says “so-and-so.” As does the Israel Bible (2018), the Open English Bible (2010), and the NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society) Tanakh Bible (1985) all say “so-and-so.” The NWT (1961) really does seem to be the first English translation to render it “so-and-so.” At any rate, AI could find no more, so I told it to go cool off its transistors.

Maybe the NWT got it from my mom.

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