006_kim_589-601 13/02/15 12:50 Pagina 594 594 YOO-KI KIM grounds on which to base the recommendation of Boaz to YHWH, rather than a relative clause modifying the antecedent YHWH 22. Bush’s argument presupposes that, if the agent of ḥesed is YHWH, the clause in question is likely to be causal with rva as a subordinating conjunction, while if the agent is Boaz, it is likely to be a relative clause with rva as a relative pro- noun. Yet syntactically analyzing the rva clause as causal is not without problem. Though many ancient and modern translations express causal relationship between the main and the rva clauses, the relation is not syn- tactically marked in the original language. As Holmstedt convincingly shows, the rva clause in biblical Hebrew can best be analyzed as either a relative or a complement clause 23. In our case it must be analyzed as a relative clause, though its content can be interpreted as the grounds for the blessing. The antecedent of the relative clause is either hwhy or awh. Holmstedt raises the possibility of YHWH being the antecedent of the relative clause. He reasons that “it is an overwhelming tendency in the syntax of relative clauses that, unless explicitly identified (e.g., by the use of z[b within the relative) or a clear result of syntactic movement (e.g., the relative head fronted and thus moved away from its relative clause), the nearest gram- matically acceptable antecedent is the relative head” 24. However, if we examine the syntax of the sentence, there is enough reason for “awh (= Boaz)”, though not the nearest to the relative head (= relative pronoun), to be an antecedent. An explanation would be the movement of the an- tecedent from its original position just before the relative pronoun to the current position 25. ~ytmh-taw ~yyxh-ta wdsx bz[-al rva awh hwhyl $wrb * → ~ytmh-taw ~yyxh-ta wdsx bz[-al rva hwhyl awh $wrb Another, more plausible explanation would be the movement (extra- position) of the relative clause. That is, the relative clause has been moved from its original position just after the antecedent awh to the current po- sition because it is considerably longer. It would be odd to see the long relative clause placed between “he (awh)” and “by YHWH (hwhyl)”. hwhyl ~ytmh-taw ~yyxh-ta wdsx bz[-al rva awh $wrb * → ~ytmh-taw ~yyxh-ta wdsx bz[-al rva hwhyl awh $wrb 22 BUSH, Ruth, 136; REBERA, “Yahweh or Boaz?” 323. 23 R.D. HOLMSTEDT, “Headlessness and Extraposition: Another Look at the Syntax of rva”, JNSL 27 (2001) 8-13. 24 HOLMSTEDT, Ruth, 141-142. 25 See HOLMSTEDT, “Headlessness and Extraposition”, 9-12 for examples of extraposition in Biblical Hebrew.