Ruth 4
4:1 a Most legal transactions, including property transfers, were carried out at the town gate.• friend: Boaz might or might not have used the man’s name, but the author of Ruth avoided doing so.
4:3 b Naomi ... is selling the land: Naomi probably did not have control of Elimelech’s ancestral land, though she did have legal title. She was selling the right to redeem it, or buy it back, from whoever was currently using it.
4:4 c redeem it: The law called for a near relative, the family redeemer, to buy land when a landowner had to sell it (see Lev 25:23-34 d). This practice kept land in the family; the redeemer was a conservator for the land until the destitute landowner could recover economically and buy it back.
• All right, I’ll redeem it: The kinsman could see a great opportunity—there was no male heir and no apparent likelihood that there would be one, so he could add the land to his own estate while doing his social duty for the family.
4:5 e your purchase ... requires that you marry Ruth (literally on the day you purchase ... you acquire Ruth): In the Hebrew manuscripts that we have, the body of this verse reads I acquire, but a scribal correction in the margin reads you acquire, a difference of one letter. (The scribe believed you acquire was the original reading and that the body of the text contained an error.) Some interpreters believe the body of the Hebrew text (I acquire) is the original reading of the text, indicating that the marriage between Boaz and Ruth was already set to occur (see study note on 3:11). Most translators, however, believe that the marginal correction (you acquire) represents the original reading of the text because: (1) The scribe who made the marginal correction believed that you acquire was the original reading; (2) most ancient translations of Ruth, which predate our oldest copies of the Hebrew text, also read you acquire; and (3) it is easy to envision that an earlier Hebrew scribe (working before our earliest manuscript copies) substituted I acquire—as it appears in 4:10 f—in place of you acquire.
• That way she can have children who will carry on her husband’s name and keep the land in the family: This sentence draws heavily on Deut 25:7 g. Boaz connected the duties of a family redeemer (see study notes on Ruth 2:20; Lev 25:25) with the duties of a brother-in-law (Latin levir) to provide an heir for a deceased brother (see Deut 25:5-10 h for a description of levirate marriage; cp. Gen 38 i). There is no precise precedent for Boaz’s legal maneuver. The duty of the levir as stated in Deut 25:5-10 j was not binding in this situation (neither Boaz nor the other kinsman was Elimelech’s brother, and Ruth was not Elimelech’s widow). Boaz was apparently using the spirit of the law concerning the go’el (family redeemer) to establish a moral, if not a legal, obligation to serve as levir and provide the deceased with an heir to inherit the land (see study note on Lev 25:25). The concepts of land ownership and provision for an heir were intimately connected in ancient Israel (cp. Num 27:1-11 k). Because Naomi was beyond childbearing age, Ruth, the widow of Elimelech’s son, would be the mother for such an heir. This maneuver apparently surprised the other kinsman (Ruth 4:6 l), but it is clear from what follows that Boaz’s argument, while perhaps novel, was accepted as valid.
4:6 m Then I can’t redeem it: The addition of Ruth to the transaction completely changed the equation for the other kinsman.
• this might endanger my own estate: If he bought the land, married Ruth, and raised an heir for Elimelech, he might invest many resources only to lose control of the new land, and he might not have enough to maintain his own land. If he then failed to have a second son with Ruth as his own heir, his land would be inherited by Elimelech’s heir, and his own name would die out. Even if this kinsman had acquired the land and not Ruth (see study notes on 3:11; 4:5), he still might lose his investment in the land to the heir born to Ruth. By acting to preserve his own name, this man became the no-name who refused to help his close relative.
4:7 n in those days: The book of Ruth was not written immediately after these events. By the time Ruth was written, most people had forgotten this custom of removing a sandal and what it meant. The transfer of a sandal symbolized transferring a right of purchase to redeem the land. See also Deut 25:9 o for a similar (but not identical) custom in relation to levirate marriage; in both cases, the sandal apparently signified the right of redemption.
4:10 p And with the land (literally And besides): Boaz intended to raise an heir for Mahlon, the first son, who would carry on the family name of her dead husband and inherit his land.
4:11 q Rachel and Leah, Jacob’s two wives, were the mothers of Israel.
• Ephrathah: See study note on 1:2.
4:12 r Like Ruth, Tamar had been a foreigner; she became the mother of Perez and Zerah, through whom Judah’s descendants came.
4:13 s the Lord enabled: See study note on 1:6.
4:14 t This child replaced the family Naomi had lost when her own two sons died in Moab. The women of the town recognized that this child completed the circle of redemption for Naomi.
4:15 u care for you in your old age (literally cause your old age to be full): With the birth of Obed, Naomi’s life was full again (cp. 1:21 v).
Summary for Ruth 4:18-22: 4:18-22 w The book of Ruth ends with a genealogy of ten generations, from Perez, the son of Judah (Jacob’s son), to David, the grandson of Obed. Besides being one of the world’s great stories, this tale concerns the family history of David, Israel’s greatest king. That Ruth and Boaz were ancestors of Israel’s greatest king is a major reason for the inclusion of this small book in the Old Testament.
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