Ruth 4:1-8
The Redeemer Who Said No
1Meanwhile, Boaz went to the gate and sat down there. Soon the kinsman-redeemer of whom he had spoken came along, and Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down.
2Then Boaz took ten of the elders of the city and said, “Sit here,” and they did so.
3And he said to the kinsman-redeemer, “Naomi, who has returned from the land of Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech.
4I thought I should inform you that you may buy it back in the presence of those seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you want to redeem it, do so. But if you will not redeem it, tell me so I may know, because there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am next after you.” “I will redeem it,” he replied.
5Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi and also from Ruth the Moabitess, you must also acquire the widow of the deceased in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance.”
6The kinsman-redeemer replied, “I cannot redeem it myself, or I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption, because I cannot redeem it.”
7Now in former times in Israel, concerning the redemption or exchange of property, to make any matter legally binding a man would remove his sandal and give it to the other party, and this was a confirmation in Israel.
8So the kinsman-redeemer removed his sandal and said to Boaz, “Buy it for yourself.”
Berean Standard Bible
Boaz goes to the town gate and sits down. The gate was where business got done: a public place, in daylight, with people coming and going all day. Everything that happened at the threshing floor happened in the dark with nobody about. He takes it straight to the most public spot in Bethlehem.
The other redeemer comes along, and Boaz calls him over and sits him down. Then he collects ten of the elders of the city and seats them as well. Ten witnesses. He is not settling this on a handshake.
He opens with the land. Naomi, back from Moab, is selling the piece of ground that belonged to their brother Elimelech, and the man in front of him has the first claim on it. Boaz lays it out in front of the elders and tells him to say so if he will not redeem it, because there is nobody but him to redeem it and Boaz is next after him.
And the man says yes. Just like that. Boaz has told the truth in public and the truth has cost him, and he is now watching another man take the thing he swore to Ruth he would take if this one would not. Then Boaz adds the rest of it.
On the day you buy the land from Naomi and also from Ruth the Moabitess, you must also acquire the widow of the deceased in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance.
There is no trick in it. Redeeming the field means taking on the widow and raising up an heir in the dead man's name, and the first son of that marriage would inherit the land. The man was about to buy an asset. He has just been told it comes with a family.
So he does the arithmetic out loud. Redeeming it would jeopardize his own inheritance, he says, and he hands his right of redemption over to Boaz. He is honest about his reason and the book does not make a villain of him. It does not give him a name either. He is the man who worked out the cost and said no.
Then the story stops for a sentence to explain the sandal. What follows is the narrator talking to us rather than to anybody at the gate.
Now in former times in Israel, concerning the redemption or exchange of property, to make any matter legally binding a man would remove his sandal and give it to the other party, and this was a confirmation in Israel.
He explains it because it had gone out of use among the people this was written for. Then the sandal comes off, changes hands, and the man tells Boaz to buy it for himself.
How We Know
Verse 7 is the narrator stepping out of the story to explain a custom, and it is the sort of note a writer only bothers with when the audience has lost it.
He says that in former times in Israel a man would remove his sandal and hand it over to make a property matter binding, and that this was the confirmation. He does not assume it. He explains it, in a book otherwise happy to let the reader work things out.
The obligation itself is stated in the chapter rather than assumed. Ruth 4:5 has Boaz telling the nearer redeemer that acquiring the field means acquiring the widow of the deceased, to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance. Deuteronomy 25:5 puts a comparable concern on a dead man's brother, which is a correspondence rather than the same law. Nobody at the gate asks what he means.
So the account explains the sandal and states the obligation, and does neither by assumption.
Questions
1 Where does Boaz take this, and why does that matter?
AnswerTo the town gate, which is where business was done in public. He sits down with ten of the elders as witnesses. Everything at the threshing floor happened at night with nobody around. He settles this in daylight in front of the town.
2 What does Boaz put on the table first, and what does the other man say?
AnswerThe land that belonged to Elimelech. The man says yes straight away, and he is entitled to. Boaz has just told the truth in public and watched it hand the thing he wanted to somebody else.
3 What changes the other man's answer?
AnswerBeing told the field comes with Ruth, and with the duty to raise up an heir in the dead man's name. That heir would inherit the land. He says it would jeopardize his own inheritance, which is honest enough, and he declines.
4 Would you have done what he did? The book never gives this man a name. Is he a villain?
AnswerThe book does not treat him as one. He gives a plain reason and he is within his rights to refuse. It never names him, though. He is remembered as the man who worked out what it would cost him and said no.
What This Means for Us
Nothing in this scene mentions God. It is ten elders, two men and a sandal, and the LORD is not named once between verse 1 and verse 8.
Read the chapter to the end and the same transaction turns out to be where the LORD enabled Ruth to conceive, and where the women told Naomi that the LORD had not left her without a kinsman-redeemer. The legal business at the gate is the means. Nobody sitting there could see that, and Boaz least of all, because at the moment he opens with the other man's rights he is risking losing her.
So when there is a right way and a way that works, the reason you can afford the right way is not that it always turns out well. It is that the outcome is being carried by somebody who was not at that gate.
Prayer
Father, we are good at arranging conversations so they come out our way. Thank you for a man who put his rival's rights on the table first and risked losing. Give us the nerve to do things properly when doing them properly might cost us the thing we want. Amen.