Ruthchapter 4
22 verses · BSBRuth book hub →
Key verse
Meanwhile, 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.
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Boaz goes up to the gate, seats ten elders, and lays the case before the nearer kinsman: Naomi's parcel of land, and with it Ruth the Moabitess, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. The man withdraws lest he mar his own inheritance, drawing off his shoe as attestation by the old custom in Israel. Boaz buys all and takes Ruth to wife, and the townspeople bless the house to be like Rachel and Leah. Obed is born, and the women tell Naomi that her daughter-in-law, better to her than seven sons, has given her a restorer of life. The closing genealogy runs from Perez to Obed, Jesse, and David, and Matthew 1 carries Ruth into the line of the Messiah.
Context
History · Samuel · Ruth overview
Where the chapter sits
Ruth 4 falls in Filling (chapters 4). The gate, the redemption, the child, the genealogy: Obed, Jesse, David.
The gate and the genealogy. Redemption at the city gate; Obed born; the closing list Perez → David.
Before it: Threshing floor, chapters 3.
The whole shape of Ruth→The world behind this chapter
Ruth 4The history
The gate was the town's courtroom, market, and news exchange. City gates of this era were built as a passage with recessed chambers on either side and stone benches along them, so the elders sat in the shade where everyone entering or leaving passed by. There were no written contracts for most transactions; the crowd was the record, which is why Boaz seats ten elders and then says to the whole gathering, you are witnesses.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Boaz frames the case shrewdly. He raises the land first, Naomi is selling Elimelech's parcel, and the nearer redeemer has the first right and says yes at once. Only then does Boaz add that acquiring the field also means acquiring Ruth the Moabitess to raise up the dead man's name on his inheritance. That changes the arithmetic completely: the buyer pays for land that will legally belong to a son counted as another man's heir. The nearer kinsman withdraws, saying he would ruin his own inheritance.
The sandal is the seal. The text explains the custom because by the time it was written down it had already fallen out of use, in earlier Israel, to confirm a transfer of right, a man drew off his sandal and handed it over. Land was claimed by walking it, and the shoe stood for the right to walk it.
The blessing pronounced by the crowd names Rachel, Leah, Tamar, and Perez, three of them women who entered Israel's line by irregular paths. The closing genealogy runs Perez to Boaz to Obed to Jesse to David, and it is the reason the book exists. Every hearer who reached the last line learned that Israel's greatest king had a Moabite great-grandmother.
What it meant to them
The women of the town tell Naomi that Ruth is better to her than seven sons, extravagant praise in a culture where sons were a woman's security, and they name the child a restorer of life and a nourisher of her old age. The woman who came home empty is holding a grandson.
For first hearers under David's line, the genealogy answered a live question. The king's family tree ran through a foreigner who chose the God of Israel, and through the law of the redeemer that protected the poor. That was a statement about what kind of kingdom this was supposed to be.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. The nearer kinsman and the loosened shoe
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.The gate is where Deuteronomy 25:7 sends this exact case, and where Deuteronomy 21:19 and 22:15 send others, so Boaz opens the matter in the one place a ruling could be made and witnessed. The kinsman is addressed as Ho, such a one, which renders a Hebrew idiom that withholds a name, the same way a name is hidden at 1 Samuel 21:2 and 2 Kings 6:8. The law fixes no number of elders for a redemption, and Jewish practice settled on ten for causes of marriage and inheritance, which John Gill and Adam Clarke both report.
Ruth 4:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ruth 4:1
“The gate is the place of concourse, of business, and of justice in Oriental cities (see Jdg 19:15 note; Gen 34:20; Deu 16:18). Ho, such a one! - Indicating that the name of the kinsman was either unknown or purposely concealed 1Sa 21:2; 2Ki 6:8.”
Ruth 4:1
“Then went Boaz up to the gate of the city--a roofed building, unenclosed by walls; the place where, in ancient times, and in many Eastern towns still, all business transactions are made, and where, therefore, the kinsman was most likely to be found.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ruth 4:2, 2 voices
Ruth 4:2
“He took ten men - Probably it required this number to constitute a court. How simple and how rational was this proceeding! 1. The man who had a suit went to the city gates. 2. Here he stopped till the person with whom he had the suit came to the gate on his way to his work. 3. He called him by name, and he stopped and sat down. 4. Then ten elders were called, and they came and sat down. 5. When all this was done, the appellant preferred his suit. 6. Then the appellee returned his answer.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 4:2
“Ten men - To be witnesses: for though two or three witnesses were sufficient, yet in weightier matters they used more. And ten was the usual number among the Jews, in causes of matrimony and divorce, and translation of inheritances; who were both Judges of the causes, and witnesses of the fact.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.The statute behind the offer is Leviticus 25:25, where a kinsman redeems the land of a poor relation, and the whole transaction runs on that law before a marriage is mentioned at all. Boaz names Naomi and the field and stops there, and the man answers I will redeem it before he knows what else is attached to it. How Naomi holds land to sell is disputed: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read a right to the use of it during her life rather than the title, and Albert Barnes reads a sale priced against the years remaining until the jubilee. Nothing is signed, because the elders and the inhabitants standing at the gate are the record.
Ruth 4:3, 2 voices
Ruth 4:3
“According to the law Lev 25:25-28, if any Israelite, through poverty, would sell his possession, the next of kin (the גאל gā'al) had a right to redeem it by paying the value of the number of years remaining until the jubilee (see the marginal reference). This right Boaz advertises the גאל gā'al of, so as to give him the option which the law secured to him of redeeming “our brother Elimelech’s” land, i. e. our kinsman’s, according to the common use of the term brother, for near relation (see Gen 13:8; Gen 24:27; Lev 25:25; Num 27:4; Jdg 9:1).”
Ruth 4:3
“In her circumstances she was at liberty to part with it (Le 25:25). Both Naomi and Ruth had an interest in the land during their lives; but Naomi alone was mentioned, not only because she directed all the negotiations, but because the introduction of Ruth's name would awaken a suspicion of the necessity of marrying her, before the first proposition was answered.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ruth 4:4, 1 voice
Ruth 4:4
“I thought to advertise thee - Both Dr. Kennicott and Father Houbigant have noticed several corruptions in the pronouns of this and the following verses; and their criticisms have been confirmed by a great number of MSS. since collated. The text corrected reads thus: “And I said I will reveal this to thy ear, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3. (vv. 5-6)
a.Boaz binds two laws together, the redemption of land at Leviticus 25:25 and the raising up of seed to a dead man at Deuteronomy 25:5, and neither statute asks one man to do both. The levirate law names a brother, and Boaz is no brother to Mahlon, so what he takes up here reaches past the letter of it. The kinsman gives his reason as marring his own inheritance and the text never says how, so Albert Barnes reads a son counted to Mahlon carrying the field back out of his line, while the Targum has him already married, which Adam Clarke reports and says has no footing in the law of Moses. The law allowed the refusal, and the chapter records it without a word against the man.
Ruth 4:5, 3 voices
Ruth 4:5
“For, by the law, when a man died, the marriage bond with his wife was passed on to his brother or other male next of kin, in order that the seed of the brother or next of kin might renew the life of the house. And so it was that Ruth, though she was foreign-born, had possessed a husband of the Jewish people who had left a kinsman of near relation.”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· Exposition of the Christian Faith 3.69-70patristic
Ruth 4:5
“Observe the action of the Levirate law. If there had been no one interested but Naomi, she would have sold the land unclogged by any condition, the law of Levirate having no existence in her case. But there was a young widow upon whom the possession of the land would devolve at Naomi’s death, and who already had a right of partnership in it, and the law of Levirate did apply in her case. It was, therefore, the duty of the גאל gā'al to marry her and raise up seed to his brother, i. e. his kinsman.”
Ruth 4:5
“Buy it - According to the law, Deut. xxv, 5. To raise,&c. - To revive his name, which was buried with his body, by raising up a seed to him, to be called by his name.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ruth 4:6, 1 voice
Ruth 4:6
“I cannot redeem it for myself - The Targum gives the proper sense of this passage: “And the kinsman said, On this ground I cannot redeem it, because I have a wife already; and I have no desire to take another, lest there should be contention in my house, and I should become a corrupter of my inheritance. Do thou redeem it, for thou hast no wife; for I cannot redeem it.” This needs no comment. But still the gloss of the Targum has no foundation in the law of Moses. See the law, Deu 25:5-9.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
4. (vv. 7-8)
a.Verse 7 stops the story to explain a custom to readers who no longer kept it, which places the writing of the book a long way after the events it tells. Deuteronomy 25:9 puts the shoe in the widow's hands with spitting and a name of reproach fixed on the house, and here the man draws off his own shoe and hands it over, with no shaming recorded. Albert Barnes reads the difference as the letter of that law giving way to a general form of transfer, and Keil and Delitzsch read Deuteronomy as the narrow case and Ruth as the wider custom; both passages stand as they are written. Matthew Henry gives the sense of the token, that the right to walk on the ground passes with the shoe that walked on it.
Ruth 4:7, 3 voices
Ruth 4:7
“In former time in Israel - Showing that the custom was obsolete in the writer’s days. The letter of the law (see the marginal reference) was not strictly followed. It was thought sufficient for the man to pull off his own shoe and give it to the man to whom he ceded his right, in the presence of the elders of his city.”
Ruth 4:7
“All things - That is, in all alienation of lands. So that it is no wonder if this ceremony differ a little from that, Deut. xxv, 9, because that concerned only one case, but this is more general.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ruth 4:7
“The ceremony here used was, he that surrendered plucked off his shoe (the Chaldee says it was the glove of his right hand ) and gave it to him to whom he made the surrender, intimating thereby that, whatever right he had to tread or go upon the land, he conveyed and transferred it, upon a valuable consideration, to the purchaser: this was a testimony in Israel,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
B. Boaz buys the field and takes Ruth with it
1. (vv. 9-10)
a.Ye are witnesses this day falls twice in these two verses and nowhere else in Scripture, which is how a sale of this size closes with no document. Boaz names three dead men, Elimelech and Chilion and Mahlon, and states his purpose as raising up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, so the business at the gate is a name before it is a field. Ruth is called the Moabitess in the sentence that makes her a wife in Bethlehem, the fifth and last time the book says it of her. Matthew Henry reads Boaz here as a figure of Christ the redeemer buying back a forfeited inheritance, which is his reading and not something the New Testament says at this verse.
Ruth 4:9, 2 voices
Ruth 4:9
“Boaz said unto the elders, Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was . . . Chilion's and Mahlon's, of the hand of Naomi--Although the widow of Chilion was still living, no regard was paid to her in the disposal of her husband's property.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ruth 4:9
“Our Lord Jesus is our Goel, our Redeemer, our everlasting Redeemer. He looked, like Boaz, with compassion on the deplorable state of fallen mankind. At a vast expense he redeemed the heavenly inheritance for us, which by sin was mortgaged, and forfeited into the hands of divine justice, and which we should never have been able to redeem.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ruth 4:10, 1 voice
Ruth 4:10
“Ruth the Moabitess . . . have I purchased to be my wife--This connection Boaz not only might form, since Ruth had embraced the true religion, but he was under a legal necessity of forming it.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (vv. 11-12)
a.Rachel and Leah are named over a Moabite bride, and Rachel died on the road to Ephrath, which Genesis 35:19 says is Bethlehem, so the blessing invokes a woman buried within sight of where it is spoken. Ephratah occurs here for the first time in Scripture, and Micah 5:2 addresses the same town by the same double name. The other name in the blessing is Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah in Genesis 38, so the elders set one irregular line over another, and Adam Clarke notes that the families of Bethlehem traced their descent from him. The genealogy at the end of the chapter starts from Pharez, which makes the last five verses the answer to this prayer.
Ruth 4:11, 3 voices
Ruth 4:11
“The elders confirmed the marriage with a blessing, saying, "The Lord made this woman," etc. Moreover, "So that she may be an example of virtue in Ephrathah," they predicted the salvific birth through which Bethlehem was made famous among all people.”
Theodoret of Cyrus· written before 458· QUESTIONS ON RUTHpatristic
Ruth 4:11
“There was no signing of deeds; yet was the transfer made, and complete security given, by the public manner in which the whole matter was carried on and concluded. the Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah--This was the usual bridal benediction.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ruth 4:11
“Rachel and Leah - Amiable and fruitful. These two are singled out, because they were of a foreign original, and yet ingrafted into God's people, as Ruth was; and because of that fertility which God vouchsafed unto them above their predecessors, Sarah and Rebecca. Rachel is placed before Leah, because she was his most lawful, and best-beloved wife.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ruth 4:12, 2 voices
Ruth 4:12
“Like the house of Pharez - This was very appropriate; for from Pharez, the son of Judah, by Tamar, came the family of the Beth-lehemites and that of Elimelech.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ruth 4:12
“Pharez - As honourable and numerous as his family was; whom, though be also was born of a stranger, God so blessed, that his family was one of the five families to which all the tribe of Judah belonged, and the progenitor of the inhabitants of this city.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
C. A son laid in Naomi's lap, and the line down to David
1. (v. 13)
a.Twice in the book God is reported acting, and this is the second time: at 1:6 he gave his people bread, and here he gives conception, and everything between the two is done by people keeping faith with one another. The clause the Lord gave her conception occurs nowhere else in Scripture. Deuteronomy 23:3 bars a Moabite from the congregation to the tenth generation, and the book neither cites that law nor argues with it; Adam Clarke and John Gill report the old Jewish readings that hold the bar to fall on Moabite men, or on Moabites who stay in their own religion, and Ruth had left hers at 1:16. What the chapter puts in the place of a ruling is the blessing of the elders and the birth of a son.
Ruth 4:13, 2 voices
Ruth 4:13
“So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife,.... Without any other rites or ceremonies than what are here expressed; for as yet the rites and ceremonies now in use with the Jews (o), in marriages had not obtained: and when he went in unto her; which is a modest expression of the conjugal duty performed him: the Lord gave her conception; for this is of God, let the circumstance of the person, as to age, be as it may: and she bare a son; at the year's end, as Josephus (p) relates, (o) Vid. Buxtorf. Synagog. Jud. c.”
Ruth 4:13
“So Boaz took Ruth - The law of Moses had prohibited the Moabites, even to the tenth generation, from entering into the congregation of the Lord; but this law, the Jews think, did not extend to women; and even if it had, Ruth’s might be considered an exempt case, as she had been already incorporated into the family by marriage; and left her own country, people, and gods, to become a proselyte to the true God in the land of Israel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 14-15)
a.The women bless the LORD to the woman who told them at 1:20 to call her Mara, and the kinsman word they use of the newborn is the word that has belonged to Boaz since 3:9. Restorer of thy life and nourisher of thine old age answers her own summary at 1:21, that she went out full and the LORD brought her home empty, and it comes from the same townspeople who asked at 1:19 whether this was Naomi. Seven sons is the picture of a full house, as at 1 Samuel 2:5 and Job 1:2, and the phrase falls here for the first time in Scripture, set on a Moabite daughter in law. They leave Ruth's name out of the blessing and call her the one which loveth thee.
Ruth 4:14, 2 voices
Ruth 4:14
“And the women said unto Naomi,.... The inhabitants of Bethlehem, as they fell into her company; or perhaps these were the women that were called to the labour of Ruth, and attended the birth of the child: blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman; a grandchild born to her that day. In Moab she was bereaved of her husband and of two sons; but now she is not left without a relation, a kinsman, and a redeemer, for which the women blessed God, and stirred her up to do the same.”
Ruth 4:14
“Which hath not, &c. - The words may be rendered, Which hath not made, or suffered thy kinsman to fail thee; that is, to refuse the performances of his duty to thee and thine, as the other kinsman did. Famous - Hebrew. and his name shall be famous in Israel, for this noble and worthy action.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ruth 4:15, 1 voice
Ruth 4:15
“Thy life - That is, of the comfort of thy life. Born him - Or, hath born to him; that is, to thy kinsman a son. Better than seven sons - See how God sometimes makes up the want of those relations from whom we expected most comfort, in those from whom we expected least!”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
3. (vv. 16-17)
a.And Naomi took the child: The neighbour women give the child his name and neither parent is recorded doing it, which is odd enough that John Gill cites Josephus making Naomi the namer on their advice. There is a son born to Naomi is said of a child who is legally the heir of Mahlon and the son of Boaz, and it closes the account the book opened when she lost a husband and two sons. Obed means serving, and verse 15 has already said whom he serves, the old age of the woman holding him. The name David enters Scripture in this verse, and the chapter ends on it.
Ruth 4:17, 2 voices
Ruth 4:17
“And the women her neighbours gave it a name,.... Josephus says (q) Naomi gave it, by the advice of her neighbours; very probably on the eighth day when he was circumcised, and the neighbours were invited on that occasion, at which time it seems it was usual to give names to children, see Luk 1:”
Ruth 4:17
“The neighbors gave it a name - That is, they recommended a name suitable to the circumstances of the case; and the parents and grandmother adopted it. They called his name Obed - עובד obed, serving, from עבד abad, he served. Why was this name given? Because he was to be the nourisher of her old age, Rth 4:15. And so he must be by lying in her bosom, even if services in future life were wholly left out of the question. These neighbors of Naomi were skillful people. See on Rth 4:16 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
4. (vv. 18-20)
a.Now these are the generations: These are the generations is the formula Genesis uses ten times, from the heavens and the earth at 2:4 to Jacob at 37:2, and this verse is where it next falls in Scripture. Ten names run from Pharez to David, the same count as Adam to Noah in Genesis 5 and Shem to Abraham in Genesis 11. Nahshon fixes the middle of the list at the exodus, since Numbers 1:7 and 7:12 make him prince of Judah in the wilderness and Exodus 6:23 makes him brother in law to Aaron. From Nahshon to David is four names for something near four centuries, and Albert Barnes says the difficulties in this list remain unsolved; whether a Hebrew genealogy of this kind names every father or selects among them is where readers differ.
Ruth 4:19, 1 voice
Ruth 4:19
“And Hezron begat Ram,.... Called Aram by the Septuagint, and so in Mat 1:3, and Ram begat Amminadab; in whose name there is no variation, neither in the book of Chronicles nor in the Evangelists; both these, as well as the next, were born in Egypt.”
Ruth 4:20, 2 voices
Ruth 4:20
“And Amminadab begat Nahshon,.... The prince of the tribe of Judah, as the Targum adds; and so he was when the Israelites were come out of Egypt, and were in the wilderness at the time of the dedication of the altar, Num 7:12 called Nahsson, Mat 1:4, and Nahshon begat Salmon; or, as in the Hebrew text, Salmah, and in 1Ch 2:11, Salma; and yet in the verse following Salmon, as we read it.”
Ruth 4:20
“Amminadab begat Nahshon - The Targum adds, “And Nahshon was chief of the house of his father in the tribe of Judah.” Nahshon begat Salmon - In the Hebrew it is שלמה Salmah, which Houbigant thinks was an error of an ancient scribe, before any final letters were acknowledged in the Hebrew alphabet: for then the word would be written שלמון Salmon, which a scribe, after final letters were admitted, might mistake for שלמה Salmah, and so write it, instead of שלמון Salmon, the ו vau and final nun in conjunction (ון) bearing some resemblance to ה.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
5. (vv. 21-22)
a.Ruth never names the mother of Boaz and Matthew 1:5 does, saying Salmon begat Booz of Rachab, so a Canaanite woman of Jericho and a Moabite widow stand in one verse of the line of Christ. Albert Barnes suggests that a man whose own mother came in from outside Israel may have been readier to marry a woman who did the same, and he offers it as a suggestion rather than as something the text states. This same list is given four times in Scripture, here and at 1 Chronicles 2:10-12, Matthew 1:3-6 and Luke 3:32-33. A book that opened in the days when the judges ruled closes on the name of a king, and 1 Samuel 16 takes it up from there.
Ruth 4:21, 2 voices
Ruth 4:21
“And Salmon begat Boaz,.... Of Rahab the harlot, whom he married, Mat 1:5 the very same person that makes a principal part of this book, and whom the Targum here takes to be the judge Ibzan; see Gill on Rth 1:1. and Boaz begat Obed; of Ruth; of whom see the preceding verses.”
Ruth 4:21
“Salmon begat Boaz - Matthew has preserved the additional interesting information that the mother of Boaz was Rahab Josh. 2; 6. It is possible that the circumstance that the mother of Boaz was a Canaanite may have made him less indisposed to marry Ruth the Moabitess. As regards the whole genealogy in Rth 4:18-22, it should be remarked that it occurs four times in Scripture, namely, here, 1Ch 2:10-12; Mat 1:3-6; and Luk 3:32-33, and is of course of singular importance as being the genealogy of our Lord. One or two difficulties in it still remain unsolved.”
Ruth 4:22, 1 voice
Ruth 4:22
“And Obed begat Jesse - “Who,” says the Targum, “also is called Nachash, נחש because neither iniquity nor corruption was found in him, that he should be delivered into the hands of the angel of death, that he might take away his soul from him.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ruth 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Christian Faith 3.69-70; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth; Matthew Henry and Theodoret of Cyrus, QUESTIONS ON RUTH.
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