Kinsmen Redeemer

[Ruth 2:1] And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.
Boaz – four facts about him:
1. He was Naomi’s kinsman on her husband’s side.
2. He was a prominent rich man, a landowner who employed a large group of laborers in the harvest, and who was well able to be of help to the two poor widows who had just arrived.
3. There is no explicit reference to his age, but he was older than the young men in his employment.
4. Kinsman means of the same clan. Boaz was of the family of Elimelech, same as Naomi’s late husband. The Hebrew term translated family designates a kinship group larger than the immediate family unit or father’s house and smaller than the clan or tribe. Membership in the extended family made Boaz a possible redeemer who could come to the aid of Naomi and her daughter-in-law. Thus the next of kin or redeemer is the one bearing the responsibility for rescuing or redeeming the relative, who is in difficulty.
The custom of redemption by a redeemer or next of kin was part of ancient Israel’s system of social security based on the extended family and the tribe. If a member of the extended family had to sell land, the next of kin would buy it back to restore the property to the family (Lev. 25:25). If one sold oneself to an alien, the next of kin had the right and duty to restore the damage done to the family or tribe by paying the purchase price and setting the slave free. If a person who had been wronged died, the restitution for the crime committed should be paid to the next of kin who acts on behalf of the whole family (Num. 5:8).
Boaz is immediately drawn to Ruth, her beauty and the modesty of her demeanor. Boaz first asked his harvesters about the strange young woman in his fields (v. 5). On learning that she had come from Moab with Naomi the widow of Elimelech, he welcomed her warmly as ‘my daughter’, and urged her to stay with other young women in his field and gather behind his reapers.
The reaping was performed by women while the assortment of sheaves was the duty of men-servants. The same division of harvest labor obtains in Syria still. Boaz not only granted to Ruth the full privilege of gleaning after his reapers, but provided for her personal comfort. Implies violence, tough, molest. Rape was a possibility. Women are the victims of physical assault and degradation by rape. Sensing her vulnerability as an alien and a widow, he offered her protection from indecent advances of the male harvesters.
And quench her thirst from the jars of water filled by his young men.
Boaz invited her to eat with him, Come hither or here, that is near to him at the meal. Some of the new grain, roasted on the spot, and fit for use after being rubbed in the hands - a favorite viand in the East. He gave her so much, that after satisfying her own wants, she had some (2:18) in reserve for her mother-in-law.
When Naomi saw the pile of barley that Ruth laid at her feet, her first reaction was to thank Yahweh that the owner of the field where Ruth had gleaned had taken notice of her. Boaz’s taking notice of her daughter-in-law meant to Naomi that Ruth was no longer a stranger or an alien.
When Ruth returns home to Naomi and reports to her the day’s events, Naomi sees the prospect for her daughter-in-law of a levirate marriage. Naomi would offer for sale a piece of land that belonged to her deceased husband, Elimelech. Boaz was a close relative of Elimelech, and Naomi felt that he might be willing to redeem the family property and marry Ruth, Elimelech’s daughter-in-law, the wife of the deceased son. In this way, the family name would be carried on in accordance with the ancient patriarchal duty. Naomi advises Ruth to continue gleaning in Boaz’ field, but it isn’t until the barley and wheat harvests are over that she instructs Ruth with the heart of her plan.
G-d’s kindness to the living and to the dead meant that somehow the interest of the dead continues with the living, and that the unresolved problem following the deaths of her husband and her two sons would find its resolution in the living matrix of succeeding generations of children’s children. Boaz himself was part of G-d’s kindness toward the dead as well as the living (Naomi and Ruth).
The Rabbis speak of power of prayer. They claim that Boaz was already 80 years old and had not yet been granted children. Ruth was now 40, and as long as she was married to Mahlon, she had never been granted children. The Rabbis said that both Boaz and Ruth were favored with a son only as a result of the blessings of the righteous elders.
One of our next kinsmen meant that she was not sure whether he was indeed next of kin or not. Ruth’s challenge to Boaz, you are next of kin (3:9), meant that she was hoping that he was in fact Naomi’s closest relative.
Near kinsmen but there may be another kinsman more closely related than him.
After the harvest feast Boaz went to lay down and fell asleep. Ruth’s act of lifting the cover over Boaz’s feet and covering herself with it was a request that she be taken under his protection as his wife. The phrase ‘spread you cloak’ is according to one translation marry me (Ezek. 16:8). Suddenly the man woke up and was startled, aware of the implicit danger in the presence of a woman at his feet. Could she be a prostitute looking for a partner? How would he protect his reputation? Ruth startles Boaz with her unexpected and uninvited presence, and out of fear, Boaz might have rashly pronounced a curse upon her. In her reply the woman used her own name for the first time. By giving her personal name first, she emphasized her dignity as a woman. By adding the expression your handmaid she showed a proper deference to Boaz as her benefactor. In the story of Ruth there is a distinction between the two Hebrew terms, female slave and household servant. Ruth hoped at first to be accepted as Boaz’s female slave, but now she called herself his household servant. Implication suggesting her eligibility to become his wife.
Skirt translated here is (kanaph), the word for the “corner” of the tallit where the tzitzit of his tallit had powerful consequences. It meant that Boaz had accepted Ruth under his authority. He had merely recognized his own legal responsibilities toward this young widow and had made the gesture that she covered by his integrity and by his determination to fulfill the Torah commandments, which his tzitzit represented. His responsibility to bring up children in the name of his kinsman, when Obed was born to Ruth, the people said, “There is a son born to Naomi”.
She had already drawn part of the mantle over her; and she asked him now to do it, that the act might become his own. To spread a skirt over one is, in the East, a symbolical action denoting protection. To this day in many parts of the East, to say of anyone that he put his skirt over a woman, is synonymous with saying that he married her; and at all the marriages of the modern Jews and Hindus, one part of the ceremony is for the bridegroom to put a silken or cotton cloak around his bride.
Near kinsman appealed to Boaz’s sense of family solidarity, showing that her primary motivation was not self-gratification. Fear not, Boaz said, –reassuring her that she had nothing to fear, she had put herself under his care.
Boaz showed his respect for Ruth by calling her a virtuous woman (woman of worth). He assured her that he would honor her request by marring her and acting as next of kin to rescue Naomi and the family of Elimelech from extinction. Showing his consideration for Ruth by counseling her to remain where she was until the morning and showing his covenant loyalty by seeking to protect her person and name from the danger of going through the streets in the night. Concealed from public eye by the heap of corn, and protected by his good character, she could remain this night without fear.
scene. Boaz, the ten elders, and so and so the next of kin will make decisions for the women. The name Boaz, mentioned only twice in chapter 3, appears seven times in 4:1-12.
Gate – was the location of public assemblies, where agreements were witnesses and justice done, or left undone. People would gather around the public well at the city gate and praise the good works of virtuous men and women, where the Hebrew word for gate is translated assembly. They would seek or reject wisdom at the entrance of the city gates. 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. No preliminaries were necessary in summoning one before the public assemblage; no writings and no delay were required. In a short conversation the matter was stated and arranged - probably in the morning as people went out, or at noon when they returned from the field.
Boaz offers the option of redeeming the land to Elimelech’s closest kinsman, who remains nameless. He is important only as legal obstacle to fulfillment of Boaz’s promise to Ruth. Witnesses were necessary in order to make the transaction legal.
Sat down here the ten elders who gathered at the gate at Boaz’s invitation were people of standing who maintained and upheld the Bethlehem community. Although there were others who witnessed the decision about to be made (all the people who were at the gate), it was the elders who made it legal.
At first he accepts the proposal. When he finds the deal includes marriage to Ruth, and therefore the property and the money expended would ultimately pass onto any sons born to Ruth, he states that he is unable to afford the proposition and will be forced to decline. Boaz takes over the right of redemption, being the next one in line. To validate this transaction, one drew off his shoe and gave it to the other, as was the practice in Israel at that time.
The presence of Naomi’s daughter in law, the widow of Elimelech’s deceased son Mahlon, made this more than a matter of the redemption of land. It meant rescuing the family of Elimelech’s from extinction by begetting a son from Mahlon’s widow. This son would have right to the parcel of land, so that the next of kin would have to return it to the son. This explains the next of kin’s change of mind, saying I cannot redeem it for myself without damaging my own inheritance. This consequence would follow, either, first, from his having a son by Ruth, who, though heir to the property, would not bear his name; his name would be extinguished in that of her former husband; or, secondly, from its having to be subdivided among his other children, which he had probably by a previous marriage. This right, therefore, was renounced and assigned in favor of Boaz, in the way of whose marriage with Ruth the only existing obstacle was now removed.
Boaz offers the option of redeeming the land to Elimelech’s closest kinsman. At first he accepts the proposal. When he finds the deal includes marriage to Ruth, and therefore the property and the money expended would ultimately pass onto any sons born to Ruth, he states that he is unable to afford the proposition and will be forced to decline. Boaz takes over the right of redemption, being the next one in line. To validate this transaction, one drew off his shoe and gave it to the other, as was the practice in Israel at that time.
The shoe ceremony at the Bethlehem gate was like signing a document of transfer. The Narrator’s historical note explains a custom from former times, no longer practiced in his time. The purpose of the ceremony was to give legal status to a transfer of responsibility involving redeeming and exchanging. The food may symbolize power or possession, putting all things under their feet. The foot also symbolized territorial claims.
Records recovered from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nuzi attest to a ceremony of transfer of land ownership in which the old owner would lift up his foot and place the new owner’s foot on the piece of land. Removal of shoes could symbolize surrender of power or authority.
The Levirate marriage custom, according to which the husband’s brother was required to marry his brother’s widow in order to give his deceased brother an heir. If the brother-in-law refuses to do his duty, the widow removes her brother-in-law’s shoe as a public humiliation of the man wh9o does not build up his brother’s house. This law is not relevant to Ruth, neither the next of kin nor Boaz was a brother of Ruth’s deceased husband Mahlon.
Where the kinsman refused to perform his duty to the family of his deceased relation, the widow was directed to pull off the shoe with some attendant circumstances of contemptuous disdain. But, as in this case, there was no refusal, the usual ignominy was spared; and the plucking off the shoe, the only ceremony observed, was a pledge of the transaction being completed.