Today’s passage: Ruth 4:1-12
Helpful thoughts:
- How lucky that the closer redeemer would happen to walk by as Boaz sat down at the gates of the city…or how providential!
- The Redeemer laws (Land) and the Levirate marriage were two different but connected things.
- Both Boaz and the other redeemer had an interest in the land. But whether there would be a willingness to marry Ruth and provide an heir from the line of Elimelech or not had to be decided.
- Neither men had a legal obligation to Ruth according to the letter of the Law (Neither of them were brothers of the deceased and the nearer redeemer could have brought this up). But both understood the spirit of the law.
- Had the nearer redeemer taken the land and left the care of Ruth and her child(ren) up to Boaz, there would have been the possibility of legal disputes over the land in the next generation.
- A helpful clarification. No money was being exchanged for the land or for Ruth. This land was an inheritance. It was not for sale on the open market. So, the land was acquired by inheritance. Boaz acquired a wife, he didn’t purchase Ruth.
- The people of Bethlehem bless Boaz and Ruth with remembrance of the mothers of Israel (Rachel and Leah), and the ancestor of Boaz, who herself had been previously widowed (Tamar).
Questions to consider:
- In what ways were the women referenced in the blessing so appropriate? Where were they from? How did they compare to Ruth?
- What motivation seemed to drive the nearer redeemer? What prevented him from taking the role of the redeemer? What differed in Boaz’s approach?
- Is there ever a time when we could honor the Lord’s commands and NOT benefit from it (Like the man who deferred his responsibility to Boaz thought)? How are we blessed when we love our neighbor as ourselves and do the right thing?