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Ruth 4 - Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)

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Boaz and Ruth Marry and Have a Son

4 Boaz went up to the city gate, and he sat down there. Just then, the redeemer about whom Boaz had spoken was passing by. Boaz said, “Come over here! Sit down, my dear friend!”[a] So he came over and sat down.

2 Then Boaz chose ten men from the elders of the town, and he said, “Sit down here!” They too sat down.

3 Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who returned from the territory of Moab, is putting up for sale[b] the piece of land that belongs to our brother Elimelek. 4 On my part, I thought I should call it to your attention so that you may acquire it in the presence of these residents and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you wish to redeem it, redeem it. But if you do not wish to redeem it, declare that to me. I know that there is no one ahead of you in the right to redeem, but I am right after you.”

So the man said, “Yes, I will redeem it.”

5 Then Boaz said, “On the day that you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi, I will acquire[c] from Ruth the Moabite, the wife of the deceased, the means to perpetuate the name of the deceased on his inheritance.”

6 Then the redeemer said, “I am not able to redeem it for myself, or I would ruin my inheritance. You acquire for yourself my right of redemption, because I am not able to redeem it.”

7 (In Israel this used to be the custom regarding the transfer of the right of redemption: To confirm every transfer, one man took off his sandal and gave it to the other party. This was the way of ratifying a transfer in Israel.)

8 So the redeemer said to Boaz, “Acquire it for yourself!” Then he took off his sandal.

9 Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses today that I have acquired from the hand of Naomi everything that belonged to Elimelek and everything that belonged to Kilion and Mahlon. 10 Furthermore, Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, I have acquired for myself as a wife, in order to perpetuate the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased shall not be cut off from his brothers and from the city gate of his place. You are witnesses today.”

11 Then all the people and the elders who were in the gatehouse said, “We are witnesses! May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your household like Rachel and like Leah, the two women who built the house of Israel, so that you prosper in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem. 12 May your house become like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, through the seed[d] whom the Lord will give to you from this young woman.”

13 Then Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went to her. The Lord enabled her to conceive, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi:

Blessed is the Lord, who has not left you without a redeemer today.

May his name be proclaimed in Israel!

15 He will restore your life[e]

and care for you in your old age,

because your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given birth to him.

She is better for you than seven sons!

16 Then Naomi took the boy and put him on her lap, and she became his caregiver. 17 The neighboring women named him, saying, “A son is born to Naomi!” and they named him Obed. He became the father[f] of Jesse, the father of David.

The Genealogy From Judah to David

18 Now this is the family history of Perez:
Perez became the father of Hezron.
19 Hezron became the father of Ram.
Ram became the father of Amminadab.
20 Amminadab became the father of Nahshon.
Nahshon became the father of Salmah.
21 Salmon[g] became the father of Boaz.
Boaz became the father of Obed.
22 Obed became the father of Jesse,
and Jesse became the father of David.

Footnotes

  1. Ruth 4:1 The Hebrew has an unusual expression that seems to be a device to avoid mentioning the name of the man who refused to marry Ruth. He is a “John Doe.”
  2. Ruth 4:3 It is uncertain what the exact nature of this sale is since land in Israel could not be sold in perpetuity but could only be leased until the next Year of Jubilee. Naomi may, in effect, be leasing the right to use the land to the person who redeemed it.
  3. Ruth 4:5 The reading I will acquire is the reading from the main Hebrew text. Many translations follow the Hebrew reading from the margin (qere) you must acquire. This second reading also has good support in the ancient versions, but the redeemer of land had no legal obligation to serve as a levir, a brother-in-law who married his brother’s widow in order to provide an heir for him. The threat that Boaz holds over the man is not that if the man takes the land, he must also marry Ruth, but that if the man takes the land, Boaz will marry Ruth, and their first son will get the land. Boaz treats acquiring the land and marrying Ruth as two separate transactions.
  4. Ruth 4:12 The literal term seed is retained here to emphasize the continuity of the promise of the Seed of the Woman from Eve through Ruth to Christ.
  5. Ruth 4:15 Or soul. The masculine pronouns seem to refer to the child, not to the Lord.
  6. Ruth 4:17 Obed was perhaps a forefather of Jesse since this genealogy covers more than three hundred years with only four names (Salmon, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse). Also Matthew 1:5 states that Boaz was the son of Rahab, who lived at the time of the conquest of Jericho, nearly four hundred years before David. There is probably a gap between Obed and Jesse, but this is not certain.
  7. Ruth 4:21 The Hebrew Bible frequently spells the same name in a variety of ways. Here we see variant versions of the same name (Salmah and Salmon) side by side.

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