Ruth 2:20-22

Amplified Bible

²⁰Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Lord who has not ceased His kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is one of our closest relatives, one who has the right to ^[a]redeem us.”^(A) ²¹Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “He also said to me, ‘Stay close to my servants until they have harvested my entire crop.’” ²²Naomi said to Ruth, “It is good, my daughter, for you to go out [to work] with his maids, so that others do not assault you in another field.”

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Footnotes

Ruth 2:20 According to OT law (Lev 25:25), if an Israelite became so impoverished that he sold his property, his closest relative was to buy it back, so that the land would remain within the family. Such a person was called a redeemer. Another law stated that if a married man died childless, his brother was obligated to marry his widow and raise a son in the deceased brother’s name, so that the name would be carried on in Israel (Deut 25:5-10; cf Gen 38:8-10). Being aware of these laws and their applications by the scholars of that time, Naomi conceived of a plan (see ch 3:1-4) that might bring Ruth and Boaz together by having Boaz serve as a redeemer both to purchase a field that Naomi owned, and to fulfill the obligation of Deut 25:5 ff by marrying Ruth.