Ruth 4:9,10 – “Redeemed”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹And Boaz said to the elders and the all of the people, “Witnesses you [are] today that I have bought all which [belonged] to Elimelech and all which [belonged] to Chilion and Mahlon from the hand of Naomi, ¹⁰and also Ruth the Moabitess the wife of Mahlon I have bought for myself to [be my] wife to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance and not to be cut off the name of the dead from among his brothers and from the gate of his place. Witnesses you [are] today.”

These are two crazy verses in the Bible. You can read them and yawn and say, “Isn’t that nice?” Or you can stop and ponder on them and they just literally explode. I posted some thoughts last time regarding how much we learn about Boaz’s character just from these few words. But the other thing that I think is of enormous import is the whole picture of redemption, displayed succinctly in two such seemingly simple verses. In fact, I think it might even answer my question about why the land redemption/levirate marriage thing is so important to God.

Here is what I think – what we have here is the very picture of redemption. It is literally the redemption of Elimelech’s property and name. But it is also a picture of our redemption. But that said, it is in a sense infinitely more than a picture our individual redemption. God placed Adam in the Garden and gave him dominion over it. He was to be God’s servant there “to keep it and to till it” and to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. When Adam sinned, he lost it all. He and Eve were cast out of the Garden and condemned to “eat their bread in the sweat of their faces.” In fact cherubim were placed at the gate of the Garden to prevent Adam from ever returning. At that time, God promised to raise up the “seed of the woman” to crush the head of the serpent – God’s promise of redemption.

Notice that the redeemer was to be the “seed of the woman” – a direct descendant, a family member. I don’t think anyone would debate the statement that, from the very beginning, God intended His creation to be filiocentric (family-centered). We’re told in the NT that a supposed believer who will not care for his own is “worse than an infidel.” The family is the very cradle of civilization. No wonder that a redeemer should be the closest family member. Family should take care of family. And when Jesus came He specifically came to be one of us – “Both the One who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers … Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil and free (redeem!) those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb 2:11-15).

And notice too that redemption is not just a matter of buying us back out of slavery to sin, it is also about restoring the entire fallen creation – “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:20,21). Adam will not only be redeemed himself but his lost possession will be regained.

Somehow in God’s great economy of things, our attachment to land is highly significant. When He called Israel out of Egypt it was not only that “He might be their God and they might be His people” but it was also to give them the Land. Like Adam, when they violated His covenant, they were cast out of the land. Final restoration of the Jewish people is not just that they should be saved but that they should be restored to that land.

God’s redemptive purposes for us reach far beyond simply saving our souls!

That is why Boaz’s words are so important. Naomi has lost or is in danger of finally losing her husband’s land. The family itself is on the verge of extinction. Naomi and Ruth are in a hopeless state. And God’s whole picture of redemption shows up to rescue them in the person of this man Boaz, their kinsman-redeemer.

I think this is precisely why it is all so important to God, why the redeemer should be a family member, why it is important to restore to the very man himself his lost estate, why it is so important that an heir be raised up to keep the land in the family – it is all wrapped up in the entire plan of redemption itself. Adam sinned and lost everything until the Seed of the Woman comes to redeem it all and restore it. Elimelech would have lost his estate except there was a redeemer named Boaz. And all we like sheep have gone astray, we’ve each forfeited our interest in the Divine estate, until our great Kinsman-Redeemer comes to save us and to restore to us all we’ve lost.

All of that in two verses! Amazing love! How can it be???