Sunday School: The Redemption of Ruth (Ruth 4:1-12)

You're listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday, we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

The Climax of Ruth’s Redemption in Ruth 4

All right, let's open our Bibles up or turn your Bibles on, however way you go about that, to Ruth chapter four. So this is really the climactic action that we're looking at here in the story of the book of Ruth.

Boaz is not gonna rest until he settles the matter. Remember, that's where we left off at the end of chapter three. Naomi said, wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out for the man.

Boaz will not rest, but he is gonna settle this matter today, the matter of redemption for Ruth. She's made a marriage proposal to him, and he's essentially accepted it, but there is a redeemer that is closer to Ruth than Boaz is.

So really, this redeemer has first claim, this family member has first claim on Ruth before Boaz, so he needs to settle the matter with this man before he can officially claim that I can have you as my wife.

So if this kinsman is not gonna receive her, Boaz will. That's what he promised her in the encounter, in the exchange that they had in the dead of night that we read about in chapter three. So we're looking at chapter four today, and our passage is verses one through 12.

Let's go ahead and read through that, and then we'll pray, and then do the outline of our lesson here. Chapter four, beginning in verse one. Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the redeemer of whom Boaz had spoken came by.

So Boaz said, turn aside, friend, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. And he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here, so they sat down. And then he said to the redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech.

So I thought I would tell you of it and say, buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.

And the man said, I will redeem it. And then Boaz said, the day that you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.

And then the redeemer said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging.

To confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. So when the redeemer said to Boaz, buy it for yourself, he drew off his sandal.

Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi, all that belong to Elimelech and all that belong to Chilean and to Malon. Also Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of Malon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place.

You are witnesses this day. Then the people who were at the gate and the elders replied, we are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel, may you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem.

And may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at this climactic action that's happening here in the book of Ruth, I pray that we see and recognize the sovereign hand of God that was working all these things out for the good of the people that we read about here in this story, for Boaz, for Ruth, and for Naomi, for the offspring that would come after them.

We see this even for the blessing of Israel, as we know from Boaz and Ruth would come a king who was David. And we see that these events even work out to our benefit, for it's from the line of David would come the Messiah of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ, upon whom we have placed our faith and our trust that by him we would be forgiven our sins.

We have redemption from the judgment of God. And we have an inheritance in the eternal kingdom of God, where we have laid up residence and we will live in forever with God in glory. May we see all these things even as we come to this story this morning, and it's in Jesus' precious name that we pray, amen.

Boaz Requests a Legal Meeting at the City Gate

So let's kind of look at an outline, an overview of this text that we're examining this morning. I have it broken up into three parts. Now, really, when it comes down to it, when you're kind of looking at the layout of the text here, it breaks up into two parts.

You kind of have one through eight, and then nine to 12. You have the action that happens between Boaz and this Redeemer, and then when they resolve their transaction, then you have Boaz calling the people and the elders who are witnesses there, and then the people respond to Boaz.

So that's kind of the breakup, and we're just divided into two. But we're Baptists, so we have to have three points to every message and sermon that's ever preached. So let's break it up like this. First of all, Boaz requests a meeting with this Redeemer, and that's in verses one through six.

Ruth's nearest kinsman is invited to a meeting with Boaz, who also arranges the 10 elders there in the gate. Secondly, we have Boaz redeeming Ruth, the actual action of that redemption, which is in verses seven through 10.

The kinsman hands his rights to Boaz, who receives Ruth as his wife. And then finally, you have the blessing that comes from the people and the elders that are there. That kind of concludes the action in verses 11 and 12.

The elders affirm the transaction and bless Boaz in the name of Yahweh. Now, what is our central focus of this text? What's everything building to? As we've been going through the book of Ruth, I've told you about chiasm, right?

We have these chiastic events that will happen over the course of this story, where it kind of builds to a certain action, and then all the events that led up to that action, we see play out again in reverse.

That's what a chiasm is. So if you were to outline a chiasm, you have A, B, C, B, A. Now, here in this particular section, this is not a chiasm. What we're actually seeing here is just a building action to the story.

So where you have the climax occur, that's where the focus is going to be in this story, and the focus is really upon the blessing that the people give to Boaz. Boaz, in addressing the witnesses and addressing the elders, he's basically just calling their attention to you see what we've accomplished here.

You see what has taken place. So you are witnesses to this, and you authenticate that that which belonged to Naomi belongs to me, and I have also redeemed Ruth the Moabite. In fact, Boaz doesn't even really mention the land there as emphatically as he mentions Ruth, that I have taken Ruth to be my wife, so he has redeemed her.

That was what he was out to do in the first place. It wasn't that he would acquire more land. It's that he would acquire Ruth, that she would become his wife. That was what he promised Ruth in chapter three, and that's what it is he accomplishes in this particular section.

So as he addresses the people, and he addresses the elders with this, that's not really the strength of the action, but it's rather the response that the witnesses and the elders then give to Boaz. So if you look there at verses 11 and 12, where they respond and they give blessing, and what an incredible blessing this is when you think about it, and we'll look at it more intently here, but at the beginning of their blessing, look at this in verse 11.

The people who were at the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses, may, who? What is it? What's next? The Lord, may Yahweh. May Yahweh make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah.

Okay, so may Yahweh make. That's what we have right there. Look at the next part in verse 12. And may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring that, what?

The Lord will give. Yahweh will give. It's Yahweh will make again. So you have the first part, Yahweh will make, and then at the close of that, Yahweh will make or Yahweh will give. And that, so that's our emphasis.

That's the focus that we have on this passage. And here is what we understand, that it is God who redeems. God redeems, God gives. He has made a way for Israel, and he has made a way for his people all this while.

He is going to make a way for them. He is gonna make a way for us, even through this story that we have read here. Yahweh always providing. Yahweh redeems. Boaz has redeemed because Yahweh redeemed him.

Ruth served Naomi. She humbled herself before Naomi, humbled herself before Boaz. As she, in her heart, had humbled herself before God. And we see Yahweh always providing all the way through this story.

So even at the conclusion, as God has provided for them all the way up to this point, may God continue to provide. May Yahweh redeem. So there's our focus, there's our action. And the whole story has been building to this.

So of course this is gonna be the focus of our text today, just looking at verses one through 12 here, but this is even the climax of the whole story. Everything has been building up to this here in the story of Ruth.

Now we actually have no resolution here. So as that final speech that comes from the witnesses and from the elders in verses 11 and 12, that's not the resolution. The resolution is next week. So we get nothing but climactic action in this section of text this week, and then next week is all resolution.

So the whole story of Ruth has been building to this climax. And then next week we just have the resolution to the story as we read about the offspring of Boaz and Ruth. They get married, they have a son.

That son is even mentioned as a redeemer of Naomi. And then we conclude Ruth all together with that final genealogy. And it's the same genealogy that Matthew uses at the start of his gospel to show how Christ is the descendant of David.

But first let's come back to our text here. So let's examine this as we'll kind of build the action together as we go through this. So looking at verse one, Boaz requesting a meeting with this kinsman.

The chapter begins, now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. What's significant about the gate? Why is that relevant? Yeah, all kinds of stuff happens there at the gate. This was where court was handled.

You know, this past week on a Friday, I took my daughter to the courthouse in Tyler. It was a homeschool trip, kind of a field trip. So we went out there to the courthouse and she got to view the courthouse, even went up in the little, you know, judge's box and got to sit in the judge's chair.

I don't know if Annie has an ambition for that in the future or not, but it was still neat to see her up there. She was the tallest person in the room anyway, and even more so when she got up there in the judge's box.

So it was neat to kind of see the courthouse. We got to talk to some of the judges while we were there and they gave us kind of a feel of like what happens in a trial. We go through different trials and things like this.

We're kind of seeing that here in the book of Ruth. Everything is, this is like, if you've ever watched a law show or a law movie and everything in the story, the crime, the investigation of the crime, we've talked to witnesses, we've done our own investigation and everything's building up to the courtroom scene, right?

So that's what this is in Ruth. It's all been building up to the courtroom scene and here's our courtroom scene. And all of those things were handled right there in the gate in the city. This goes back to Moses' instructions from the Lord through Moses in the book of Deuteronomy that any of these matters would be taken care of in the gate and you have all kinds of civil or criminal things, criminal cases that would be handled there at the gate.

Could be a civil thing, which is what we see going on here. No crime has occurred, but it's just a business transaction. So we're gonna make it official. It's gonna be in front of many witnesses. One person is acquiring land and with that land also acquiring a wife.

So we're gonna stand as witnesses to that and that's the transaction that they observe. But if somebody has done wickedly, if somebody's accused of a crime, then those matters are gonna be handled there in the gate and there's gonna be elders there just as we see 10 elders present here.

The city has already appointed and chosen who their elders are gonna be. And those elders are trusted men. They're knowledgeable about the law. They are wise in the application of the law and even how to live that out and execute that and things like that.

These are men who know that they have been entrusted with rewarding good and punishing evil. Now, anybody who wants to attend could be there in the gate. And we even see that here. All kinds of people have even stopped.

They say, okay, something's happening here today. Let's see what's going on. So they'll stop and kind of watch what's happening. So many people would be there, but this is in the authority of the elders to make the decision of right and wrong.

And so if somebody is convicted of some sort of an evil and maybe according to the law, there is a sentence that is to be carried out like death. So we know that if somebody's killed somebody else, then the sentence for that was death.

If somebody's caught in adultery, the man and the woman who were caught in adultery, what was the sentence for adultery? It was death, right. That would be handled in the gate. And every charge had to be established on the evidence of what?

Two or three witnesses. And they had to be male. That's exactly right. Had to be that as well. So those witnesses had to be there. The accused had to be there. All of those, the law was very clear as to how all of these things were supposed to be handled, as to how these things were supposed to be carried out.

Now we know that all of this was going on at a time when Judah and Israel were not fearful of God. They were doing what was right in their own eyes. That's what we read in Judges 17 and 21 when we kind of did our introduction to the story of Ruth.

So Boaz is kind of an anomaly here, and we've talked about that, in the sense that he loves God, he loves his law, loves his word, and he's wanting to do everything according to what God has said. We actually don't know what's been happening to Naomi's field in the 10 years that she's not been in Bethlehem.

When Elimelech took her and their two sons and they went to Moab, as we read in chapter one, they were there for about 10 years. What's been going on with their field in that time? We don't know for sure.

It's very unlikely that it was unused. So Elimelech's not there, he's not hiring hands, there's nobody to work the field, so it's just laying there, and nobody's planting or harvesting anything. That's a very unlikely scenario, because the land was so incredibly important, even though the people were not fearing the Lord and obeying him, they still needed to eat, they still needed to plant and harvest.

So that field probably was in use, and what was going on is that the field was being leased. And it may not have been leased directly by Elimelech, it could have been a nearby family member, and it could be that this man, this kinsman, I'm just speculating here, but it could be that this unnamed kinsman here in the story, he was the one that had been working the land.

And now what Boaz is putting before him is, let's make this official. You want the land, Naomi's selling it, so it needs to be an official exchange. And Naomi needs to get something for that. So that's something else that Boaz is pushing the kinsman toward.

If you're using the land, which belongs to Naomi, then she deserves something for that. So if he's going to redeem the land, and it seems like a good bargain for him, then he's gonna pay money for it, and that money is gonna go to Naomi.

But then there's still also the matter that needs to be decided regarding what happens to Ruth. So Boaz here, a man who fears God, a man who wants to do everything right, who knows the law of God, Naomi knows it, Boaz knows it.

And because Naomi knows it, that's how she knows Boaz is a good man, why she's hyped up his character to Ruth. This man is one of our kinsmen redeemers. It's how she knows when she says to Ruth, he will settle the matter today.

How does she know that? Because she knows, yeah, she knows his character. She knows Boaz's character. Expediently, he is gonna carry these things out. You know, it even says in God's law that we're not supposed to sit and wait, that we're supposed to handle these things now.

They're supposed to be carried out immediately. And so Boaz is gonna do so for Ruth's benefit, and as we see also for Naomi. So if you will remember, back to the Leveret marriage laws in Deuteronomy 25, we talked about this last week.

Verse seven says that the matter of Leveret marriage, so Leveret meaning brother's wife, and this has to do with a kinsman who has died childless. What happens to his widow? What happens to his wife? That passage, those instructions there in Deuteronomy 25, they say that the matter will be settled in the gate with the elders.

So this is something that needs to be like a court matter that needs to be settled there with the elders of the city. So these wise men of good reputation were entrusted with rewarding good and punishing evil.

They also settled disputes, they gave counsel, they advised on matters of the law, and they served as witnesses of transactions, all according to the law of God. Now this matter with Boaz and the kinsman was of course not a criminal case, it's a civil one.

And they're gonna decide who is going to redeem what belonged to Elimelech, and therefore also his son, Mallon. We see Mallon has been mentioned here in this section of text. And this was meant to be a sacred transaction.

The land was very, very precious to Israel and to Judah because it really did not belong to them. Who did it belong to? Yeah, it belonged to God. That's God saying to Israel in Leviticus chapter 25, the land is mine.

And so even there by that instruction that God gives, the land was not supposed to just sit there with nothing being done with it. If there's a field that needs to be plowed, it needs to be worked so that the soil won't go bad.

So Boaz of course has more than land in mind here. He also desires that Ruth have a husband. Remember he said to Ruth in chapter three, if this man, the nearest kinsman, if he will redeem you, good, let him do it.

If he's gonna take you as his wife, great. For Boaz, God's law has been accomplished, Ruth is being taken care of. The law has been fulfilled. So that would have been fine for him. We don't get to see into his heart so much any kind of romantic feelings that he may have had.

He may have been disappointed with that, but at least Ruth would be taken care of. That was more important to him than that he acquire a wife out of this. You know, when we think about our romantic sentiments today, what would somebody from our present culture maybe advise Boaz to do?

Hey, Boaz, you love this woman, go get her, right? Do what feels right. Do what's best for you in this moment. Just go grab her and y 'all run away and you have a happy rest of your life. That may have been the way that our rom-coms today or the romantic comedy movies or any of those romantic stories may have encouraged Boaz in that direction.

That's not what he was about. He was about honoring the Lord and keeping his word, being obedient to God. Now, we don't think about law and instruction and obedience. We don't think about those things as being all that romantic.

We're just doing things by the law. But this was true love because it's love that comes from God, not love that comes from our fleeting feelings. And in Boaz's desire to honor the Lord was higher than whatever feelings he may have had for this woman so that even the story emphasizes that to us.

We don't get any underlying narrative here about the goosebumps that he felt when Ruth made this proposition of love and of marriage to him. We just know that Boaz really does care for this woman but cares even more for God's law.

So we go on here with Boaz sitting in the gate and notice that the Redeemer came by. Still in verse one. So we're moving through this rather quickly here. Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there and behold, the Redeemer of whom Boaz had spoken came by.

Now, how would this have gone? What did this look like? Remember that Naomi said to Ruth, he will not rest. He will settle the matter today. He's already had his sleep. Ruth sleeping there at his feet, right?

On the threshing floor. And so they wake up at first light. They get her away before she's able to be recognized and he tells the people that are there to let nobody know that a woman came and was sleeping here on the threshing floor at my feet this night so that it would not shame her in any way.

He gives her a heap of barley, even more barley this time than he gave her the first time to take home to Naomi and show her the commitment that Boaz has given to settling this matter. And so Naomi says to Ruth, he will not rest.

He'll settle the matter today. He's already had his sleep. Where's Boaz headed next? He's probably going straight to the gate. That's exactly where he's headed from here. So while Ruth goes home to Naomi, Boaz goes to the gate because as this kinsman wakes up and he's getting ready to start his day going where?

Where's the kinsman going? He's probably going out to the fields, right? It's harvest time. So he's got fields that he needs to go and harvest. Boaz is gonna sit right there in the gate before anybody else has even gotten up and started their day because he's gonna catch this guy on the way out.

Everybody's gotta go through the gate on the way out of Bethlehem to head out to the fields and harvest or whatever part of the harvest that they're responsible for that day. So the kinsman's coming by, of whom Boaz had spoken, and Boaz said, turn aside, friend.

Sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. This guy's never named. Notice that? He's just called kinsman or redeemer. You might have another word there for him, but you don't have a name. Why is that?

We'll talk about that here in just a moment. Why is he not named? Verse two, and then he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here. So they sat down. So here they come. They're going out.

They're ready to go out for harvest. Boaz stops them. They come and they sit. And so they sat down and he said to the redeemer, now in the presence of the elders, now we know from later on in the action that there's more witnesses there now than just those elders.

So likely how this was going was Boaz is there. Redeemer comes by, stops him. Hey, sit down. We're gonna have a chat. As they sit there waiting, an elder comes by. So they know who the elders are. It's a small enough town.

Everybody's recognized. And Boaz was probably even one of those guys that was regular to the gate because he loved God's law, wanted to see it upheld. So they all know each other there, everybody who frequents the gate.

So he stops the elders. They start sitting down. Other people are coming by. And again, where are they going? They're heading out to the field. It's harvest time. And as the people are coming by, they see, oh, we got some elders gathering.

So something's about to happen here. Anybody, when you're surfing channels on a weekday morning, do you ever pass a court show and you see it and you're just like, I wanna see what's going on here. What are they talking about on this court show?

Anybody ever done that before? No, yeah, some of you are shaking your heads. Those shows are trashy. I know, I don't watch them either. There's something about what's happening in a court. There's a court drama happening and it just attracts your attention to it.

That's why you might watch a legal show or something like that because that's a genre that you enjoy. You wanna watch the legal drama that kind of unfolds there. So the people's attention is starting to get attracted to the people's court, dun, dun, dun, right?

So they're coming by and they see that something's gonna happen here. I wanna watch what's taking place. So the people are starting to stop. We have a bigger crowd that's being gathered in this place to see what matter needs to be handled today.

So Boaz says to the Redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. And we don't get to know here the closeness of their relationship.

We don't know if Elimelech was a cousin, if he was a distant cousin. Everybody was called brother in their clans. So Elimelech is a relative and this Redeemer's relationship to Elimelech is closer than Boaz's.

Now let's say, for the sake of argument, and though the story doesn't say this, but just for the sake of argument, let's assume that this Redeemer and Boaz are Elimelech's brothers. It would serve then that this Redeemer is older than Boaz because he's first in line.

So that's just to kind of give you an idea. I don't know that they really were brothers. But just to give you an idea of who is the first to be able to receive what belonged to Elimelech, it would have been his closest brother.

And so this Redeemer would have been older than Boaz so he's first in line. But if he's not gonna redeem it, then it goes to the next one in line, which would be Boaz. And then maybe they had other younger brothers that would come after Boaz.

So that's just to give you an example as far as family relation goes. What their closeness was, we don't know. We just know that this Redeemer has the rights, according to the law, to redeem this land first.

And Boaz wants to make sure everything is done legal. So Boaz says, so I thought I would tell you that Naomi is selling this land and say, buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, then redeem it. But if you will not, tell me that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it and I come after you. And the Redeemer says, I will redeem it. Now notice, Boaz hadn't said anything about Ruth here.

I don't know if that was a tactic or not. It could be that Boaz is just kind of going in order of the way that the law is given. So we have laws concerning the redemption of land that come before Leveret marriage laws.

So we're gonna make sure first, the land redemption, we take care of that matter first. That's the first one on the docket, right? So Leviticus 25, redemption of the land needs to stay within our clan, needs to stay within the family.

Let's settle that matter first. Redeemer says, I will redeem it. Good, okay. There's another matter to this. There's another element to this exchange that you need to be aware of and you need to be willing to take both, essentially.

It's kind of the way that Boaz is presenting this. So then in the next part, verse five, Boaz said, the day that you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.

So again, that goes back to the Leveret marriage law. If a man dies childless, his name shall not be blotted out in Israel. His nearest brother should take his wife and have children with her so that his name would not be blotted out, but that his name would continue on through the firstborn of that union with the brother taking the widow.

Then he would have his own children after that firstborn, but the firstborn would belong, the name of the firstborn would belong to the dead brother. Again, so his name would not be blotted out. I mean, this is really quite a gracious law that God had given to the people of Israel.

And there's even land in mind in the midst of all of this. If you have an heir, you have somebody to carry on your inheritance. So the land or that which belonged to you continues to remain in the family.

It continues to remain in the name of the family. God's blessing for Israel was through the land, right? So this is the land that he gave to them, a land that was flowing with milk and honey. This is their promised land.

And all blessings that are given to Israel and Judah come through the land that God has promised to them. What happened at the beginning of the story was that Elimelech and Naomi and their two sons left the land of promise and they sought prosperity elsewhere, they went to Moab.

And that didn't work out for them, did it? Elimelech died, then Mallon and Killian also died. And then it's when Naomi and Ruth returned to this land that God continues to provide and care for them through the land that he promised to give them, that he would prosper them on.

So here they are in obedience to God and it is through this land that they are prospering. It is through the land that any family would receive the blessing of God. In Numbers chapter 27, we read about the daughters of Zelophehad who died in the wilderness before the Israelites inherited the promised land and were given their inheritance.

So this is even before the Israelites come into the promised land. So if their father is dead and he's not received an inheritance, how are they gonna be provided for if they don't have anything that's being passed on to them?

Furthermore, it was given in Israel that whatever belonged to the father would be passed on to whom? The son, and which son? The oldest son, he gets all the rights of the father first, they all belong to him.

And then any of the other sons were to be servant to the firstborn. So how are those other sons gonna be taken care of? Well, they can still work on the land, but it belongs to the firstborn. But what if the man doesn't have a son?

And what if he's not even been given land yet? What's gonna happen to his daughters if he were to die? So here's what we read regarding that in Numbers 27. The daughters came to Moses and said, our father died in the wilderness.

He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but he died for his own sin and he had no sons. So what are they saying there? What are the daughters of Zelophehad saying there?

Yeah, what are we gonna get, right? What was that? What about us? Yeah, what about us? So their father died, he wasn't part of the rebellion. Remember Korah's rebellion? He wasn't part of that. He wasn't part of those saying, we don't need Moses.

We can raise up a leader for ourselves. Let's head back to Egypt. This wasn't Zelophehad. But he died in the wilderness for his own sins, meaning what? He may not have been of the rebellion, but he was of the grumblers.

He was of the ones that did not trust Joshua and Caleb's report coming from the promised land. Instead, they believed the 10 other spies that said we can't possibly beat these guys. We came out of Egypt to this place to be doomed.

And so Zelophehad was therefore among those that would perish in the wilderness instead of receiving the promised land. So the daughters say, what happens to us? And Moses, it goes on there to say, give us a possession among our father's brothers.

So Moses brought the case before the Lord. And in Numbers 27, verse six, the Lord said to Moses, the daughters of Zelophehad are right. You shall give them possession of an inheritance among their father's brothers and transfer the inheritance of their father to them.

And you shall speak to the people of Israel saying, if a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers.

And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsmen of his clan, and he shall possess it.

And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and a rule as the Lord has commanded Moses.". So there you go. Now, interesting thing about this legal precedence that God has now laid down that Moses delivers to the people of Israel.

We have brothers mentioned here, we have daughters that are mentioned here. If there's no brothers, then it goes to the nearest kinsmen of his clan. Who has not been mentioned in Numbers 27, verses 3 through 11?

Widows. The wife has never been mentioned. Now, why is that relevant? It's actually not relevant to the story of Ruth, but it does come up later on when you get to the time of the Pharisees and the time of Christ.