And Boaz said unto the elders, and unto all the people,.... Who were present at the gate of the city, or in court:
ye are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech's; all the land which belonged to him, who was the husband of Naomi, and the father of Ruth's husband, whose estate Boaz now bought, paying the value for it to Naomi:
and all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's; the two sons of Elimelech, who, had they been living, would have enjoyed their father's estate; but they being dead, it devolved on the mother, and after her on the widows, who must therefore agree to the sale of the estate, as Ruth did, see Ruth 4:5. Of Orpah no notice is taken, because she returned to he…
Keil & Delitzsch on Ruth 4:6-12
The redeemer admitted the justice of this demand, from which we may see that the thing passed as an existing right in the nation. But as he was not disposed to marry Ruth, he gave up the redemption of the field.
Rut 4:6-13
"I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance." The redemption would cost money, since the yearly produce of the field would have to be paid for up to the year of jubilee. Now, if he acquired the field by redemption as his own permanent property, he would have increased by so much his own possessions in land. But if he should marry Ruth, the field so redeemed would belong to the son whom he would beget through her, and he would therefore have parted with…
Read the whole note in the consoleRashi on Ruth 4:7
Concerning redemption. This is a sale.
And exchange. This is an exchange.
A man would take off his shoe. This is an act of acquisition, just as we acquire title with a scarf in lieu of a shoe. And our Rabbis of blessed memory differed on this matter,7Maseches Bava Metzia 47a. as to who gave [the shoe] to whom. Some say that one acquires title with the utensil of the acquirer, and Bo’az gave [his shoe] to the redeemer, and some say that one acquires title with the utensil of the seller, and the redeemer gave [his shoe] to Bo’az.
This was the form of validation in Yisroel. תְּעוּדָה =] the law of testimony.
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
