A Sure Redemption

Introduction

Ruth 4:1–22 ESV

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 ten men of the elders of the city and said, “Sit down here.” So they sat down. 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 he said, “I will redeem it.” Then Boaz said, “The day 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.” 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 belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, 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 all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, “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.” So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

Coaches earn their money in crunch time. When the game is on the line in the 4th quarter, can the coach come up with the play or strategy for the team to execute and win? Of course, it helps if you have a superstar on your team. Superstars can make the coach look like a genius. And part of the excitement at the end of a tight game is finding out what play the coach will come up with.

I love DC, but y’all know I’m from NYC. I’ve certainly said it enough times. So it should be no surprise that I’m a lifelong NY Knicks fan. The Knicks are back in the NBA finals for the first time since 1999. They haven’t won the NBA Championship since 1973. So, it’s an exciting time for Knicks fans. They won the first game against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night. Game 2 was Friday night. Even though I’m a fan, I don’t really stay up late like that anymore. So I said, “I’m just going to watch the first half to see how the Knicks are playing tonight. Then I’m going to bed.” You knew the Spurs were going to come out hot after losing game 1 at home. The Knicks weathered that strong start by the Spurs and were up by four points at halftime. I said, “I can go to bed now. I’ll find out what happened in the morning.”

By the time I get ready for bed the 3rd quarter has started. I get in bed, and I open up the iPad. “Let me just check on how they’re doing.” They’re continuing to expand their lead. They finish the 3rd quarter up by 9 points. With 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter they’re up by 14 points. Of course, I’m committed now. I’m going to see this thing all the way through. I’m feeling pretty confident about the win, but I’m thinking, “y’all have got to keep scoring.” Over the next 3 minutes, the Spurs go on a 14-0 run and tie the game with 3 minutes left. Now, my heart is racing and I’m concerned about going to sleep regretting my decision to stay up and watch.

If you saw the game you know what happened. They go back and forth, and game is tied with 30 seconds left. Knicks call timeout. Coach Mike Brown calls a play. You know it’s got to be for the Knicks’ superstar Jalen Brunson. With 13 seconds left, Brunson takes shot, but he misses! But then he steals the ball off of a bad pass, gets fouled. Makes 1 free throw to put the Knicks up by one. There’s 7.5 seconds left and if the Spurs hit one shot they win. Victor Wembanyama misses a 20-foot jumper, Knicks get the rebound and win the game!

The point of this isn’t the fact that I was able to go to sleep happy and not regret my decision to stay up to midnight watching this game. Even though that’s true! Here’s the point. We’ve come to the 4th quarter in Ruth. It’s the end of the game, and it’s tight. The drama has increased, and there’s one more play to be run in the hopes that things will turn out well. There are questions yet to be answered. We saw Naomi design a play in ch. 3 a couple of weeks ago. Naomi told Ruth at the beginning of ch. 3, “My daughter, I seek a resting place for you.” Then she laid out the play for Ruth. We saw Ruth execute the platy to perfection. But the game isn’t over yet. It’s now Boaz’s turn. Naomi says to Ruth at the end of ch. 3,

Ruth 3:18 ESV

She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today.”

Boaz has got his own play. Here’s one of the things I love about how God’s word teaches us. Is God really in control, or are the events of this world dependent on human decisions? The answer is yes! What we see here is that God chooses to work through our actions to bring about his own divine purposes. The tension here in this chapter is whether God is still working behind the seen. Is he still ordering the events to restore Naomi’s life? Or, will Boaz’s play fall flat? What we find out is that Naomi’s redemption is a sure thing. Boaz designs a play, but the real MVP is God. We’ll see this through these three points from Ruth 4, Redemption at Risk, Redemption Secured, & The Redeemer Praised. 

Redemption At Risk

Naomi is right. Boaz isn’t going to rest until he settles this matter of who is going to serve as the kinsman redeemer for Ruth. Boaz had said to Ruth in ch. 2,

Ruth 2:12 ESV

The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”

Then in ch. 3, when Ruth had followed Naomi’s instructions, and presented herself to Boaz by laying at his feet, it’s nighttime and Boaz is startled. He can’t see who it is and asks, “Who are you?” Ruth says to him,

Ruth 3:9 ESV

“I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.”

She says, “you are the answer to your prayer for me.” The problem now is that there is someone else who has the first right of redemption. There has to be a legal transaction. The relative closer to Elimelech, Naomi’s deceased husband, has to be given the first opportunity to redeem the portion of land that belonged to Elimelech, and marry Ruth. This puts Ruth and Naomi’s redemption at risk. We don’t even know who this guy is! The first thing that is said in the book of Ruth about Boaz when he’s introduced to us in ch. 2 is that he’s a man of valor. He’s a worthy man. He’s a man of integrity. Who is this other guy?

It’d be like it’s game 7 of the NBA finals. And this time it’s the Knicks who are down by a point with 7.5 seconds to. Coach Brown calls a timeout. The team comes over to huddle and get the plan. Everybody knows that for this thing to work out the play has got to be designed to go through Jalen Brunson, who’s been the man all year. But Coach Brown looks and sees Tosan Evbuomwan sitting in the stands. And Coach Brown says, “Tosan, suit up man. You played 5 games for us this year, averaging 35s/game and 0 points before we sent you down to the G-League for development. But we’re going to design this game winning play for you! Go win it for us!” To say that’d be putting the game at risk is an understatement, but that’s the kind of risky business going on here. 

We don’t even have this guy’s name. Legal transactions during that time took place at the city gate. Boaz goes up to the gate and sits down. All of a sudden, the redeemer that Boaz told Ruth about passes by. Boaz calls out to him and says, “Turn aside friend: sit down here.” English translations vary, but most put the word, “friend,” on Boaz’s lips here. That’s too nice though. “Mr. So and So,” would be a better rendering of the Hebrew here. The Hebrew here is an idiomatic expression. What the narrator is expressing is an unwillingness to identify this man. It’s like Boaz saw him passing by and said, “Hey you! Come and sit here.”

The narrator’s refusal to identify this first redeemer by name heightens the tension of how risky things are. Boaz gets his quorum for the court proceeding by asking 10 elders of the city to join him in v. 2. A crowd gathers around to see what’s going on. We know this because down in v. 11 we’re told that all the people who were gathered at the gate along with the elders responded at the conclusion of the case. So, Boaz puts his play into action. He tells Mr. So and So about the plot of Elimelech’s land that Naomi is selling. The land couldn’t be permanently sold. The Lord forbade that in Leviticus 25:23. But in her poverty, she could’ve sold it to Mr. So and So for a period of time. It would’ve been his until Naomi could buy it back or until the year of Jubilee when all debts were wiped clean.

The hammer drops in v. 4 when Mr. So and So says, “I’ll redeem it.” Oh no! You can imagine that if this was the conclusion, when word got back to Ruth her heart would’ve sunk. Everybody is rooting for Boaz. Everybody listening to the story is rooting for Boaz because we know that there’s more to this than food and shelter for Naomi and Ruth. There’s more to this than someone just fulfilling a duty. The redeemer we’re rooting for is motivated by love, not simply duty. When we see love in a story that’s what moves us. We want Boaz to win because we know his heart is drawn to Ruth.

What Mr. So and So doesn’t know is that Boaz was ready for his move. Boaz says in v. 5, “OK, you want to redeem it. Let me give you this additional bit of info. On the day you buy it, you also get Ruth, the Moabite. She’s part of the deal. You have the responsibility of marrying her in order to perpetuate the name of our dead brother in his inheritance.” How many times in this story have we been reminded that Ruth is a Moabite? Her status as a foreigner is a feature, not a bug, of the story. You can hear Mr. So and So, “Uh, you know what Boaz, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do this redemption thing after all. This is gonna mess up my own inheritance. You got it.”

Redemption Secured

The redemption, no longer at risk, is secured in vv. 7-12. There is an intentional parenthetical pause in v. 7,

Ruth 4:7 ESV

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.

The tension in this part of the story has reached its highest point. The narrator pauses with this useful explanation because his audience is about to hear a transaction that either is no longer practiced in Israel, or has lost its meaning. More than that, this pause in the dialogue gives the audience a chance to slow down and ponder while on the edge of their seat. It gives them the chance to reflect on the fact that the cost to redeem is indeed high. It gives us the same opportunity. This redemption is no low risk proposition. This was not just duty for Boaz. With the level of commitment that was involved, it couldn’t just be a matter of duty. Listen to how the transaction is described.

Ruth 4:9–10 ESV

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 belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, 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.”

This is a serious commitment. That’s why he’s elevated over Mr. So-and-so. It’s not that so-and-so is degraded (cf Orpah and Ruth - Ruth’s response is elevated because it’s an act of sacrificial love)…Boaz is elevated here and so-and-so is forgotten, because Boaz is willing to put everything at risk to do the better thing. God made Naomi’s redemption sure by using Boaz’s willingness to pay the cost of redemption. You can probably tell where I’m going. If you’ve heard the gospel story of redemption through Jesus Christ, you cannot help but be reminded of his willingness to pay the immeasurable cost of our redemption. Jesus Christ secured our redemption out of love. You didn’t come cheap. 

We’re so culturally removed from the context of Ancient Near Eastern culture that our ears can get offended by what Boaz says in v. 10, that he has bought Ruth, the Moabite, to be his wife. But here’s the deal. The Bible uses the same language for us.

1 Corinthians 6:20 ESV

for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Corinthians 7:23 ESV

You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.

We needed to be bought. That’s what it means to redeem. It means to buy something back. We needed to be purchased, and the cost was high. The act of redemption isn’t about a de-valuing of the thing that is redeemed. It’s the exact opposite. To talk about redemption is to talk about the extreme value of what is being redeemed. That is why securing our relationship to God cost Jesus Christ his life. 

So and so couldn’t redeem. He didn’t have enough resources to pay the price. “I’m not willing to put my own inheritance at risk,” he said. Boaz not only had the resources, but was willing to give them up. We don’t have the resources to redeem ourselves or anyone else when it comes to living with God as our Lord and King. You cannot pray enough prayers. You cannot do enough good deeds to make yourself redeem yourself before God. What you need is a Redeemer. Someone with enough resources to pay the price. Somebody that’s got the resources and is willing to give them up for your life. This is why we hear the writer say of Jesus in Hebrews 9.11-12

Hebrews 9:11–12 ESV

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

The Redeemer Praised

The only proper response to redemption is praise. This book begins with death and tragedy. It begins with the Lord’s name being lifted in bitterness, and it ends with his name being lifted in praise. What we find out at the end of this chapter is that it’s the Lord’s plan that’s getting worked out. Naomi had her plan, and Boaz had his, but the Lord’s plan runs the show. We see the redeemer’s praise come to the forefront in two ways here at the end.

The people and the elders declare in v. 11 that they are witnesses, and they pronounce this blessing,

Ruth 4:11–12 ESV

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.”

What are they talking about? Why bring up Perez and Tamar? There’s a genealogical connection here for this blessing. Boaz is a descendant of Judah through Tamar and their son Perez. Do you remember Tamar’s situation recorded in Genesis 36-38? Tamar was a woman who executed her own game plan. She took it upon herself to see that an offspring was raised up for her dead husband. Judah had married a Canaanite woman. He arranges a marriage of his firstborn son to this woman named Tamar, who was likely a Canaanite as well. Er was wicked in the Lord’s sight, and he died. Er’s brother Onan was willing to use Tamar for his pleasure, but refused to raise an offspring for his brother’s inheritance. Then Onan died too. Judah promised to give Tamar to his third son, Shelah, when he grew up. But, he never intended to keep his promise.

Tamar was a woman in need of a redeemer, and those who should have been willing to serve as her redeemer were unwilling. So, she took it upon herself, that she would not be destitute and that her husband’s name would not be blotted out. Judah says of Tamar in Genesis 38:26, she are more righteous than I am. Through this woman’s boldness, the Lord brought forth Perez, as a direct descendant of Judah. 

The people in their blessing realize that in Ruth, we have another non-Israelite woman who is more righteous than the Israelites. The Redeemer is praised - not Boaz, but the Lord - because he has woven the nations into salvation history. God’s plan of redemption always included the nations. It always included the whole world. So much so that at key moments in Israel’s history you have non-Israelites the Lord brings in as an integral part of his salvation plan. 

The second way we see the Redeemer praised is for the particular love and redemption he provided to a bitter old woman. Boaz marries Ruth. Ruth, all of those years she was married to Mahlon didn’t have children, but now she conceives and gives birth to a son. Do you notice who the women of the city come to? They don’t come to Ruth. The come to Naomi and say, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer… Your daughter-in-law, who loves you, has given birth to him. She is better to you than seven sons.” Do you see what they say in v. 17? “A son has been born to Naomi!” Naomi, this woman who was so bitter and angry with the Lord. Naomi, this woman who believed that the Lord was out to get her. The Lord is praised because even her bitterness towards him wasn’t enough to prevent him reaching out in love and redeeming her life. 

The story ends with this incredible genealogy. The Lord using this mess in his story of bringing his king, David, to the throne in Israel. You can’t make this stuff up. This same mess is therefore included in his story of bringing his perfect redeemer, Jesus Christ. It’s no accident that we find Matthew giving us Jesus’ genealogy in the 1st chapter of his gospel, and including Judah and Tamar and Perez, and Boaz and Ruth and Obed. Messy lives and messy people are not an accidental occurrence in God’s salvation story. Praise his name that your messiness, your bitterness, your rebellion, your doubts, your fears, your silly ways are not enough to prevent his reaching out in love for your redemption through Jesus Christ.  If it were, Naomi wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of her story concluding with praise instead of bitterness. The crazy thing is that her redemption was never in doubt from God’s perspective. She just couldn’t see it. Know that in Christ, your redemption is not at risk. It is eternally secured, and we bless his name for it.

The bookends of this story communicate the surety of our redemption. The first words we hear are, Ruth 1:1 “In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land.” There was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The last verse, indeed the last word, of this book wraps up the surety of our redemption in a bow. Redemption is secure because God has provided a king. Ruth 4:22 “Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.” This is our story. He has met our waywardness with his redemption. He has met our corruption with his holiness and makes us people who are able to resist doing whatever is right in our own eyes; people who are delighted to bow before him as our God and King.

Here’s what I want to leave you with today. Are you able to see that in Jesus Christ, the most important thing, our security in God is never at risk? If so, would you ask God for the grace to leave the outcomes to him? You’ve got plans and plays you may be putting into action even now. There are outcomes that you desire. And you are trying to figure out the best thing to do. Praise the Lord that you’re free to put plans in place. We’re not free to manipulate or use ungodly means, but what we’re reminded of in this story is that the Lord uses the acts and decisions of people to bring to pass the outcomes he desires. So, seek the Lord for wisdom, but go to bed with clear conscience and a non-anxious spirit because you’re leaving the outcomes to him!

This is especially necessary for us because, just like it was during the time of the judges, life in this world always involves a resistance against structural corruption and evil. It’s the reason why we have to live like we believe God specializes at working in the midst of mess.

Waymaker, miracle worker Promise keeper, light in the darkness My God, that is who You are

Even when I don't see it, You're working Even when I don't feel it, You're working You never stop, You never stop working You never stop, You never stop working

1 Be not dismayed whate’er betide; God will take care of you. Beneath His wings of love abide; God will take care of you.

Refrain: God will take care of you, through ev'ry day, o’er all the way. He will take care of you; God will take care of you.