Ruth is history, not allegory — a real widow, a real field, a real marriage that put a real king three generations later. But the transaction at the centre of it, a kinsman-redeemer, is a category the whole Bible uses for God, and the New Testament for Christ. Read the book once for the story. Read it again and the pattern stands out: a redeemer near of kin, willing and able, who pays the price and takes a foreign bride.
A study in Ruth 1-4 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
The Duty Of Redeeming Fell To The One Nearest Of Kin
“If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold… one of his brethren may redeem him.”
Leviticus 25:25, 48
The law gave a ruined Israelite a way back. If poverty forced him to sell his land, or himself into servitude, a relative — the goel, the kinsman-redeemer — could buy it back. Three things qualified a man for the job: he had to be near of kin, he had to be able to pay, and he had to be willing. Boaz is all three, and Ellen White reads the arrangement as a deliberate picture.
“Of Christ’s relation to His people, there is a beautiful illustration in the laws given to Israel… the duty of redeeming him and his inheritance fell to the one who was nearest of kin. See Leviticus 25:25, 47-49; Ruth 2:20. So the work of redeeming us and our inheritance, lost through sin, fell upon Him who is ‘near of kin’ unto us. It was to redeem us that He became our kinsman.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 327
Christ “became our kinsman” by becoming one of us: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same… in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren” (Hebrews 2:14, 17). He could not redeem the family from outside it. So He joined it.
There Is A Kinsman Nearer Than I
“And the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it… So he drew off his shoe.”
Ruth 4:6-8
There was a kinsman with a prior claim, and he had to be dealt with first. He could state the terms of the debt exactly; what he could not do was pay it without ruin to himself — so he stepped aside. It is hard not to hear in that the work of the law: it has the first word, it defines the debt precisely, and “what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh” (Romans 8:3), God did in Christ. The law names what is owed and then makes way for the Redeemer who actually pays it — “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Boaz redeemed “all” — field and bride together — publicly, at a price, with witnesses. So did Christ: “ye were not redeemed with corruptible things… but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Under Whose Wings Thou Art Come To Trust
“At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise… But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
Ephesians 2:12-13
If Boaz stands where Christ stands, Ruth stands where the Church stands — where every believing outsider stands. She is a Moabite, from a people the law shut out (Deuteronomy 23:3); she owns nothing; she has left her country and her gods; and she throws herself entirely on Israel’s God and on His redeemer’s right. What she receives is not charity but covering, a name, a marriage, an inheritance, a place in the family — “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints” (Ephesians 2:19). It is the shape of the gospel for the nations, and the shape of the bride at the end: “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7).
“All who, like Rahab the Canaanite and Ruth the Moabitess, turned from idolatry to the worship of the true God were to unite themselves with His chosen people.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 19
There Is A Son Born To Naomi
“And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.”
Ruth 4:17
A redemption never stops with the one redeemed. Because Boaz acted, Naomi is restored, a family that was about to die out is carried on, and four generations later that line produces David — and through David, in the same little town, “out of thee shall he come forth… that is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). Matthew, opening the New Testament, writes it plainly: “Booz begat Obed of Ruth” (Matthew 1:5). The quiet love story in the age of the judges turns out to be a hinge in the history of salvation — a Moabite widow, redeemed by a kinsman, becomes a grandmother of the King, and of the King’s greater Son.
