---
title: "The Kinsman Redeemer: Boaz, Ruth, and the Right to Buy Back"
category: "theology"
description: "Boaz uses a kinsman's right to buy back what Naomi's family lost and to raise up a dead man's name. The son born of it is called a redeemer, and his line runs to David and to Jesus, the Kinsman who buys back His people with His own blood. The go'el office, the two laws Ruth joins, the threshing floor, the gate, the Moabite question, and where the type holds and where it stops."
tags: ["ruth", "person/boaz", "person/ruth", "redemption", "method/typology", "method/word-study", "lang/hebrew", "lang/greek", "old-testament"]
draft: false
primary_passage: "Ruth 3:9-13; Ruth 4:1-17"
bible_references: ["Ruth 1:1", "Ruth 1:16", "Ruth 1:21", "Ruth 2:1", "Ruth 2:12", "Ruth 2:20", "Ruth 3:9-13", "Ruth 4:1-22", "Judges 17:6", "Judges 21:25", "Leviticus 19:9-10", "Leviticus 25:23-25", "Leviticus 25:47-55", "Numbers 35:12", "Deuteronomy 25:5-10", "Deuteronomy 23:3", "Genesis 38:8", "Jeremiah 32:7", "Job 19:25", "Nehemiah 13:1", "Nehemiah 13:23", "Isaiah 54:5", "Isaiah 59:20", "Isaiah 56:3-7", "Romans 11:26", "Romans 3:24", "Galatians 4:4-5", "Hebrews 2:11", "Hebrews 2:17", "1 Peter 1:18-19", "Matthew 1:3", "Matthew 1:5"]
date_created: 2026-09-21
date_modified: 2026-10-22
ai_provider_models:
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
---

# The Kinsman Redeemer: Boaz, Ruth, and the Right to Buy Back

Ruth is a short book about a family that lost everything and got it back. A famine drives Elimelech's
family from Bethlehem to Moab. The men die. Naomi comes home saying, "I went away full, and the LORD
has brought me back empty" (Ruth 1:21, ESV). By the last chapter the land is bought back, the widow
is married, a son is born, and his grandson is David. The man who does it is a
<span dir="rtl">גֹּאֵל</span> (*goel*), a kinsman redeemer, and the book uses that word and its
relatives 23 times.

**In one sentence:** Boaz uses a kinsman's right to buy back what Naomi's family lost and to raise up
the dead man's name, and the son born of it is a redeemer whose line runs to David and to Jesus, the
Kinsman who buys back His people with His own blood.

## Key Takeaways

*(This section follows the [Key Takeaways](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/key-takeaways/) format — see that page for what each part is for.)*

### Types & Prophecy

**Boaz is a type of Christ, and the type has edges.** He is a kinsman with the right to redeem
(Leviticus 25:25), the will to pay (Ruth 3:13; 4:9-10), and a bride he takes to himself (4:13). The
New Testament gives Jesus both halves of the office. He shares our flesh: "he is not ashamed to call
them brothers" (Hebrews 2:11, ESV). He redeems at a price: "the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter
1:19, ESV). The type stops where Boaz stops. Boaz buys back land and a name; Christ buys back people.

**A prophecy uses the same word.** "A Redeemer will come to Zion" (Isaiah 59:20, ESV) is
<span dir="rtl">גּוֹאֵל</span>, *goel*. Paul quotes the verse of Israel's future salvation (Romans
11:26).

### Lessons about Jesus

- **Jesus became your kinsman.** "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem
  those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Galatians 4:4-5, ESV).
- **Jesus was willing.** The nearer redeemer said, "I cannot redeem it" (Ruth 4:6, ESV). Jesus was
  "made like his brothers in every respect ... to make propitiation for the sins of the people"
  (Hebrews 2:17, ESV).
- **Jesus is the Redeemer of the line Ruth began.** The women call Ruth's son a redeemer (4:14-15),
  and Matthew traces Jesus through "Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth" (Matthew 1:5, ESV).

### Memory verses

> ✝️ Ruth 4:14 (ESV)
>
> 14 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!

> ✝️ 1 Peter 1:18-19 (ESV)
>
> 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with
> perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a
> lamb without blemish or spot.

### Be Transformed

- **Think.** You were bought back at a price, by a Kinsman who chose to pay it (1 Peter 1:18-19).
  Your standing rests on His willingness.
- **Attitude.** Come to Him the way Ruth came to Boaz, plainly: "Spread your wings over your servant,
  for you are a redeemer" (Ruth 3:9, ESV).
- **Do.** Find one person this week who has come back empty (1:21) — a widow, a newcomer, someone
  grieving — and do one specific, costly thing for them.

### Prayer

Father, you are the God who does not leave His people without a redeemer. Thank you for sending your
Son Jesus, born of woman, to be our Kinsman, and for buying us back with His precious blood. We come to
Him as Ruth came to Boaz and ask Him to cover us. Make us people who redeem what we can for those
around us, because we have been redeemed.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

## Study outline

- [The world of the book](#the-world-of-the-book). Judges, famine, and who wrote it.
- [What a goel was](#what-a-goel-was). The office in the Law, the word in Hebrew and Greek.
- [Two laws, one practice](#two-laws-one-practice). Land redemption and the levirate duty, with Tamar
  and the sandal.
- [The threshing floor](#the-threshing-floor). Ruth names Boaz a redeemer and asks him to marry her.
- [At the gate](#at-the-gate). The nearer redeemer, the reading split at 4:5, and the witnesses.
- [The Moabite question](#the-moabite-question). The case on both sides.
- [The redeemer who is born](#the-redeemer-who-is-born). Ruth 4:13-17, and the line to David.
- [What the type rests on, and where it stops](#what-the-type-rests-on-and-where-it-stops).
- [Discussion questions](#discussion-questions). Six, for a group or on your own.

## The world of the book

"In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah
went to sojourn in the country of Moab" (Ruth 1:1, ESV). Judges ends on its own verdict of those
days: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes"
(Judges 21:25, ESV). Bethlehem — *beth lechem*, house of bread — has no bread.

The author is unnamed. Rabbinic tradition names Samuel (*b. Baba Bathra* 14a-15b). The *ESV Study
Bible* dates the writing after David became king, because the genealogy of 4:17-22 treats his
kingship as established and 4:7 explains a custom of "former times in Israel" (introduction to
Ruth). The setting is the judges' era; the date of writing is uncertain.

Three laws shape the story:

| Institution | Where it is given | What it provides |
|---|---|---|
| Gleaning | Leviticus 19:9-10 | The poor and the sojourner may gather what the harvesters leave |
| The *goel* | Leviticus 25:25 | A near relative buys back family land that has been sold |
| Levirate duty | Deuteronomy 25:5-10 | A surviving brother marries his brother's widow to preserve the dead brother's name |

## What a goel was

### The office in the Law

<span dir="rtl">גֹּאֵל</span> (*goel*, H1350; "go-EL") is the participle of
<span dir="rtl">גָּאַל</span> (*gaʾal*, H1350, TWOT root 300), "to redeem" or "buy back." In Ruth the verb
and participle occur 21 times, and the noun <span dir="rtl">גְּאֻלָּה</span> (*geʾullah*, H1353,
"right of redemption") twice more (4:6, 7). That is the *ESV Study Bible*'s count of 23, and the
word first appears when Naomi hears Boaz's name (2:20) and last when the women name the child
(4:14).

The office rests on one sentence of God's: "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is
mine" (Leviticus 25:23, ESV). Redemption gives God's gift back to the family He gave it to. The next
verses name who does it — "his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold"
(25:25, ESV) — and in what order: a brother, "or his uncle or his cousin ... or a close relative
from his clan" (25:48-49, ESV). That order is why Boaz says at 3:12, "there is a redeemer nearer than
I" (ESV).

The office reached beyond land. The *NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* lists its duties: buying
back a relative sold into slavery for debt (Leviticus 25:47-55), avenging a murdered relative
(Numbers 35:12, 19-27), and righting wrongs a relative could not right himself (note on Ruth 2:20).
Job reaches for the last of these: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25, ESV). Jeremiah
shows the land duty working, when his cousin comes to him with "the right of redemption by purchase
is yours" (Jeremiah 32:7, ESV).

Right and willingness are two things, and Ruth turns on the gap between them. Boaz has the right, but a nearer man
has it first: "if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the LORD lives, I will redeem you" (Ruth
3:13, ESV).

### The word in Greek

The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, renders *goel* in Ruth as ἀγχιστεύς (*anchisteus*), "the
one near" (3:9, 12; 4:6, 14). At Leviticus 25:25 it puts both ideas side by side: ὁ ἀγχιστεύων, the
one who is near, <span data-strongs="G3084">λυτρώσεται</span>, shall redeem. Peter uses that second verb for you: ἐλυτρώθητε, "you
were ransomed ... with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19, ESV). The Greek Bible holds the
two halves of the office together — kin, and buying back — and Peter's word for your redemption is
the Levitical one.

## Two laws, one practice

Ruth joins land redemption to the levirate duty. The levirate law reads: "the wife of the dead man
shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and
take her as his wife" (Deuteronomy 25:5, ESV), and "the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the
name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel" (25:6, ESV).

The *ESV Study Bible* describes Ruth as "two legal institutions combined in one practice (which the
Law of Moses does not require)" (introduction to Ruth). The *NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible*
adds that the legislation says nothing of taking the widow as part of redemption, though Israelites
"sometimes understood a connection between the two" (note on 2:20). Boaz is not Mahlon's brother, so
he acts from the wider family's duty, beyond the letter of either law.

Scripture's other levirate story sits inside Ruth's own blessing. The elders pray, "may your house be
like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah" (Ruth 4:12, ESV). Tamar's case began with Judah
telling Onan to "perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your
brother" (Genesis 38:8, ESV). Both women, Tamar and Ruth, are named in Matthew's genealogy (Matthew
1:3, 5).

The sandal shows the two customs side by side. In Deuteronomy the widow pulls the sandal off the
brother who refuses "and spit[s] in his face" (25:9, ESV) — a public shame. In Ruth the redeemer who
steps aside draws off his own sandal and hands it over, because "this was the manner of attesting in
Israel" (Ruth 4:7, ESV). The *ESV Study Bible* calls Deuteronomy's rite "a different but related
custom" (note on 4:7-8).

## The threshing floor

### Naomi sees the redeemer

When Ruth comes home from Boaz's field, Naomi says, "May he be blessed by the LORD, whose kindness
has not forsaken the living or the dead! ... The man is a close relative of ours, one of our
redeemers" (2:20, ESV). "Kindness" is <span dir="rtl">חֶסֶד</span> (*chesed*, H2617; "KHEH-sed"),
covenant loyalty. Whose kindness is it, the LORD's or Boaz's? The *ESV Study Bible* calls the
ambiguity "probably intentional; that is, the answer is both" (note on 2:20); the *NIV Biblical
Theology Study Bible* reads it as "probably" the LORD's. Either way, God's loyalty reaches Naomi
through a man's. *Chesed* appears three times in Ruth: Naomi's blessing (1:8), this verse, and the
threshing floor (3:10).

### Ruth names the office

At midnight Ruth answers Boaz:

> ✝️ Ruth 3:9 (ESV)
>
> 9 He said, "Who are you?" And she answered, "I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your
> servant, for you are a redeemer."

"Wings" is <span dir="rtl">כָּנָף</span> (*kanaph*, H3671), the edge of a cloak spread over a woman
to claim her in marriage. It is the word Boaz used when he blessed her by the God "under whose wings
you have come to take refuge" (2:12, ESV), and the *ESV Study Bible* reads 3:9 as calling that
blessing back (note on 3:9). Ruth asks Boaz to be the answer to his own prayer. The last word of her
sentence is the office itself: *goel*. A Moabite widow is the first person in the book to join the
redeemer's duty to marriage. [The Bride of Christ](https://the-way.lewy.au/israel-and-church/bride-of-christ/) follows
the betrothal gesture through Ezekiel 16:8.

Boaz answers with *chesed* — "You have made this last kindness greater than the first" (3:10, ESV) —
and with a title that matches his own. The narrator introduced him as <span dir="rtl">אִישׁ גִּבּוֹר
חַיִל</span> (*ish gibbor chayil*), "a worthy man" (2:1, ESV); he calls her <span dir="rtl">אֵשֶׁת
חַיִל</span> (*eshet chayil*), "a worthy woman" (3:11, ESV). Then he binds himself with an oath, "as
the LORD lives" (3:13).

## At the gate

### The nearer redeemer

Boaz sits at the gate, calls ten elders, and hails the nearer redeemer with
<span dir="rtl">פְּלֹנִי אַלְמֹנִי</span> (*peloni almoni*, H6423 + H492), "a certain one." The
ESV renders it "friend" (4:1); the CSB footnotes "Mr. So-and-so." The narrator withholds his name.

The man first agrees to buy the field. Then Boaz tells him what comes with it, and the Hebrew of that
verse has two readings. The written text reads <span dir="rtl">קניתי</span>, "I acquire" — Boaz
announcing that he himself takes Ruth. The text as read, which the ESV follows, has "you also acquire
Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his
inheritance" (4:5, ESV), addressed to the nearer redeemer. On either reading, the field and the name
of the dead go together. So the man withdraws:

> ✝️ Ruth 4:6 (ESV)
>
> 6 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."

A son born to Ruth would carry Mahlon's name and inherit the land he paid for. The narrator states
that cost only for this man. The *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* thinks it "an outcome that Boaz
might also face" (note on 4:6); the text itself is silent on Boaz's cost.

### Two things bought, before witnesses

> ✝️ Ruth 4:9-10 (ESV)
>
> 9 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. 10 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."

"I have bought" is <span dir="rtl">קָנִיתִי</span> (*qaniti*, H7069), from <span dir="rtl">קָנָה</span>
(*qanah*, H7069), to acquire. The people answer, "We are witnesses," and bless the marriage by
Rachel, Leah and Perez (4:11-12).

## The Moabite question

Ruth is called "the Moabite" five times (1:22; 2:2, 21; 4:5, 10), and the Law says, "No Ammonite or
Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the
assembly of the LORD forever" (Deuteronomy 23:3, ESV). Yet Ruth marries into Judah and becomes
David's great-grandmother. This is contested, and there is a case on both sides.

**The case that the law never barred her.** The Mishnah reads Deuteronomy's ban as applying to the
men: "An Ammonite and a Moabite are forbidden [to enter into the congregation of the Lord] and their
prohibition is for ever. However, their women are permitted at once" (*m. Yevamot* 8:3). Ruth has
also bound herself to Israel's God: "Your people shall be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16,
ESV). Isaiah later welcomes "the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD" (Isaiah 56:6, ESV).

**The case that the ban reached women.** After the exile, Nehemiah reads Deuteronomy 23 aloud — "no
Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God" (Nehemiah 13:1, ESV) — and applies it to
Jews "who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab" (13:23, ESV). Nehemiah read the law as
touching marriage to Moabite women.

Ruth itself never argues the point. It calls her a Moabite at the moment of redemption (4:5, 10) and
lets the genealogy speak.

## The redeemer who is born

"So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife ... and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son"
(4:13, ESV). The *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* counts this as the second of only two direct
acts of God in the book (the first is when "the LORD had visited his people and given them food," 1:6, ESV).

Then the women speak to Naomi (4:14, quoted above), and the next verse says who the redeemer is: "He
shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who
loves you ... has given birth to him" (4:15, ESV). The redeemer they bless the LORD for is the baby
on Naomi's lap (4:16). The *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* sees here "another gōʾēl besides
Boaz," and reads David's line as "a lineage of guardian-redeemers," of whom "the guardian-redeemer par
excellence is Jesus Christ" (note on 4:14).

"They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David" (4:17, ESV). The book ends
on the name: "Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David" (4:22, ESV). Matthew carries it on:
"Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse" (Matthew 1:5, ESV), in the same verse
that names Rahab.

**This shows that God does not leave His people without a redeemer.** He kept one in the family line,
generation after generation, until He sent His Son Jesus.

## What the type rests on, and where it stops

### What it rests on

The typology rests on Scripture's own pairings:

- **One God is both husband and redeemer.** "For your Maker is your husband ... and the Holy One of
  Israel is your Redeemer" (Isaiah 54:5, ESV). Ruth's two roles for Boaz are the two titles Isaiah
  gives the LORD in one verse.
- **The New Testament applies a *goel* text to Christ.** "A Redeemer will come to Zion" (Isaiah
  59:20, ESV) is quoted by Paul, "The Deliverer will come from Zion," of the day
  "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26, ESV).
- **The Redeemer became kin.** "He is not ashamed to call them brothers" (Hebrews 2:11, ESV); "God
  sent forth his Son, born of woman ... to redeem" (Galatians 4:4-5, ESV).
- **He paid.** "Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of
  Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19, ESV).

### Where it stops

Boaz buys back a field and a family name. Christ buys back persons, and He pays with His blood. The *ESV Study Bible* keeps the two uses of the word apart: the kinsman sense of
*gaʾal* "is separate from the way the same word is used for the Lord 'redeeming' Israel" (note on
3:12-13). So the type rests on the pattern of the office — kin, right, willingness, price, a bride —
and on the New Testament's own words, and a single Hebrew word carries none of the weight alone.

**This shows that God redeems at His own cost, through a Kinsman He provides.** You "are justified by
his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24, ESV). Boaz had the
right and chose to use it. Your Kinsman had the right, chose to use it, and paid the whole price
Himself.

## Discussion Questions

1. **The language.** The Septuagint calls the *goel* ἀγχιστεύς, "the one near," and Peter's word
   for your ransom, ἐλυτρώθητε (1 Peter 1:18), is the Levitical word for buying back. What does each
   half — nearness and price — add to how you understand Christ's redemption?
2. **The text in its context.** At Ruth 4:5 the Hebrew can read "you acquire" or "I acquire." How
   does each reading change how you picture Boaz at the gate?
3. **Christ.** Hebrews says Jesus "is not ashamed to call them brothers" (Hebrews 2:11). What does it
   mean to you that your Redeemer chose to become your kin?
4. **The child.** The redeemer the women praise is a newborn (Ruth 4:14-15). What does it say about
   God's plan that the answer to Naomi's emptiness arrives as a child in David's line?
5. **The hard part.** Deuteronomy 23:3 says of Moabites, "none of them may enter the assembly of the
   LORD forever"; Nehemiah applies the ban to marriages with Moabite women (Nehemiah 13:1, 23), while
   the Mishnah admits Moabite women at once (*m. Yevamot* 8:3). How do you read Ruth's pledge, "Your
   people shall be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16), alongside Deuteronomy 23:3?
6. **Be transformed.** Naomi came back "empty" (Ruth 1:21). What would it cost you to redeem
   something for someone near you who has come back the same way?

## References & Recommended Reading

- **ESV Study Bible** (Crossway) — introduction to Ruth (authorship, date, the 23 occurrences, "two
  legal institutions combined in one practice") and notes on 2:20, 3:9, 3:12-13 and 4:7-8; ESV
  verse text throughout. Quoted briefly with attribution.
- **NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible** (Zondervan) — notes on Ruth 2:20, 4:6, 4:13 and 4:14.
- **NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible** (Zondervan) — note on Ruth 2:20 (the duties of the
  guardian-redeemer).
- **CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible** (Holman) — footnote on Ruth 4:1.
- ***Mishnah Yevamot* 8:3**, quoted from **"Mishnah Yomit" translated by Dr. Joshua Kulp, licensed
  CC-BY**, retrieved through `references/build/sefaria.py` from the Sefaria-Export dataset.
- Original-language data from this project's `bible-text.db` — MACULA Hebrew (WLC) and morphhb for
  <span dir="rtl">גֹּאֵל</span> (*goel*, H1350), <span dir="rtl">גְּאֻלָּה</span> (*geʾullah*,
  H1353), <span dir="rtl">חֶסֶד</span> (*chesed*, H2617), <span dir="rtl">כָּנָף</span> (*kanaph*,
  H3671), <span dir="rtl">חַיִל</span> (*chayil*, H2428) and <span dir="rtl">קָנָה</span> (*qanah*,
  H7069), including the Kethiv and Qere at Ruth 4:5; Septuagint lemmas for ἀγχιστεύς, ἀγχιστεύω and
  λυτρόω; unfoldingWord interlinear for 1 Peter 1:18 and Isaiah 59:20; TWOT root 300.

### On this site

- [The Bride of Christ](https://the-way.lewy.au/israel-and-church/bride-of-christ/) — the betrothal pattern, including
  the *goel* behind the purchase and the *kanaph* gesture at Ezekiel 16:8.