Ruth 4:3

3 he said to his relative, "Now that Naomi has come back from Moab, she wants to sell the field that belonged to our relative Elimelech,

Ruth 4:3 Meaning and Commentary

Ruth 4:3

And he said unto the kinsman
That is, Boaz said to the kinsman he called to, and who sat down by him before the ten elders that were present:

Naomi, that is come again out of the land of Moab, selleth a parcel of
land;
meaning, that she was determined upon it, and was about to do it, and would do it quickly, and he had it in commission to propose it to a purchaser:

which was our brother Elimelech's;
not in a strict sense, but being akin to the kinsman and himself, and having been a neighbour of them all, and an inhabitant of the place, he is called their brother; though some Jewish writers ^F6 say, that he was in a strict sense a brother of Boaz and this kinsman, and that Tob, Elimelech, and Boaz, were brethren, and so Tob was reckoned the nearest kinsman, and had the first right to redeem, because he was the elder brother but this does not seem likely; (See Gill on Ruth 3:13).

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 Midrash Ruth, fol. 34. 2.

Ruth 4:3 In-Context

1 Boaz went to the meeting place at the town gate and sat down there. Then Elimelech's nearest relative, the man whom Boaz had mentioned, came by, and Boaz called to him, "Come over here, my friend, and sit down." So he went over and sat down.

2 Then Boaz got ten of the leaders of the town and asked them to sit down there too. When they were seated,

3 he said to his relative, "Now that Naomi has come back from Moab, she wants to sell the field that belonged to our relative Elimelech,

4 and I think you ought to know about it. Now then, if you want it, buy it in the presence of these men sitting here. But if you don't want it, say so, because the right to buy it belongs first to you and then to me." The man said, "I will buy it."

5 Boaz said, "Very well, if you buy the field from Naomi, then you are also buying Ruth, the Moabite widow, so that the field will stay in the dead man's family."