The unknown redeemer – Ruth 4: 2-12
The Message:
“The piece of property that belonged to our relative Elimelech is being sold by his widow Naomi, who has just returned from the country of Moab. I thought you ought to know about it. Buy it back if you want it – you can make it official in the presence of those sitting here and before the town elders. You have first redeemer rights. If you don’t want it, tell me so I’ll know where I stand. You’re first in line to do this and I’m next after you.
He said “I’ll buy it.”
Then Boaz added, “You realise, don’t you, that when you buy the field from Naomi, you also get Ruth the Moabite, the widow of our dead relative, along with the redeemer responsibility to have children with her to carry of the family inheritance.”
Then the relative said, “Oh, I can’t do that – I’d jeopardize my own family’s inheritance. You go ahead and buy it – you can have my rights – I can’t do it.”
If the nearest redeemer had a son by Ruth, and that son was the only surviving heir, then Mahlon’s property and part of his own estate would go to Elimelech’s family. Boaz had played the master tactician! He wanted to marry Ruth and he placed the nearest redeemer in a situation in which he can do no other than offer the right of redemption to Boaz.
In Matthew 1 we read, “Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth … Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ.”
It could have all been so different.
The unknown redeemer could have been in the genealogy of the Son of God, written down in Scripture and held in great honour. He tried to protect his name and inheritance but in doing so, no one now knows his name, or who were his family were and what became of them. He stayed in insignificance and never became what he could have become.
Missions Paul 