Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ruth · About this commentary
You Are Witnesses
Ruth 4:9-10
9 Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, “You are witnesses today, that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s, and all that was Chilion’s and Mahlon’s, from the hand of Naomi. · WEB
Boaz declares the purchase in public, and names the woman by the nationality nobody has let anyone forget.
You are witnesses today. Boaz addresses the elders and all the people, and the declaration is formal — the record of a transaction meant to be remembered and, if necessary, testified to.
He lists the property first: all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's, from the hand of Naomi. The dead men are named individually, which is itself part of the point of the exercise.
Then the second acquisition, stated in the same legal register: Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, I have purchased to be my wife. The word is deliberately commercial and sits oddly on a marriage, but the whole proceeding is a redemption, and redemption is a purchase.
That she is called the Moabitess here, in the town's public assembly, at the moment of her acceptance, is the fifth and final time the book uses the label. It has followed her from the first chapter, and the narrative never softens it — she is a Moabite when Naomi's neighbors stare, a Moabite in Boaz's field, and a Moabite at the gate.
And the stated purpose is not Boaz's happiness. It is that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers.
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