RUTH 4 — THE REDEEMER AT THE GATE, A WEDDING, AND THE LINE OF DAVID

The final chapter resolves the plot in a public legal setting. The city gate was where legal matters were settled before elders (Deuteronomy 21:19; 25:7; Proverbs 31:23). The case combines two institutions: the redemption of a family's land to keep it within the clan (Leviticus 25:25–28) and the marriage of a widow to a near relative to raise up an heir (Deuteronomy 25:5–10). Strictly, the levirate law applied to a brother of the dead man, so Boaz's action is an extension of the principle in the spirit of the law, and it shows how the customs were applied in practice. The chapter ends with the great payoff of the book: the child born to Ruth and Boaz is the grandfather of King David, which places the Moabite widow in the line of Israel's greatest king and, ultimately, of the Messiah.

The legal procedures of the chapter correspond to ancient Near Eastern practice. City gates were the sites of legal proceedings, as shown by excavations at Tel Dan, Tel Beersheba, and other Israelite cities, which uncovered gate complexes with benches where elders could sit. Documents from Nuzi and other sites mention the symbolic transfer of shoes or sandals in land transactions, which parallels the custom described in verse 7. The genealogy of David is also attested in other biblical sources (1 Chronicles 2:4–15; Matthew 1:3–6; Luke 3:31–33), and the existence of the house of David is confirmed by the Tel Dan Stele, an Aramaic inscription of the ninth century BC that refers to the house of David. The inclusion of a Moabite ancestor in David's genealogy would have been an unlikely invention, since Moabites were a despised people, which supports its historical authenticity. The book is read at Shavuot, and it was included among the Writings of the Hebrew Bible.