Ruth 4:4
And I thought to advertise thee, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it.
Boaz carried out the order of the Goel at the city gate before ten elders of the city and the inhabitants as witnesses, offering the nearer kinsman the first right to redeem the parcel of Elimelech's family land that Naomi, returned from Moab, was selling, with Boaz himself next after him. He told the nearer relative plainly before the townspeople and elders that he had the first opportunity and asked him to decide publicly. The kinsman at first agreed to redeem it. Boaz knew the family relationships better than Naomi did, recognizing that the other man was nearer of kin and therefore had the better right of redemption, though Naomi had supposed Boaz himself was the Goel. When that nearer man later declined, the way was clear for Boaz to redeem the inheritance and marry Ruth.
The verse shows the law of the inalienability of landed property based on the Jubilee in force among the Jews, with the land offered to the nearest kinsman to redeem before witnesses. The land of Israel after its division in the days of Joshua was the inalienable family possession so that no family would be reduced to permanent poverty, a sale being in effect only a lease that returned to the owner or his heirs in the year of jubilee every fiftieth year. Yet the seller had the right to redeem it at any time, and if he was unable his Goel had the right and, if able, the duty to redeem it, as also to redeem a kinsman reduced to bondage. It illustrates the provision for keeping a man's inheritance in Canaan from passing out of his family, by which if a man died without an heir his kinsman could redeem the property and marry his widow so that the firstborn would be counted as the heir of the one who died and the homestead would be retained. It shows the rule that when a person lost his inheritance or fell into bondage and could not redeem himself or his inheritance, he depended on the nearest eligible blood-relative who was able, so the redeemer had to be both the nearest kin and able to redeem.
The offering and willingness of the nearer kinsman to redeem is a type or picture of Christ's redemption, showing that Christ as Redeemer had the right to redeem humanity when no other being could rescue the lost. He became our blood-relative by taking human flesh and blood and redeemed us at the cost of his own life. The account to which the verse belongs shows God's care for the Seed, in that Ruth the Moabitess became one of the progenitors of Christ according to the flesh, and it gives a picture of sweet, simple home life among the children of Israel. The kinsman's marriage arrangement to preserve the inheritance will be unnecessary for those accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection from the dead, because they cannot die anymore and each man's inheritance in the restored new earth will remain unimpaired throughout eternity.