Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“At this, the next-of-kin said, ‘I cannot redeem it for myself without damaging my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, June 23, 2026
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
You don’t have to get the rules to get the story. Why redeeming Elimelech’s property and marrying Ruth would harm this unnamed “next-of-kin’s” inheritance but not Boaz’s is beyond me. And why Elimelech’s land would come with Ruth as a wife (as opposed to Naomi, who was Elimelech’s wife) doesn’t quite make sense to me either. But the story doesn’t bother to explain it, likely because the original hearers would have had no problem getting it. And the intricacies of inheritance law in Israel aren’t the point. The point is that Boaz wisely surmises that the man with “first dibs” on Elimelech’s property won’t want it if Ruth is attached to it. He slyly lays it out in a way that gives the man his due opportunity so that no one could say he tried to violate law and custom, while holding the ace in his pocket, thus forcing the other man to publicly cede his claim to Boaz in the presence of witnesses. Not only is he a class act in terms of his treatment of Ruth (and, by extension, Naomi) but he’s a shrewd—yet still honest—negotiator. It just makes the reader love him all the more, and be thrilled for the excellent match Ruth is about to make, after all that she has sacrificed and all the ways she’s cared for others. We’re ready for her happy ending.
What’s the best gift I’ve ever been given? What made it the best?
