What Does Ruth 4:5 Mean?
Then Boaz said, On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.THE KEY
The dead man’s name is made to stand on his inheritance, binding his continuing nature to Ruth and the land together.
THE MEANING
The verse binds the field’s acquisition from Naomi and Ruth to the act of making the dead man’s name stand on his inheritance. שֵׁם (shem, “name as nature”) carries his continuing identity through the land, kinship, and Ruth’s place in that inheritance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a name survives only as a word remembered; here, it stands through a living person’s place in an inheritance.
THE ROOT
לְהָקִים
lehaqim
GROWS FROM
קוּם
To rise or stand; in the causative form, to make something stand or establish it.
“raise up” in this verse is lehaqim. The verb means to make the dead man’s name stand. Joined to שֵׁם (shem, “name as nature”), it presents his continuing identity as something established upon a particular inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
qum: To rise, stand
קוּם
The name is described as brought into standing, not merely spoken.
maqom: Place, standing place
מָקוֹם
The name stands upon a specific place: the inheritance named in the verse.
קָנִיתָה
qanita
GROWS FROM
קנה
To acquire, possess, or buy; in some uses, to create.
“buyest” in this verse is qanita. The acquisition language gathers the field and Ruth into the same transaction. The verse ties the act of establishing the dead man’s name to what is acquired from both Naomi and Ruth.
ALSO GROWS
qanah: To acquire or buy
קָנָה
This is the verb used for acquiring the field and establishing the condition named in the verse.
miqneh: Acquired property or livestock
מִקְנֶה
This branch names what is held as property, sharpening the verse’s link between material possession and inheritance.
נַחֲלָתוֹ
naḥalato
GROWS FROM
נחל
To receive or take possession as an inheritance.
The inheritance is the ground on which the dead man’s name is made to stand. The word carries both the material portion and its role in continuing the household’s identity.
ALSO GROWS
naḥal: To receive or take as an inheritance
נָחַל
The verb shows inheritance as an act of receiving and holding a portion.
naḥalah: Inheritance, possession, allotted property
נַחֲלָה
This is the noun in the verse: the name is established upon the dead man’s inherited portion.
THE PATTERN
A person’s name remains standing when a living inheritance carries it forward.
And it shall be that the firstborn she bears shall rise up in the name of his brother who is dead, so that his name is not wiped out from Israel.Even to them will I set in my house, and within my walls, a hand and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them a name of the ages that shall not be cut off.Salmon brought forth Boaz out of Rahab, and Boaz brought forth Obed out of Ruth, and Obed brought forth Jesse.THE THREAD
And it shall be that the firstborn she bears shall rise up in the name of his brother who is dead, so that his name is not wiped out from Israel.The same root קום (qum, “rise, stand”) appears as “succeed” in Deuteronomy and “raise up” here. Deuteronomy names the living child who carries the dead man’s name; Ruth ties that standing to the inheritance and Ruth’s place within it.
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