Boaz’s Transaction: 4:1 Boaz does not go directly to Elimelech’s kinsman’s house, nor does he summon him to his own. Instead, he goes to the town gate. When the kinsman-redeemer he had mentioned came along (lit. “wandered by,” ’abar), Boaz says, Come over here, my friend, and sit down. The narrator portrays this all-important meeting like the chance meeting of Ruth and Boaz in 2:3, but events only seem to happen by chance in Ruth. Boaz’s patient anticipation at Bethlehem’s gate contrasts sharply with the Levite’s anxious sitting in the Gibeahite town square (Judg. 19:15).

We never learn the personal name of Elimelech’s kinsman. Boaz addresses him only as Mr. So-and-So (peloni ’almoni; 1 Sam. 21:3; 2 Kgs. 6:8). LXX translates this idiom with the Gk word kruphios (“secret, hidden”), but the r…