Judges, Ruth: Revised Edition (The NIV Application Commentary)

by K. Lawson Younger

First of all, it is clear that the text is not describing an outright sale of land by Naomi. Instead, this refers to a transaction in which only the right of use of the land is being transferred for a stipulated value (paid completely at the beginning of the deal) for a stipulated period of time (Lev 25:14–16). This is because the land of the family or clan could not be sold permanently (25:23; cf. 1 Kings 2:3). In this context, the word translated by the NIV “is selling” (makar) is best translated into English as “to surrender the right to.”11 It also seems best to understand (as the majority of scholars do) that Naomi must have inherited rights to the field of Elimelek. The proprietary rights to the land in the Old Testament were vested in the clan, with the individual only holding the right of possession and usufruct.12 Thus, a widow could only hold “usufructuary rights to her husband’s property,” and she did this “only until she married again or died in her turn, at which time the rights reverted to her husband’s clan in the normal order of inheritance.”13