The story of Ruth in the Old Testament of the Bible gives an illuminating picture of one example of redemption.
In this story, a Jew called Elimelech leaves the land of Judah and he and his family settle in neighbouring Moab. While they are there, Elimelech’s two sons marry but die childless. Elimelech himself also dies. This leaves his widow, Naomi, and the widows of his sons on their own.
Naomi and one of the sons’ widows, Ruth, travel back to Judah and Naomi’s previous home town.
It appears that Naomi has inherited the land following the death of Elimelech but may need to sell it to a third party, whether to provide for herself and Ruth or some other reason.
For the land to be kept within the family, and such a sale avoided, it would need to be redeemed, bought by a kinsman rather than an outsider.
Under Israelite law, land was not supposed to disappear permanently from a clan’s possession.
“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold.”
Leviticus 25:25
So the redeemer (go’el) was a close relative who had the right and opportunity to recover family property.
The most straightforward reading of the immediate context is that Naomi has returned impoverished and apparently has possession of Elimelech’s property. She is seeking to dispose of it, and the nearest relative has the first opportunity to redeem it.
On this reading, there isn’t a previous purchaser. The transaction Boaz proposes is essentially:
Naomi → sells/relinquishes the land → kinsman redeems it → land remains within the wider family.
This fits the procedure in Leviticus 25, where a relative can redeem ancestral land that a poor Israelite has had to sell.
In this case, Boaz was a close relative who was Naomi’s preferred redeemer but it turned out that there was another who had a stronger claim.
And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I.
Ruth 3:12
When Boaz spoke to the closer kinsman, he affirmed that he would be willing to redeem the land.
Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. So I thought I would tell you of it and say, ‘Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.’ If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.” And he said, “I will redeem it.”
Ruth 4:3-4
However Boaz hen reveals the additional complication: acquiring the land is connected with taking Ruth, “to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.” And that causes the nearer relative to withdraw.
So the narrative seems to be doing something quite clever. The legal issue is initially presented as a relatively simple property redemption. But once Ruth is introduced, it becomes a question of family restoration. Boaz redeemed the family’s lost inheritance and, by marrying Ruth, restored the family line as well.
If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.
Deut 25:5
Ruth isn’t actually a textbook case of levirate marriage, because Boaz wasn’t the deceased man’s brother, but it seems to work like that. That is one of the fascinating legal/theological features of the story.