Ruth 4:6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Lest I mar mine own inheritance It seems he had a wife and children already, which made him afraid to marry a poor woman with a small parcel of land, which would not provide for the children he might have by her, lest he should thereby diminish the inheritance of which he was already possessed. The Chaldee paraphrase on the passage is, “I cannot redeem it on this condition,” namely, the condition of marrying Ruth; “because I have a wife already, and do not choose to bring another into my house, lest quarrels and divisions arise in it, and I hurt my own inheritance.”