‘ And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he of YHWH, who has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead.” And Naomi said to her, “The man is near of kin to us, one of our near kinsmen.”
At this Naomi's heart rejoiced, for she saw in it the hand of YHWH, recognising by it that He had overlooked neither her and Ruth, nor her dead husband and sons. It appeared to her that YHWH had taken note of their plight and had the intention after all of producing sons to carry on the family name. She called on YHWH to bless Boaz, and explained to a puzzled Ruth that Boaz was in fact of near kin to them and was thus, legally speaking, ‘a near kinsman'. For the responsibilities of a ‘near kinsman' acting as a goël, or redeemer, see Leviticus 25:25; Leviticus 25:47-49..