Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I
purchased to be my wife
Which was the condition on which the purchase of the land was, that whoever bought that should take her for his wife; nor did Boaz do evil in marrying her, though a Moabitess. Moab was not one of the nations with whom marriage was forbidden; and though it was a Heathenish and idolatrous nation, and so on that account it was not fit and proper to marry with such, yet Ruth was become a proselytess; nor was this contrary to the law in ( Deuteronomy 23:3 ) , since, according to the sense the Jews give of it, it respects men, and not women, and such men who otherwise were capable of bearing offices in the congregation;
``an Ammonite, and a Moabite (they say F14) are forbidden, and their prohibition is a perpetual one, but their women are free immediately:''to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance;
that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and
from the gate of this place;
might not be quite forgotten both in the city and in the court, and be remembered no more:
ye are witnesses this day;
this is repeated, that they might answer to it, as they do in the next verse.