Ruth 4 · a question people ask
Is this Deuteronomy's law about a dead brother's widow?
The book of Ruth doesn't name that law, or any law. Deuteronomy's law begins, "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son" (Deuteronomy 25:5), then "Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife" (Deuteronomy 25:5), and "the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name not be blotted out of Israel" (Deuteronomy 25:6). "If the man doesn’t want to take his brother’s wife" (Deuteronomy 25:7), she is to "go up to the gate to the elders" (Deuteronomy 25:7), and "loose his sandal from off his foot" (Deuteronomy 25:9). Ruth 4 also has a gate, elders, a sandal and "the name of the dead" (4:5, 4:10). Christians read the two chapters together in two main ways. Both agree on what Ruth 4 says Boaz did: he bought the land and took Ruth as his wife "to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance" (4:10).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Boaz does a brother's duty as the next of kin
Those who read it this way point to what the two chapters share. Deuteronomy's law is so that the dead man's "name not be blotted out of Israel" (Deuteronomy 25:6); Boaz acts "that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers" (4:10). Both are settled at the gate before the elders (Deuteronomy 25:7, Ruth 4:1-2), and both have a sandal (Deuteronomy 25:9, Ruth 4:7-8). In Genesis, Judah told Onan, "Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and raise up offspring for your brother" (Genesis 38:8), and the blessing at the gate names that family: "the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah" (4:12). Naomi herself had asked, "Do I still have sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?" (1:11). They read Boaz, a relative of Elimelech's family (2:1), as doing that duty when Mahlon's brother had died too (1:5).
Deuteronomy 25:6-9 · Ruth 4:1-2 · Ruth 4:7-8 · Ruth 4:10 · Genesis 38:8 · Ruth 4:12 · Ruth 1:11 · Ruth 2:1 · Ruth 1:5
A kinsman's redeeming and a marriage, by a custom the book explains
Those who read it this way point to what differs. Boaz is not a brother; he is "a relative of her husband’s" (2:1), and Mahlon's brother Chilion had died (1:5). The first matter at the gate is land: Naomi "is selling the parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech’s" (4:3), as in the law of the kinsman who is to "redeem that which his brother has sold" (Leviticus 25:25). The book explains its sandal itself: "Now this was the custom in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning exchanging, to confirm all things: a man took off his sandal, and gave it to his neighbor" (4:7). In Ruth, "he took off his sandal" (4:8); in Deuteronomy, the widow is to "loose his sandal from off his foot, and spit in his face" (Deuteronomy 25:9). And the list at the end counts Obed as Boaz's son: "Boaz became the father of Obed" (4:21).
Ruth 2:1 · Ruth 1:5 · Ruth 4:3 · Leviticus 25:25 · Ruth 4:7-8 · Deuteronomy 25:9 · Ruth 4:21
The verses
“Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there. Behold, the near kinsman of whom Boaz spoke came by. Boaz said to him, “Come over here, friend, and sit down!” He came over, and sat down. Boaz took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, “Sit down here,” and they sat down.”
“Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must buy it also from Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance.””