So how does the law of Levirate Marriage apply to Ruth and Boaz? Answer: despite most Christian commentaries speaking to the contrary, it doesn’t. Ruth’s deceased husband had no surviving brothers. That should have been the end of the Levirate Marriage solution for Ruth and Na’omi but somewhere along the line (after Mt. Sinai) Hebrew society saw the need for a better way to deal with these unfortunate women and families (when there was no brother-in law to marry the widow) so they invented another way. They added the duty of marrying a childless widow to the already existing list of various duties of the family go’el. So for the go’el the duty to marry a widowed relative (who was without a son) it would have been seen less as
an onerous civil legal and Scriptural requirement (that brought great shame on a brother in law who refused to do his Levirate family duty), and more as a very positive act of chesed (loving kindness) that made this kind of marriage somewhat of an OPTION of the conscience for the family go’el. That said, this mindset not to socially ostracize a family redeemer who refused this duty of marriage is because it was usually that there were a number of potential family members who could have taken on the role of go’el and thus while the senior go’el (the closest male family member) would have been looked down upon for not doing ALL the duties incumbent upon him, there were typically other males in the family who could also perform those duties. So the refusal of the most senior go’el to marry the widow wasn’t seen as quite as serious as it was for the brother-in-law who refused to marry his widowed sister in law.
Tom Bradford
21 окт 2024
