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It is a pleasure to be with you once more, gentlemen. When I was last with you, I seem to remember that we were discussing together the Epistle to the Romans. Today we study a very different book. Not only is Romans a New Testament book and the book of Ruth an Old Testament book, but the two books are very different in their character. The Epistle to the Romans is given up largely to a doctrinal statement of the bases, basic principles of salvation.
The book of Ruth is not a statement of doctrine, it is a narrative, a story. And the story is carried on through the characters and doings of a number of people. Romans is doctrinal, Ruth is historical. And therefore, it presents us with some basic questions. How do we go about interpreting a historical book, a book that is narrative?
And how do we go, uh, uh, about understanding it and its relevance to us? And how, in the end, do we set about preaching it? We start, of course, with the basic belief that this too is the inspired word of God. And therefore, our first question is to ask, what does this book contribute to the ongoing self-revelation of God.
The Bible itself is evidence, is it not, that God did not speak everything he had to say all at once. God has spread his self-revelation across many centuries. And therefore, study of scripture will reveal what has been called the ongoing self-revelation of God. If we would understand that, uh, uh, the place of Ruth, the book of Ruth in the self-revelation of God.
We need to read it against the background of its historical situation. The opening words of chapter one of this book place its story precisely in its historical context. It came to pass in the days when the judges judged. That is made easy for us to see by the order of books as we have them in our canon, where the book of Ruth comes immediately after the book of Judges.
In the Hebrew canon, the book of Ruth does not come there, but is placed in the third division of the canon. There are, you will remember, three divisions in the Hebrew canon. The first one, the first book, five book, the first book, the first five books are the books of Moses, commonly called the Pentateuch, from the Greek word for five volumes. Then come the prophets.
The former prophets being historical books, and the later prof- uh book, uh, prophets being what we now call, uh, the, uh, prophets strictly so-called. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the minor prophets. The third division is a mixture of kinds, prominently standing and first in most canon are the Psalms. They are the largest book in the third division.
Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Esther, Nehemiah, historical books, and Chronicles, First and Second Chronicles. And among them, forming one of the five rolls, is the book of Ruth. It is therefore very helpful in view of their position in the Hebrew canon, that the book itself tells us the historical context of this story.
Came to pass in the days when the judges ruled. So let us begin by thinking about those days. In the Old Testament, second division comes the book of Joshua, telling how Joshua did what Moses couldn't do, how he brought the Israelites into the land of Canaan, subdued the opposition of its kings, and then distributed the land, the promised land, to the sundry tribes, so that each tribe was given its inheritance in the land that God had promised to give them.
The tribes of J- of Judah and Ephraim, of course, got the biggest part, and they were fir- the first ones to be given their inheritance. Two and a half tribes had been given their inheritance by Moses on the eastern side of Jordan. The remaining tribes were given their inheritance in the following manner. First, Joshua sent out men to, uh, survey the remaining territories and to write the details down in a book.
Then the tribes gathered before the tabernacle at Shiloh, and they cast lots for their inheritance. So that you will read such phrases as the lot came out for Zebulun in such and such a district. They measured with their lines, like surveyors do, and then they cast lots for each particular tribe.
And those ideas, of course, are central to the book of Joshua and then to the book of Ju- Jus- uh, uh, uh, Judges. So let us think now of some of the leading terms that become prominent in this period, and therefore in the period and the experiences related in the book of Ruth. The leading term is inheritance. Nachala in Hebrew, so you don't need to bother about that.
The inheritance. You will see, uh, the, uh, matter coming up in the book of Ruth. For instance, in chapter four, it is a question of raising up the name of the deceased Elimelech upon his inheritance, his nachalah, the bit that was awarded to his family. Nahala.
Nachalah. How did the Israelites regard their inheritance? Let's take an example from one Kings twenty one, The story of Naboth and his vineyard. Naboth lived in the time of Ahab, king of the ten tribes of Israel. And Ahab, having nothing better to do for the time being, uh, became interested in gardening.
Royals have to do something, don't they, to pass away their time, even visiting Ireland. But, uh, in the course of his planning his new look gardens, Ahab found that Naboth's vineyard, uh, was in the way. So he went to Nabath and said he would like, uh, please, uh, to buy his vineyard so that he could incorporate it into his royal gardens. And Nabath refused.
Oh, but look here, said Ahab, I'll give you a very good price for your little patch of ground. But Naboth refused. And the reason he refused was this. This is the inheritance given to my fathers. Now it was perfectly okay in Israel. If you wanted to, you could sell your inheritance that you had inherited from your fathers through many generations. You could, if you wanted to, sell it. Naboth didn't want to.
For strong in his family, as in many families, was the belief that when the tribes were given their inheritance, they were given it by lot. And the theory behind casting of lots was that the lot is cast into the lap, as a verse puts it, but the disposing of it is of the Lord. It was an appeal to God, by his providence, to arrange the falling of the lot. And therefore, when you got your inheritance by lot, you felt you were given it by the direct interposition of God.
This was God-given inheritance. And for many Israelites, it didn't matter whether the lot was full of luscious grass and could support endless cattle, or whether it was a stony place and rather arid. If it was given to them by God, then the gift was sacred. I don't care how much you're prepared to pay, said Naboth to his majesty, but what I have, you couldn't put a price on it.
Central to the events in the book of Ruth is another matter, not only the inheritance given by God, but the fact that the name of her husband was on this inheritance, handed down from generation to generation, but the maintenance of the name of the family on their inheritance was to them exceedingly important.
As it is, as you will see, if you spend your holidays, and most people don't, visiting stately homes, they will tell you when the house was first built and how it was given to the first Duke of Ormond or somewhere else, do you say? And what the second earl did and what the third did and so forth and so forth, and all down the centuries, the family name is on the inheritance. It is a chief concern of Naomi that the name of her husband, Elimelech, should not die out upon the inheritance.
This then is going to be one of the major terms in this book, relevant to our interpretation eventually will be the meanings that came to cluster round this basic idea of inheritance. So let us look now at Psalm number sixteen. Psalm number sixteen. m And in so doing, we have moved from history into poetry.
Devotional poetry, of course, but into poetry. Where we must expect the notion of inheritance to have become extended. Psalm sixteen. Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust. I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, I have no good beyond thee. As for the saints that are in the earth, they are the excellent in whom is all my delight.
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that exchange the Lord for another god. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take their names upon my lips. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. Hebrew, Goral. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
Yea, I have a goodly heritage. And you will notice the terms are the terms of a surveyor. The lines are fallen unto me. Chevel. You see the surveyors, and if you like, you can go back in your imagination to the time of Joshua. Standing before the tabernacle of the Lord in Shiloh, and the surveyors coming with their book and the details of the various parts that they have, um, now marked out. And you're standing there, uh, and now what's my lot going to be?
Oh, my fellow there, he can't, oh, I happen to know that part of the country. That's beautiful, luscious, cool. I can see what I could do with that. Huh? Now they're coming to the bit where the hills are, and it's a bit difficult. Hope my lot doesn't come out there, do you see? Hmm. Huh. The surveyors with their lines. And now the casting of the lots. And he is saying, the lines have fallen unto me in a pleasant, in pleasant places.
Yea, I have a goodly heritage. You'll see. Now it's a metaphor, isn't it? You see from the ver- the verse before, the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance. It is as if the poet is moving from the idea that this bit of ground is my inheritance given to me of God and therefore sacred. Going beyond the gift to the giver and perceiving that it is the giver himself ultimately, that is the portion of mine inheritance.
Take the world and give me Jesus. The Lord is the portion of my cup and of my inheritance. Ah, but you cannot forget the history, nor particularly the days of the judges, when having been given its lot by Joshua, a tribe and a family might find the enemy coming in at full pelt. Because. the nations and the tribes had departed from God and compromised with the heathen and gone and served other gods.
And therefore God, in his providence and discipline of the tribes, allowed their enemies to come in and subdue them, and sometimes to take their inheritance from them. And you notice at the beginning of the psalm, the psalm relating the failures of his contemporaries that have gone after other gods, affirming that God alone is his God. The Lord is the portion of my cup and of my inheritance. Thou maintainest my lot, my goral. As earthly possessions might be taken from him, but if the Lord is the portion of your inheritance and of your cup, then the Lord maintains your lot.
Let's move ahead in scripture now to the division of Old Testament, the prophet of prophecy of Daniel, and its last chapter and its last verse. After all the tremendous commotions, international conflicts, and great tribulations and persecutions, and so forth and so on, that have been revealed to Daniel in his visions. In the last verse, says the angel to Daniel personally, but go thy way till the end be.
For thou shalt rest and shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days. Dear old boy, now very elderly. And whereas he prophesied that the nation would be taken back to the land, as it happened under Cyrus the Persian. Daniel himself apparently never went back to the land from which he had been rudely removed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
What about his lot then? He is told, thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days. Mm-hmm. Perhaps also in Canaan, who knows? In the millennial reign. But I personally hope I've got a lot beyond the millennium myself. Nice as a lot in the millennium would be. Ha! And when life is done, gentlemen, shall you have a lot to stand in?
So then, nachala, inheritance, and the terms related to it, the lines of the surveyor marking out the particular inheritance, and the lot given by the providence of God, a goodly heritage then, um, forms the, the, the form the major technical terms in this story. Much is going to turn upon them. But we could pause at this moment, couldn't we? Because eventually, in the understanding of the, uh, book of Ruth, and learning the mind of God in it and feeling the wonder of it, we shall be asking the so what?
Why am I told this story? I see what it says, so what? How does it affect me? And if I'm going to preach it responsibly, I must ask myself, why does the congregation in front of me need to know this story? Some lecturers proceed, regardless of the fact why the undergraduates need to hear what they're saying. So long as they give the lecture, they have earned their dollars, you'll see, and that's that. But a preacher can't do it. A preacher has business to do. Why does the congregation need to know what I'm saying about this book or what the book is saying.
And the second question that follows hard after that, how does this book and the knowledge of it save people? There isn't a comma in scripture that is not directed to the saving of people. And a preacher can be a teacher, and the most pedestrian of teachers at that, but he better be aware that he has a job to do. How does this part of scripture save people? So we have to ask whether this term inheritance has anything to say to us in our modern Christian times.
So let us now go to Deuteronomy chapter thirty two and verse eight. Deuteronomy thirty two thirty two. Thirty two verse eight, Which reads as follows. When the Most High gave to the nations, notice the plural, their.
When he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. Though in the Septuagint, there's a slightly different, uh, uh, wordage at the end of that verse, according to the number of the angels, but I don't pause to discuss that now. All I have, uh, I want to point to in this verse is that it was not only Israel that was given inheritance in the Old Testament. It wasn't that God gave Israel their inheritance and let the other nations go hang and find what they could.
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance. So the nations have a God-given inheritance then. Mm-hmm. Ha ha. How far can we bring that down to modern era? And then to ourselves. Well, of course, the New Testament epistles, particularly the epistle to the Ephesians, you will not need me to tell you, uses this term inheritance, doesn't it?
Let's keep our finger in Deuteronomy and turn to Ephesians. Verse eleven of chapter one. In whom also... But now the translations go differently, don't they? In whom also we received an inheritance or were given an inheritance.
Or it could be translated, in whom we were made an inheritance. Either translation would point to a fact. It could be that here Paul is saying, in whom, in Christ, we have received an inheritance. Because in the context, God is talking about Paul is talking about God's purpose, the secret of God's will.
For an administration of the fullness of times, to sum up everything in Christ. The whole thing in heaven and in earth, to be summed up in Christ. He will be its head. And when everything is summed up in Christ, it is the fact that believers in him will have their particular inheritance, in whom we have received our inheritance. On the other hand, if you translate it, and you'll need to consult the experts on this, if you translate it in whom we were made an inheritance or a heritage, then that could turn us back to this same chapter, Deuteronomy v- chapter thirty two and verse nine.
For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot, the goral of his inheritance. Hm. Astonishing. The Lord has his lot, does he? The Lord has his inheritance. And what might that be? Ha! Says here Jacob.
Would you congratulate God on having that bit of the inheritance? Given what you know about Jacob. If that's all the Lord got out of this vast universe, you say, wow. Half a minute before you answer that question. Are you part of God's inheritance? Are you part of the Lord's lot, so to speak? You are? Then may I ask whether you think God has done very well out of it?
This astonishing fact. And yes, uh, the verse goes on to say, doesn't it, how God found this Jacob. He found him in the desert land and in the waste howling wilderness. He compassed him about, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. God having found this rapscallion in a wilderness, kept him as his most valuable possession, like the very apple of his eye. Amazing story.
To change the metaphor, God through Jeremiah says to Israel, now gone off on her adulterous folly, I remember the day of mine espousals, when he took them for a peculiar possession. Let's look at those verses, because they also bring, uh, to us this same term of a special possession.
This is Exodus nineteen, uh Verse four. Exodus nineteen four, you have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.
Then you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This gentleman is not what Israel got out of their redemption from Egypt. This is what God got out of his redeeming of Israel out of Egypt. You shall be unto me a peculiar treasure, a treasure for my personal possession. Peculiar means, it doesn't mean, as you know, uh, odd, strange, curious. It means, it comes from the word peculium, your private possession. It shall be a specially, a private, valued possession.
This is God then talking about Israel and what God got out of their redemption. A peculiar treasure. Uh, a portion. God's lot. His heritage. So it is the fact, what however we translate Ephesians chapter one and verse ten, received an inheritance or made a he- inheritance, made a heritage, it is the fact, of course, that we are God. We are a peculiar people.
If you will remember one Peter, where it said, and again in chapter two explicitly, a peculiar people, God's own possession. And Titus chapter two has something to add on that score. So now we're thinking of the, uh, Lord's people. We're now in New Testament period, thinking how this notion of inheritance and lot, uh, and portion, uh, may, uh, uh, affect us, how they are might be related to us, and we're thinking of God's purpose for all his redeemed people in Ephesians here.
Notice the prayer in Ephesians one and verse eighteen: having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. That surely will need the revelation of God's Holy Spirit to us. We can read his written revelation in the Bible. We are the Lord's inheritance. It will need the active, uh, working of the Holy Spirit in our minds, hearts, and imaginations to come to see the reality of it.
What is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? Gentlemen, may the Holy Spirit help us in our preaching to convey it to the Lord's people. It's not just a little certificate entrance ticket to heaven, is salvation. We do need to get some grasp of the wealth, the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints.
Now let's look at a practical passage. One Peter three seven. One Peter three seven. uh You husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life.
Notice the term joint heirs. This is the idea of inheritance once more. Joint heirs of the grace of life. My purpose, gentlemen, in reading this verse is not to admonish you who are experts in a field of which I know nothing. I have no ambition to copy the example of those hundreds of thousands of bachelors headed by the Pope who they lay down the law for married couples. That's not my job in life. But I cannot refrain from noticing this expression, joint heirs, joint inheritors of the grace of life.
Talking about physical life, isn't it? Or emotional life. Which raises a question, doesn't it? The Israelites, dear souls, got their lot, their inheritance, mm, in terms of territory in the land of Canaan. Now we know that the nations are given their heritage, their part, their inheritance. What about us individually? Have you individually an inheritance from the Lord? A heritage?
You say, I got my, what I am largely by hereditary, you know, genes and all those things. So you did. Over generations. What do you think about that matter, gentlemen? Uh, uh, are you, I mean your makeup, your body, your health, or otherwise your brain, your emotions, all these other things that make up you? Are you simply and nothing other than the result of multitudinous random chances?
Or are you the inheritance of the Lord? That is what the Lord has given you. Do you think there's any control of hereditary? I'm aware it causes very big problems. People whose heredity will can- contain faulty genes. We're all sinners, aren't we? We all live under the curse of Eden, a fallen race. But could you honestly raise your heart and eyes to heaven and thank God for being you?
Because you feel that you have come to be under his providential care. What do you think about that, gentlemen? This does bring the matter of inheritance, doesn't it? Down to very personal and practical issues with wide implications. Easy for those who have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth, as we say in English. Beautiful physical, mental, emotional inheritance.
What about this, the less fortunate, as we call them? Did God have anything to do with it, any control of it? I raise the matter to you because, ultimately, the book of Ruth, with its major terms, literal to start with, then metaphors in the Psalms, and now with the terms borrowed to use in New Testament of spiritual things, the book of Ruth will raise these questions. This is not just an innocent little story to while away your interest in the doctor's surgery, or to distract your mind when you were sitting in the dentist's waiting room, thereafter to be forgotten.
But then there are other turns, aren't there, in this book of Ruth? Big turns upon which the story turns. And two of them are the terms of institutions in, uh, Israel at the time of the book of Ruth. The one is this matter of the kinsman redeemer. Hebrew goel. Though I should point out to you that the word kinsman rede- uh, redeemer, that is goel in Hebrew, intertwines so closely the idea of kinsman and redeemer, that it is sometimes difficult to know in any one context how you should translate it.
The English Standard Version, of which I have a copy here, in the book of Ruth, constantly translates the term goel by redeemer, whereas others translate it kinsman. The Hebrew word involves both. So let's read the, uh, key passage on this matter of the institution of the kinsman redeemer. It is Leviticus, chapter twenty five, verses twenty five to twenty eight.
Leviticus twenty five verses twenty to twenty eight. If thy brother, if your brother be waxed poor and sell some of his possessions, then shall his kinsman that is next unto him come and shall redeem that which his brother has sold. And if a man have no one to redeem it, and he himself be waxen rich and find sufficient to redeem it, then let him count the years of the sale thereof and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it, and he shall return unto his possession.
But if he be not able to get it back for himself, then that which he has sold shall remain in the hand of him that has bought it until the year of Jubilee. And in the Jubilee he shall go, uh, shall return unto his possession. Let's read in verse thirty nine. And if thy brother be waxed and poor with thee and sell himself unto thee, thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant. Thou shalt not make, uh, that as a hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with thee, he shall serve with thee until the year of Jubilee.
Verse forty seven. And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family, after that he is sold, he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him, or if he be waxen rich, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall he be with him.
If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of Jubilee, then he shall reckon with him. According unto his years, he shall, uh, he shall give back the price of his redemption. So two, uh, situations. One, a man that has sold something of his possession because he is poor and needs the ready cash. As a young couple might, you'll see, on the birth of a child, decide they haven't enough ready cash.
What are they going to do about it? So they sell, uh, the second Porsche that they have and, uh, make some cash out of it, ready cash, you see. Uh, uh, you could do that. You could sell some of your possession in Israel. If later on you got a lot of more money, you could, uh, uh, redeem it, buy it back, you'll see. You would have to have regard to the terms upon which you sold it, because in Israel, the inheritance had to return at the year of Jubilee. That is, every fifty years, the inheritance had to return to its original owner.
There were exceptions to the rule, such as property in the cities. They didn't return in the year of Jubilee. But territory, land had to return, and certain other possessions at the year of Jubilee anyway. So you always sold it on those terms. If you want to buy it back, you had to ask how many more years were left until the year of Jubilee, and you had to pay the price, of course. Or if you couldn't pay it and you were poor, your kinsman, your next relative, near relative, could redeem it.
Hence the word, the word Gaal, Goel in Hebrew, a relative and yet a one that was in the position to redeem, to buy back your possessions, your nachala. The other case where a man was so poor that he sold himself into slavery, and if he sold himself into slavery, uh, to a, a foreigner who was an immigrant in the land, the immigrant had to do business under the laws of the land. And the laws of the land were such as would be pointed out to him on the occasion of a sale.
If a man sold himself to a, a, an immigrant, it was, of course, understood only to the year of Jubilee. But then he could redeem himself, one, uh, if he got enough money, and two, a re- uh a near relative could redeem him. This is the basic idea then, and it is, uh, the one of the prominent ideas in the book of Ruth. The story turns on it, that Naomi eventually found a near kinsman that was prepared to redeem the land, the original inheritance that had belonged to Elimelech.
This kinsman redeemer, of course, that institution no longer is practiced in a modern Gentile commercial world. Though some gentlemen, particularly in the seventies and eighties, urged that this principle should be returned to modern, uh, countries' commerce. The notion of returning the land was a question of capital. Each family entering, uh, Israel, entering the land of Canaan, was given its land, which became the capital, the con- the the family's capital to be developed, to be farmed, to bring in the income.
You can't get any income if you haven't got capital to start with. And if somebody couldn't manage his farm and had to sell it, do you see, and now become a wage earner without any capital. In Israel, at the year of Jubilee, the capital had re- had to return to the particular family whose traditional farm this was, and some Christians, uh, argued that you ought to apply that to modern economics. I'm no economist, gentlemen, my remarks on this would be very feeble, but of course the presupposition of this was that it was God who brought them into the land anyway, and gave Israel this capital.
But of course, who knows, somebody could, uh, enlarge it maybe, because of what, uh, Deuteronomy says about God giving the nations their inheritances. But this off the cuff and by the point, uh, you'll see. Let's come to the New Testament. Um, anybody got any notions? And here I call upon you, gentlemen, to speak boldly. Has any of that notion of a kinsman redeemer come across into the New Testament doctrine of salvation? And if you think yes, be prepared to cite a solid scripture that says it so.
Don't all speak at once, because that's rude. It's Hebrews two to seventeen. Yeah, and what does that say, sir? It says, for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise be part of the same, that through death they might destroy him and the power of death, that is the devil. And in verse seventeen, wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest. Yeah. Magnificent words, aren't they? In fact, if you penetrate the darkness of Calvary and ask how Christ could bear the wrath of God for us, you will come to the very heart of this matter.
Some critics of the doctrine of atonement have argued that the very notion is unjust. How would it be just, they say, for God to punish an innocent third party instead of punishing the guilty. No judge, not even in Auster, would ever contemplate doing any such thing as punishing an innocent third party for the guilt of the criminal. And the answer to that, surely, is this, that Christ wasn't, he was innocent, certainly, he wasn't a third party.
No, he was one of us. Listen to it again. For as much as the children partook of flesh and blood, he had to. Do you see, it behooved him, he had to partake of the same. That's very strong language. Earlier in that chapter, you will read of God that in bringing many sons to glory, it became him. That is, it was fitting for him for whom all things were made. In bringing many sons to glory, to provide them with a captain of salvation. That was a fitting thing to do.
But if Christ put his hand to our redemption, then it was not only a fitting thing, it was a something that he had to do. It behoved him. The Greek says he had to take on flesh and blood like them. He is our representative. You'll see, and was able, because he is our representative, human as we, to stand in our place, though innocent, himself.
Yes, so that when he died, Romans six can tell us, in the sight of God, we died. When he was buried, we were buried. When he rose again, we rose again. He is our representative. The representative man. Before God. As in Adam, all die. So in Christ. He is the second man. He is the last Adam. But surely a member of our race. He is our kinsman redeemer.
One other technical term, another institution in ancient Israel must occupy us before we break for coffee. And that is what is called levirate marriage. Levirate is spelled, gentlemen, in case you don't use it every day of the week, L-E-V-I-R-A-T-E, L-E-V-I-R-A-T-E. Levirate marriage. And it is so called by those who like to show off their knowledge of Latin, because levir, L-E-V-I-R in Latin is the word for brother-in-law.
So it's brother-in-law marriage. And for this, let's turn to Deuteronomy this time. Deuteronomy chapter twenty five. Deuteronomy twenty five and verse five. If brothers dwell together, and one of them die and have no son, the wife of the dead shall not marry outside, that is outside the family, unto a stranger.
Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. And it shall be that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel. So this is not merely the name upon the inheritance, but a man's name itself.
Shall not be blotted out of Israel, as though he had never existed. This is the point of this system, therefore. Let's notice it right to start with. The enormous significance attaching to a man's name. Well, the name represents the person, and all the person was as an individual and stood for. The thought that a man's name could be blotted out as though he never had been.
What a ultimate nihilism, if that is the destiny of a man. Of course, it raises the bigger question, gentlemen, as you see, uh, uh, suppose you do marry and you have twenty four children, and each of them has a hundred grandchildren, and so on and so on, and you're a big name in history. What's going to happen to our planet? You and your name and your family name. Blotted out as it never had been. So that Michael the Archangel, if there be such, on an evolutionary view, having heard a little bang somewhere in the remote parts of the, uh, the galaxy, says to Michael, what was that?
Oh, I significance of the name of a man. So as it be not blotted out, then if a man die and have no children, his wife is to marry the deceased brother. Eh, and uh, their first child shall be named after the father, who's now dead.
And that had implications for the heri- i- inheritance, for the heritage, because this second brother, the brother-in-law now married the wife of the deceased, and he has his first child, but his first child's name would be upon his father's inheritance. It wouldn't belong to the m- his father. Mm-hmm. It would have to be the second son that took over that brother-in-law's heritage. This is the institution, therefore, levirate marriage, and we shall see at a crucial point in the story of Ruth how these two ideas come together.
Certainly they came together in Naomi's mind, for she was nothing if she wasn't a schemer. Uh, you'll see how they came together in her mind, the question of inheritance and the question of levirate marriage. So at least we have done some groundwork in our understanding of the book of Ruth. Let's break for coffee.
