This is Scripture Roundtable 70 from The Interpreter Foundation, in which we discuss the Old Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson #20, “All the City … Doth Know That Thou Art a Virtuous Woman,” focusing on scriptures in Ruth 1-4, and 1 Samuel 1-2, bringing in various insights to help us better understand the scriptures. These roundtables will generally follow the 2014 Gospel Doctrine schedule of scriptures, a few weeks ahead of time.
Panelists for this roundtable include John Gee, Stephen Smoot, and Craig Foster.
This roundtable is also available as an audio podcast, and will be included in the podcast feed. You can listen by pressing the play button or download the podcast below:
Podcast: Download (Duration: 33:23 — 11.5MB)
I believe a careful reading of Ruth will show that Levirate Marriage was not involved, but rather the concept of the go’el or redeeming kinsman, since neither Mr. So and So nor Boaz was a brother of Ruth’s dead husband Mahlon. Indeed they both were kinsmen of Naomi’s husband Elimelech. The go’el had the opportunity to redeem Elimelech’s land, BUT along with that economic opportunity went the obligation to marry Ruth and provide a male heir to Mahlon (who would inherit that land upon the death of the go’el). That’s why Mr. So and So declined. (Why spend good money on property that would not pass on to his heir?) So the Levirate Marriage concept had been expanded since the time of Deuteronomy to be one of the duties of the go’el if there were no brothers of the dead husband.