injustice to have allowed the privilege of redeeming a property to the kinsman who refused to act as

kinsman. Instead of preserving a name in Israel, it would in reality have extinguished it for ever.

This was precisely the point in discussion between Boaz and the unnamed kinsman. Boaz brought, first,

before him the privilege of the kinsman: redemption of the land. This he accepted. But when Boaz next

reminded him, that this privilege carried with it a certain duty towards Ruth, and that, if the latter were

refused, the former also was forfeited, he ceded his rights to Boaz.  336 The bargain was ratified according to

ancient custom in Israel by a symbolical act, of which we find a modification in Deuteronomy 25:9. Among

all ancient nations the "shoe" was a symbol either of departure (Exodus 12:11), or of taking possession

(comp. Psalm 60:8).337

In this instance the kinsman handed his shoe to Boaz - that is, ceded his possession to him. Alike the

assembled elders, and those who had gathered around to witness the transaction, cordially hailed its

conclusio n by wishes which proved, that "all the city knew that Ruth was a virtuous woman," and were

prepared to receive the Moabitess as a mother in Israel, even as Thamar had proved in the ancestry of Boaz.

It had all been done in God and with God, and the blessing invoked was not withheld. A son gladdened the

hearts of the family of Bethlehem. Naomi had now a "redeemer," not only to support and nourish her, nor

merely to "redeem" the family property, but to preserve the name of the family in Israel. And that "redeemer"

- a child, and yet not a child of Boaz; a redeemer-son, and yet not a son of Naomi - was the father of Jesse.

And so the story which began in poverty, famine, and exile leads up to the throne of David. Undoubtedly

this was the main object for which it was recorded: to give us the history of David's family; and with his

genealogy, traced not in every link but in symbolical outline,338 the Book of Ruth appropriately closes. It is

the only instance in which a book is devoted to the domestic history of a woman, and that woman a stranger

in Israel. But that woman was the Mary of the Old Testament.

Comp. such a Missionary Psalm as the 87th; also such passages as Psalm 96:9; Isaiah 44:5.

Some modern negative critics have even broached the theory -of course, wholly unfounded - that

originally the Book of Joshua had formed with the five books of Moses Hexateuch.

The others are the Books of Samuel and of the Kings.

Or, "across the Jordan of Jericho," i.e., that part of the Jordan which watere d Jericho.

The name Arboth still survives in the Arabah, which stretches from a little farther south to the Elanitic Gulf

of the Red Sea.

By a peculiar Aramaic interchange of letters, St. Peter writes the name Bosor: 2 Peter 2:15.

It is of curious interest, that precisely the same names occur in the royal Edomitish family: Genesis 36:32.

By Bishop Harold Browne, from the analogy of his father's name to that of later Midianite chiefs - the name

Zippor, "bird," reminding us of Oreb, "crow," and Zeeb, "wolf." The later Targumim also regard Balak as of

Midianitish origin.