6. ancient law of redemption

 Chapter 7: 6 

Six. The ancient law of redemption. 

 Picture this. 

A widowed mother tells her young daughter-in-law, also a widow, to slip out at night to the threshing floor where a powerful man is sleeping and lie down at his feet. 

Sounds like a terrible plan, doesn't it? 

Advice that could end in disaster, disgrace, or something even worse. 

Yet, this act, so seemingly reckless, and risky, is actually one of the most powerful pictures of redemption in the entire Bible. 

And the plot thickens. 

This young woman is a Moabitete. 

Why does that matter? 

Because Israel's law was strict about her people. 

Deuteronomy says it bluntly, "No Ammonite or Moabitete may enter the assembly of the Lord, not even to the 10th generation." 

So, how can a woman from an excluded people end up married to a hero of Israel and become the great grandmother of the mighty King David? 

This is Ruth's story. 

A young widow, an immigrant from a people deemed an enemy. 

 She arrives in a foreign land with her mother-in-law Naomi, who has also lost everything. 

They have no money, no social standing, no future. 

In that culture, being a widow without children was a sentence to poverty and oblivion. 

Their only hope of not starving is for Ruth to go into the fields and glean the stalks the reapers drop. 

A humble task reserved for the very poor. 

One day, Providence leads her to the field of a good and wealthy man named Boaz. 

To her surprise, he treats her with extraordinary kindness. 

He protects her, makes sure she has water to drink and plenty of food. 

The story moves along and everything seems to be heading toward a happy ending. 

But then Naomi gives Ruth an instruction that sounds so strange and dangerous. 

"Go at night to the threshing floor where Boaz is sleeping. Uncover his feet and lie down there."

 Why? 

Why take a risk that could so easily be misunderstood in the worst possible way? 

This doesn't read like a conventional love story. 

It sounds like a desperate plan. 

Here, the story stops being a simple romance and becomes something far greater. 

What Ruth was doing was not an act of seduction. 

It was a legal appeal, a deep and powerful cultural claim. 

By uncovering Boaz's feet and lying down under the edge of his cloak, Ruth was symbolically saying,  "l am unprotected. I have no one to defend me. Cover me with your protection. Redeem me." 

Her own words confirm it when Boaz awakens. 

" Spread the corner of your garment over your servant, for you are a kinsman redeemer." 

She was invoking one of Israel's most fascinating laws, the law of the kinsman redeemer in Hebrew, the goel ( גוֹאֵל ). 

And here's the key that brings everything into focus. 

In ancient Israel, if a family lost its land or was forced into slavery because of debts, not just anyone could step in to rescue them. 

The kinsman redeemer law set two very strict conditions for the one who would redeem.

First, he had to have the price. 

He needed to be wealthy enough to pay the debt. 

Second, and this is crucial, he had to be a blood relative, a member of the same family. 

A generous millionaire might give you a handout out of pity, but he couldn't legally redeem your inheritance or restore your lineage. 

Only a brother, an uncle, or a cousin had that right and that obligation. 

Boaz grasps the gesture instantly. 

He doesn't see it as something immoral, but as an act of deep family loyalty. 

So he says to her, "May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. This last act of loyalty is greater than the first because you haven't gone after the young men, whether poor or rich." 

Boaz sees that Ruth isn't chasing a personal whim, but the restoration of her fallen family. 

But the tension doesn't end. 

Just when it seems everything is settled, Boaz reveals an obstacle. 

" It's true that l am a kinsman redeemer, but there is another relative closer than I am. "

The plan could fall apart. 

The next day, Boaz goes to the city gate, the place where legal transactions were finalized. 

He calls that other relative and in the presence of the elders, offers him the chance to redeem Naomi's land. 

The man agrees at once until Boaz adds the crucial condition. 

"The day you buy the field, you must also take Ruth the Moabitete to preserve the name of the deceased upon his inheritance." 

Hearing this, the other kinsman backs out. 

He doesn't want to entangle his own inheritance with a foreigner. 

So, in a public act, he slips off a sandal and hands it to Boaz. 

That gesture was the equivalent of signing before a notary, an unbreakable public seal. 

Boaz then redeems the land and takes Ruth as his wife. 

Now, pause a moment and think, why does the Bible spend so much time on legal details about kinsmen and sandals?

What does this ancient custom have to do with us today? 

This is where this Old Testament love story bursts into a theological truth that changes everything. 

We as humanity were in the very same position as Ruth. 

We were outsiders with no claim in the kingdom of God. 

We were in debt because of sin, spiritually bankrupt with no way out. 

We desperately needed a redeemer from heaven. 

God had the power and the wealth to pay our debt. 

He owns it all. 

But there was a legal issue in the court of the universe. 

God was not our blood relative. 

God is spirit. 

We are flesh and blood. 

He was not part of our family. 

Under the strict law of the goel, the kinsman redeemer, an outsider couldn't carry out the redemption. 

To be our redeemer, he couldn't be an angel or   some far-off celestial being. 

He had to become one of us. 

He had to become our kin. 

And that's exactly what Jesus did. 

Hebrews says it in a stunning way. 

Since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same so that through death he might destroy the one who held the power of death. 

Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every way so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God to  make atonement for the sins of the people. 

Do you see it now? 

The Messiah had to take on our blood. 

It wasn't poetic flourish. 

It was a legal requirement of heaven. 

Jesus was born a human baby, carried human DNA, and bled human blood so that he could become legitimately our kinsman redeemer. 

Christ became our Boaz. 

He had the infinite price to pay our debt, his perfect sinless life. 

And he made himself our kin. 

He became a man so he would have the legal right to sign the papers for our freedom. 

And unlike the other relative in the story, Jesus was willing to pay the full price, no matter the cost. 

He redeemed us not with gold or silver, but with his own life. 

Ruth's story has one final twist that ties the circle perfectly. 

Ruth, the rejected Moabite, a foreigner from an enemy people once redeemed by Boaz, bears him a son named Obed. 

Obed is the father of Jesse, and Jesse is the father of King David. 

The rescued foreigner becomes the great grandmother of Israel's greatest king and a direct ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus himself. 

God used a love story in a barley field to teach us the deepest theology. 

The redeemer had to become one of us in order to buy us back and bring us home. 

Chapter 8: 7 ( Click here to continue )

Seven, the bronze serpent. 

In the Ten Commandments, God unequivocally forbids making images or idols. 

Yet soon after, God himself commands Moses to craft a bronze statue. 

And not a statue of just anything, but of a serpent, the very creature that deceived Eve in the garden, the universal symbol of evil. 

Why would God use the image of his enemy to save his own people? 

The answer unveils one of the deepest and most astonishing mysteries of the plan of redemption, and it all begins here. 

Picture the scene.  ...