"The Book of Ruth"

by James Jacob Prasch

The book of Ruth tells the story of a rich powerful Jewish man who takes a Gentile Bride and exalts her, the way that Jesus, on the day of Pentecost, raised up the Gentile church, as the Bride of Christ.

  1. Introduction
  2. Ruth's Loyalty
  3. Ruth Gleans in the Fields of Boaz
  4. Boaz Will Redeem Ruth
  5. The Marriage of Ruth
  6. The Line of David Began Here
  7. Why Us?
  8. Something Special
  9. Orpah
  10. Ruth
  11. Levirate Marriage
  12. Imortance of Genealogy
  13. Gleaning
  14. I Will Bless Them That Bless Thee
  15. Sacrificing Babies to Demons
  16. Learning from Israel's Mistakes
  17. Second-Class Christians
  18. A Woman of Excellence
  19. The Key to Their Redemption
  20. Take the Grain to My People
  21. Redeemer and Restorer
Download the PDF version of this sermon.Download or email this sermon (~165k)

This sermon was transcribed from a recording and edited as appropriate for presentation in a published text format more suitable for reading. Purchase the audio version of this sermon from the Moriel online store.

Levirate Marriage

To go further, we need to understand certain things about the Torah. The Torah had geriatrical and legal provisions. Remember that the book of Ruth records the beginning of the lineage of David. However, the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew has certain discrepancies when compared with that in Luke. There are two main ways to account for those discrepancies. One of the ways is called “Levirate marriage.”

When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the first born whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate of the elders and say, "My husband's brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother to me." Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, "I do not desire to take her," then his brother's wife shall come to him in sight of the elders…

There had to be ten of them, a “minyan”…

…and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall declare, "Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house." And in Israel his name shall be called, "The house of him whose sandal is removed (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

Let me explain this.

Return to the Previous Page • Continue to the Next Page

This is Page 11 of 21

Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.