The article focuses on the use of the levirate and the land redemption in Ruth. It argues that Ruth, drawing on Torah texts, has fictionalized these laws. Ruth’s portrayal of these laws does not depict actual practice in the postexilic era, nor was it intended as a midrash per se on Torah laws. The book of Ruth, a story of return from exile, joined together the levirate and land redemption because these laws address the continuity of family and of inherited property. The story of the Judean family who long ago underwent “exile” and almost lost its family line and its ancestral land, but whose continuity was restored by means of Torah laws, is a metaphor for the exilic or postexilic community, which is being encouraged to see in the Torah the vehicle for its own continuity of people and land. The article also examines possible inner biblical interpretations of the go’el law in Ruth and in Jeremiah 32.
Wade in the Water …’: Rethinking Adoptees’ Stories of Reunion
