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Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
Ruth 4:5-6BSB
Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi and also from Ruth the Moabitess, you must also acquire the widow of the deceased in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance." The kinsman-redeemer replied, "I cannot redeem it myself, or I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption, because I cannot redeem it."
Earlier text
When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her. The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man does not want to marry his brother's widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to preserve his brother's name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me." Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, "I do not want to marry her," his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal, spit in his face, and declare, "This is what is done to the man who will not maintain his brother's line." And his family name in Israel will be called "The House of the Unsandaled."
Deuteronomy 25:5-10 establishes the law of levirate marriage (יָבָם, yavam, "to perform the duty of a brother-in-law"), requiring a brother to marry his deceased brother's widow and raise offspring in the dead man's name so "his name will not be blotted out from Israel." Ruth 4:5-6 adapts and extends this institution: Boaz is not a brother-in-law but a broader kinsman (גֹּאֵל, go'el), and the transaction interweaves levirate obligation with land redemption. The sandal ceremony in Ruth 4:7-8 echoes Deuteronomy 25:9, though without the shaming elements of spitting and public disgrace. Ruth's narrative shows the levirate principle — preserving a dead man's name and inheritance — expanding beyond its strict legal parameters to encompass the wider institution of kinsman-redemption. The Deuteronomic refusal ritual — removal of the sandal, or חֲלִיצָה (chalitzah), with spitting and public shame — is invoked in Ruth 4:7-8 stripped of its disgrace, the sandal now signifying property transfer rather than reproach, and presenting Boaz as a model of covenant faithfulness where the nearer kinsman refused.