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Page 3
In the story of Ruth, the issue of land is subordinate to the issue of progeny. Both however are the concerns of Boaz as he persuaded the real next of kin to relinquish the right of redemption to him so that he can wed Ruth, Naomi's daughter-in-law.
The role of the "Next-Of-Kin" in Israel must be understood within the context of a corporate understanding of family relationships. All the members of the people of Israel are bodily extensions of the patriarch "Jacob/Israel" (hence "corporate" from the Latin "corpus", body) and therefore are related to one another as flesh and blood (hence they called each other "brother" and "sister."). The degree by which such relationships are determined is decided according to one's tribe, clan or family. Thus, in identifying an Israelite one says "X, son of Y, of the tribe of Z." There is no such thing as an individual considered separately from parents and relatives (this is a purely Western concept). All "individuals" are seen as subjects in their relationship with a family, clan or tribe. Genealogies, in this mindset, are important: they serve to locate the individual within the "corpus" of Israel. Through genealogies, one gets to know who is related to whom and who is included in Yahweh's bless-list or not. Since all individuals are seen in their relatedness, the smallest unit of the people of Israel is the household ("the family"), whose head is the father and whose "limbs", so to speak, is composed of the mother and children. Of these latter, the male offsprings bear the seed of the tribe to which they belong (the ancients haven't yet discovered that the females also have eggs) and therefore guarantee the survival of the tribe. The network of relationships that connect one family to another and both to the clan or tribe becomes the basis for determining the next-of-kin, who, by law, "fills in" for a family or clan member who can no longer perform a specified duty or right, e.g. have a child or redeem a piece of land. The word "levirate" comes from the Latin word "levir" which denoted, from a wife's perspective, "the husband's brother." As explained above, one must not understand "brother" in a purely horizontal sense, i.e. a male related to one by virtue of having the same father (e.g. James and John, the sons of Zebedee). It can also be applied to males sharing the same grandfather or great grandfathers. In an extreme case, the law of the levir was also made to apply to Judah with respect to his son Shelah (Gen. 38), making him "brother" to this latter, since both are -- in the sense explained above -- "sons of Jacob". (The wide meaning of the term "brother" in Israelite mentality should make us think twice about the way we interpret a passage like "James, the brother of the Lord.").
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