What is the symbolism of removing the sandal in Ruth 4?

Well, hey everyone. We’ve got a bit of a curious custom that I talked about just very, very briefly in my sermon from this past Sunday. We finished up our sermon series in the book of Ruth, and I just want to sort of set the stage for us to give us some context about this curious custom that I didn’t talk about much, but I want to dig a little bit with us today.

And the stage is set, we have our three main characters. We have Naomi, the mother-in-law of, of Ruth, who’s the second main character, and the husbands of both of these women have died. And then we have Boaz, and Boaz is the family member who’s a a relative who Ruth is drawn towards and Boaz is drawn towards Ruth and it’s like, hey, we see a romance budding here.

And what Boaz is presented with in the book of Ruth is an opportunity to be, uh, in a role called the kinsman-redeemer or the guardian-redeemer or some translations say the fam, uh, a family-redeemer. And what that basically means is this is found in the Old Testament law of Israel, that is provision made for widows in that when a woman’s husband dies and she has no one who can sort of step in at that time to take over the family name, the family line, the family land, then a family member could

step into that role, uh, and be the, the redeemer, so to speak, of that family and continue the family’s name and the family’s line. It was a super important role. And so Boaz wants to be the kinsman-redeemer for Ruth and for Naomi. And yet there’s a relative who’s more closely related to Naomi than Boaz is.

And so in chapter four of Ruth, we need to check in with this other fellow whose name we never learn and find out if he is interested in being the family-redeemer. If not, Boaz is happy to step in and be the family-redeemer, but this man needs to be given the first right of refusal, so to speak. So, we pick it up there in Ruth chapter four.

And it says, at this, meaning this man has been asked, you want to be the family redeemer of Naomi and then also you’ll have to marry Ruth? This man said, then I cannot redeem it. He he says, no, I’m not going to marry Ruth because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself, Boaz. I cannot do it.

And then it says in verse seven of chap, of Ruth four, now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and the transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. And this was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel. So the guardian-redeemer said to Boaz, you buy it yourself. You be the redeemer.

And this man removed his sandal. Well, that little kind of parenthetical aside helps us in verse seven to see, well, what is going on? What’s the symbolism of the shoe removal? And back then, uh, because feet represented power and domination and possession, it makes sense, as verse seven tells us, that the giving of a shoe would be symbolic of the sealing of a transaction, similar to signing your name on the dotted line or a firm handshake to seal a deal.

But there’s something else going on that I think, to me, is very enlightening. It tells us about, uh, this important custom of redemption in Israel. And it also really tells us quite a bit about the character of God. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 25. Yes, Deuteronomy, we don’t go there too often. But in chapter 25, we have a few verses that shed some more light on this custom, the symbolism of the exchanging of the shoe.

It says, in verse six, or excuse me, verse five of, of Deuteronomy 25, if brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall bear or shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

Okay, well, that’s what we’ve seen here so far in Ruth. However, Deuteronomy 25 goes on, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders of the town and say, my husband’s brother refuses to carry on the, uh, his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.

And then the elders of the town shall summon this man and talk to him. And if he persists in saying, nope, I don’t want to marry her, then the brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and say, this is what is done to the man who will not hold up his brother’s family line. That man’s line shall be known in Israel as the family of the unsandaled.

And this woman, uh, spits on this, uh, man’s face. It says here in the text. So, what is going on here? We see this in Ruth chapter four, short of the spitting on the face, but what we know from this text is that the symbolism here is pretty high. It’s telling us a couple of things. Is one, that yes, this is the sealing of a deal, but this is reinforcing what a dishonoring, a disgraceful and shameful thing it would be for a person to refuse to step in and to provide for their family.

The spitting in the face, the, the, the, the labeling this person, this, uh, the unsandaled one, this was meant to be a public ceremony that would serve as a deterrent, so to speak, uh, uh, some positive peer pressure to cause a person to really think hard and long about the importance of family and stepping into this role.

And they took it super seriously. And that makes sense because then that points us back to God’s relationship with Israel, where God promises, uh, a continuing line to Israel, and God promises land and property, and that he will be their God through all generations. So no wonder he would step in and say that this is an important practice.

This became part of the law. It was, it was legal to refuse to step in and be the family-redeemer, but boy, was it looked down upon, such that wherever this man in Ruth 4, again we don’t know his name, wherever he went for the remainder of his days, he would be known as the unsandaled one, which to us doesn’t seem like that’s that big of a deal.

You know, this is a, a curious custom, as I called it earlier. But this is super important in reminding us of how important family is and obedience to all of God’s commands are. And in a theological sense, to me, this is the most exciting piece, this points us forward ultimately to Jesus. Jesus is found on all the pages of the Old Testament.

And what this is showing is that Jesus is one day going to come, and he did come, and he’s going to fulfill the role as the ultimate kinsman-redeemer, who would rescue and redeem for himself a people in order to ensure his family members, that’s anyone who follows Jesus and professes faith in Jesus as their sin-bearer, anyone who’s part of Jesus’ family, he will ensure their eternal inheritance.

So Jesus is the ultimate kinsman-redeemer. Again, a curious custom, a little detail most of us would just sort of read past and not even think twice about. What do these details from something more than 3,000 years ago in an ancient Near Eastern culture have to do with us? Well, it’s telling us about the character of God, and as we see throughout the Old Testament, it’s pointing us forward towards Jesus. And that is incredible news.

Thanks so much for joining us today for this question.