And he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, Sit ye down here. And they sat down.
The verse stands in the beautiful, brief pastoral book of Ruth, a little pastoral tale from the time of the judges showing the sweet, simple home life among the children of Israel and God's care for the Seed. The closing chapter where it stands brings out the ancestry of the Lord Jesus, into which a Moabite woman is brought, for the Moabitess Ruth became one of the progenitors of the blessed Lord according to the flesh. The action takes place at the gate of the ancient city, where magistrates and judges sat each day to hear and decide cases of complaint and litigation. Ancient cities were surrounded by a high wall for defense, with an extra wall built outside each gate in the form of a half circle, leaving a crescent-shaped space where seats were erected for them.
In the lawful public way at the city gate, Boaz as Go'el takes ten men of the elders of the city and asks them to sit as witnesses to the matter he is about to address. He convenes them to witness his dealing with the nearer kinsman about redeeming the parcel of land that was Elimelech's, or Naomi's inheritance, and about taking Ruth the Moabitess as wife according to the Israelite custom for redeeming family property and raising up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. The nearer kinsman has first right to redeem the inheritance, but he declines, leaving Boaz free to act. The verse belongs to the arrangement for a brother or kinsman to marry a widow so a dead man's inheritance in the land of Canaan would not pass out of his family, with the firstborn counted as the heir of the one who died so the homestead would be retained and the name of the dead raised up upon his inheritance.
As part of the public redemption of land before ten elders of the city, the verse shows that the law of the inalienability of landed property based upon the Jubilee was still in force among the Jews, proving that the Jubilee must have been observed. The redemption in the chapter gives a lesson as a type of the Lord and points forward to Christ, who had the right to redeem and did so through the sacrifice of his life. The account illustrates the law that the legal redemption of a person or inheritance, including a lost inheritance or a person in bondage, fell to the nearest relative by blood who was able to redeem after the nearest eligible relative was publicly identified in a proceeding with elders present as witnesses. Jesus became humanity's nearest kin by blood by taking human flesh and blood, and he alone is able to redeem humanity and its lost inheritance.
Lot sitting in the gate of Sodom therefore means he had gained a position of honor and influence as a magistrate and judge among them, and he was filling his post of duty when the heavenly messengers came. The arrangement for preserving a dead man's inheritance will be unnecessary for those accounted worthy of the resurrection from the dead, because they cannot die anymore and each man's inheritance in the new earth will remain unimpaired throughout eternity.
The verse stands in the beautiful, brief pastoral book of Ruth, a little pastoral tale from the time of the judges showing the sweet, simple home life among the children of Israel and God's care for the Seed. The closing chapter where it stands brings out the ancestry of the Lord Jesus, into which a Moabite woman is brought, for the Moabitess Ruth became one of the progenitors of the blessed Lord according to the flesh. The action takes place at the gate of the ancient city, where magistrates and judges sat each day to hear and decide cases of complaint and litigation. Ancient cities were surrounded by a high wall for defense, with an extra wall built outside each gate in the form of a half circle, leaving a crescent-shaped space where seats were erected for them.
In the lawful public way at the city gate, Boaz as Go'el takes ten men of the elders of the city and asks them to sit as witnesses to the matter he is about to address. He convenes them to witness his dealing with the nearer kinsman about redeeming the parcel of land that was Elimelech's, or Naomi's inheritance, and about taking Ruth the Moabitess as wife according to the Israelite custom for redeeming family property and raising up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. The nearer kinsman has first right to redeem the inheritance, but he declines, leaving Boaz free to act. The verse belongs to the arrangement for a brother or kinsman to marry a widow so a dead man's inheritance in the land of Canaan would not pass out of his family, with the firstborn counted as the heir of the one who died so the homestead would be retained and the name of the dead raised up upon his inheritance.
As part of the public redemption of land before ten elders of the city, the verse shows that the law of the inalienability of landed property based upon the Jubilee was still in force among the Jews, proving that the Jubilee must have been observed. The redemption in the chapter gives a lesson as a type of the Lord and points forward to Christ, who had the right to redeem and did so through the sacrifice of his life. The account illustrates the law that the legal redemption of a person or inheritance, including a lost inheritance or a person in bondage, fell to the nearest relative by blood who was able to redeem after the nearest eligible relative was publicly identified in a proceeding with elders present as witnesses. Jesus became humanity's nearest kin by blood by taking human flesh and blood, and he alone is able to redeem humanity and its lost inheritance.
Lot sitting in the gate of Sodom therefore means he had gained a position of honor and influence as a magistrate and judge among them, and he was filling his post of duty when the heavenly messengers came. The arrangement for preserving a dead man's inheritance will be unnecessary for those accounted worthy of the resurrection from the dead, because they cannot die anymore and each man's inheritance in the new earth will remain unimpaired throughout eternity.