Ruth 4:7 (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.)
Some people have lots of shoes, and not just women. Some men collect shoes, especially athletic shoes, and store them carefully in their boxes, rarely worn, ready for resale when the become valuable. Most women who collect shoes aren’t thinking resale. They want the shoes to go with a particular outfit.
I have four pairs of shoes that I wear all the time. I have one other pair that I wear if I am performing a wedding or a funeral. Otherwise, they stay tucked away in my closet. Shoes are just something that keep my feet from getting torn up on the hot solid surfaces of the Florida sun. What they look like really doesn’t matter to me.
My wife has a few more pairs, but only a few more. We are not shoe collectors! We don’t have a special closet or room to hold them. They are just on the floor of our closet.
Our text talks about another type of shoe collection that happened in ancient Israel. Shoes were used as a receipt when real estate was bought and sold. The shoe became the property title document. Who ever had the shoe owned the property.
Doesn’t this sound a bit strange to our ears! How could a shoe be the legal document that sealed a real estate deal? They did have writing back then. They recorded sales of other things on clay tablets and broken pottery. But why a shoe?
So what would happen if someone purchased a lot of real estate. What would they do with all the extra shoes? Maybe they would all be the left shoe like shoe store display cases do today.
But Israel had a unique system of real estate ownership. Every fifty years, all real estate had to be returned to the original owner. Once in a lifetime, all lands were returned to their ancestral owners. No real estate purchase was permanent.
Real estate purchases were prorated based on the number of harvests that remained before the land was returned. More harvests, the more the land was worth during the sale.
But there was more. Our passage tells us that there were ten witnesses collected to witness this transaction. The gathering of ten men constituted a legal gathering. These same men could be questioned in the future about the transaction and validate the claims made about the land and the identity of the shoe owner.
And, just like today, people’s feet leave different impressions in shoes. Perhaps the foot impressions could be compared to further confirm the owner’s identity. Maybe this is the first instance of forensic science at work!
The character of Boaz, the purchaser of the property, became an example of honorable living. He was the type of man that exemplified the difference that humans could make if they surrendered to the LORD. He was truly a blessed human, and this meant that those around him were also blessed.
This blessing extended through the child born following this transaction. This child was the grandfather of King David. Imagine this. The child born to this foreign-born widow of a descendent of Judah would have his name remembered in Jesus’ genealogy.
When we honor the LORD the way Boaz did, this opens the door to the blessing of the LORD to flow. There is no guarantee of blessing in this life, but blessing often does come. Are you willing to step into the blessing of the LORD?
The Arnold Journey 