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Echoes Across Civilizations

A widow and her husband's family

Did other ancient laws provide for a widow to marry into her late husband's family?

What the relationship labels mean
  • Possible historical contact: The cultures were in contact, so one tradition could have known the other.
  • Shared literary world: The stories appear to share older roots or a common cultural setting.
  • Similar human experience: Different peoples responding to similar realities, such as river floods.
  • Resemblance only: A real similarity worth noticing; no historical connection has been established.
  • Modern speculative theory: A modern interpretation, not an ancient source. Not supported by authenticated evidence.

Hittite · Anatolia

Hittite Laws §193

Shared literary world
Composed
c. 16th–14th century BC
Earliest surviving copy
Clay tablets from Hattusa

If a married man dies, his brother takes the widow; if the brother dies, his father may take her.

Similar

  • Widow married within the husband's family
  • Extends beyond the brother

Different

  • No mention of preserving the dead man's name

Middle Assyrian · Assyria

Middle Assyrian Laws A §§30, 33, 43

Shared literary world
Composed
c. 14th–11th century BC
Earliest surviving copy
Clay tablets from Assur

A widow or betrothed woman may be given to another son or relative of her father-in-law.

Similar

  • The family keeps the bride and her bride-price

Different

  • Focus on property and marriage payments

Israelite · Canaan

Tamar and Judah

Possible historical contact
Composed
Genesis 38
Earliest surviving copy
Qumran Genesis fragments; Hebrew codices

Tamar, denied the brother-in-law marriage owed her, secures an heir from Judah himself; their son Perez is Boaz's ancestor.

Similar

  • A widow acts boldly to preserve a family line
  • Named in the blessing of Ruth 4:12

Different

  • Deception; no redemption of land

Full investigations

Back to the story

  • The Threshing Floor and the Nearer Redeemer →Naomi sends Ruth, washed and anointed, to the threshing floor at night, to uncover Boaz's feet and lie down. At midnight he wakes startled. Ruth asks him to spread his garment's wing over her, for he is a redeemer. Boaz praises her, promises to act, but warns that a nearer redeemer has the first right. He sends her home before dawn with six measures of barley.
  • The City Gate, the Land, the Sandal and the Marriage →Boaz sits at the gate, calls the nearer redeemer and ten elders, and offers him Naomi's field. The man agrees, until Boaz adds that whoever acquires the field also acquires Ruth, to raise up the dead man's name. He declines, takes off his sandal and gives it to Boaz. Boaz calls the elders to witness, and the people bless the marriage: like Rachel and Leah, like the house of Perez.
  • Judah, Tamar, and Joseph's Trials →Tamar risks everything to claim the justice Judah denied her. In Egypt, Joseph resists Potiphar's wife, is imprisoned on a false charge, and interprets two officials' dreams.
  • Fair Punishment, Family Duty, Honest Weights, and Amalek →Beatings are capped at forty, "lest… thy brother should seem vile unto thee." Do not muzzle the threshing ox. A widow whose husband died childless marries his brother, or publicly removes his sandal if he refuses. Keep honest weights. And "remember what Amalek did," and blot out its memory.
  • I Know That My Redeemer Liveth →Job says his friends have insulted him ten times. God has fenced his way and stripped his glory. His brothers, acquaintances, relatives, guests, servants, his wife and even young children reject him; he has escaped "with the skin of my teeth." He wishes his words were carved in rock with an iron pen and lead. Then: "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," and he will see God. Each phrase of 19:25–27 can be translated several ways.
  • Investigation: Job's Lawsuit Against God →Job's speeches use the language of an ancient lawsuit: contend, case, answer, be in the right, summon, witness, indictment. He wishes for an arbiter (9:33), prepares his case (13:18), appeals to a witness in heaven (16:19), asks God to stand surety for him (17:3), declares that his redeemer lives (19:25), seeks God's judgment seat (23:3) and signs his oath demanding a written charge (31:35). God answers (38:1) but turns the courtroom into a cosmos. The verdict (42:7) goes to Job.