(M38) Such was the scorn felt for the man who refused to perform the duties of nearest kinsman. In the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis is told the story of Tamar, the wife of Judah’s eldest son who died childless. The second son’s refusal to raise up seed to his brother because he knows that _his own name will not be perpetuated thereby, but his brother’s_, meets with summary punishment. “And the thing that he did was evil in the sight of the Lord, and He slew him also.”(72) Afterwards, when it was reported to her father-in-law that Tamar had a child by some one not of his family, he was exceedingly wroth, and said, “Bring her forth and let her be burnt.” Accordingly, after he had received his own “tokens” from her hand, his approval of her action, in her desire to perpetuate the name of her dead husband, is all the more striking, and shows how real such a claim as Tamar’s was in the practice of those days, extreme though her action was felt to be. And Judah acknowledged his tokens and said, “She hath been more righteous than I: because that I gave her not to Shelah my [youngest] son.” (M39) The statement of the customary procedure in Deuteronomy is very picturesquely illustrated and fulfilled in detail in the story of Ruth, who though only a daughter-in-law takes the position of heiress through a sort of adoption by her mother-in-law Naomi, on her refusal to go back to her own people. “Where thou goest, I will go: where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.” She accepts Naomi’s hearth her kin, her religion, and finally her tomb. Elimelech and his two sons dying in Moab, Naomi and both her daughters-in-law are left widows in a strange land. If Naomi had other sons, upon them would have devolved the duty of taking Orpah and Ruth to wife. But Naomi declares herself(73) too old to marry again and be the mother of sons, and implores her daughters-in-law to return to their own people in Moab, where she hopes they will start afresh with new husbands, a course which seems always to have been open to wives in tribal communities. Orpah does so, but Ruth elects to remain with Naomi, and returning with her to Bethlehem takes her chance among the kindred of Elimelech. Happening to arrive at Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest, it so chances that Ruth goes forth to glean upon that part of the open field which belonged to Boaz—a rich man of the συγγενία of Elimelech, who, having heard of her devotion to Naomi and the house of his late kinsmen, protects her from possible insult from strangers and treats her richly. On her return home Naomi informs her that Boaz is of their next of kin (τῶν ἀγχιστευόντων)(74) whose place it was to redeem property sold or lost by a kinsman. This duty is thus set forth in Leviticus:—