Deuteronomy 25:5

_IF BRETHREN DWELL TOGETHER, AND ONE OF THEM DIE, AND HAVE NO CHILD, THE WIFE OF THE DEAD SHALL NOT MARRY WITHOUT UNTO A STRANGER: HER HUSBAND'S BROTHER SHALL GO IN UNTO HER, AND TAKE HER TO HIM TO WIFE, AND PERFORM THE DUTY OF AN HUSBAND'S BROTHER UNTO HER._ Her husband's brother shall ... take her to him to wife. This usage existed before the age of Moses (Genesis 38:8; Genesis 38:11), and seems to have originated in patriarchal times, for preserving the name and honours of the oldest son-the chieftain of the family. But the Mosaic law rendered the custom obligatory (Matthew 22:25) on younger brothers, or the nearest kinsman, to marry the widow ...

5._If brethren dwell together, and one of them die_. This law has some similarity with that which permits a betrothed person to return to the wife, whom he has not yet taken; since the object of both is to preserve to every man what he possesses, so that he may not be obliged to leave it to strangers, but that he may have heirs begotten of his own body: for, when a son succeeds to the father, whom he represents, there seems to be hardly any change made. Hence, too, it is manifest how greatly pleasing to God it is that no one should be deprived of his property, since He makes a provision even for the dying, that what they could not resign to others without regret and annoyance, should be preserved to their offspring. Unless, therefore, his kinsman should obviate the dead man’s childlessness, this inhumanity is accounted a kind of theft. For, since to be childless was a curse of God, it wa...

5-12 The custom here regulated seems to have been in the Jewish law in order to keep inheritances distinct; now it is unlawful....

The law of levirate marriage. The law on this subject is not unique to the Jews, but is found (see Genesis 38:8) in all essential respects the same among various Oriental nations, ancient and modern. The rules in these verses, like those upon divorce, do but incorporate existing immemorial usages, and introduce various wise and politic limitations and mitigations of them. The root of the obligation here imposed upon the brother of the deceased husband lies in the primitive idea of childlessness being a great calamity (compare Genesis 16:4; and note), and extinction of name and family one of the greatest that could happen (compare Deuteronomy 9:14;...

EXPOSITION LAWS RELATING TO CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, LEVIRATE MARRIAGES, AND WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. DEUTERONOMY 25:1 The first and second verses should be read as one sentence, of which the protasis is in Deuteronomy 25:1 and the apodosis in Deuteronomy 25:2, thus: IF THERE BE A STRIFE BETWEEN MEN, AND THEY COME TO JUDGMENT, AND THEY (_i_._e_._ _the judges) give judgment on them, and justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked, then

IF BRETHREN DWELL TOGETHER,.... Not only in the same country, province, town, or city, but in the same house; such who had been from their youth brought up together in their father's house, and now one of them being married, as the case put supposes, they that were unmarried might live with him, and especially if the father was dead; and so may except such as were abroad, and in foreign countries, or at such a distance that this law coals not well be observed by them; though the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi, interpret it of their being united in an inheritance, all by virtue of relation having a claim to their father's inheritance; so that it mattered not where they dwelt, it is the relation that is regarded, and their right of inheritance; and the above Targum describes them as brethren on the father's side, and so Jarchi says excepts his brother on the mother's side; for brethren...

21. VARIOUS LAWS AND RESPONSIBILITIES CHAPTER 25 _ 1. Corporal punishment (Deuteronomy 25:1)_ 2. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox (Deuteronomy 25:4) 3. The brother-in-law's marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5) 4. Concerning a sinful freedom (Deuteronomy 25:11) 5. Concerning divers weights and measures (Deuteronomy 25:13) 6. Concerning the conquest of Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:17

DEUTERONOMY 25:1. Another of Dt.'s humanitarian laws. Punishment by the bastinado among the ancient Hebrews and Egyptians was common (see Wilkinson- Birch, _Ancient Egyptians_, i. pp. 305, 308). The present writer saw it in Egypt in 1888; see Exodus 21:20 (showing that a slave was sometimes beaten to death), Proverbs 10:13; Proverbs 19:29. Deuteronomy 25:3. The forty stripes became thirty- nine (2 Corinthians 11:24) i

IF BRETHREN, &C. Compare Genesis 38:8; Ruth 4:5, &c. Matthew 22:24.Mark 12:19; Luke 20:28. STRANGER. foreigner....

_brethren_ of the same mother. In the Sg. passages, as we have seen, _brother_is fellow-Israelite. _dwell together_ On the same estate (cp. Genesis 13:6; Genesis 36:7); this limitation is striking. _son_ LXX _seed_, followed by Jos. IV. _Antt._viii. 23, and in Matthew 22:24; Mark 12:19; Luke 20:28 has _children_. So Vulg. and most moderns, A.V. _child_. But the LXX and the quotations in the gospels are evidently under the influence of the later law of P which allowed inheritance by daughters. See introd. note. Son