Deuteronomy 25:6

_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 ...

5-12 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

AND IT SHALL BE [THAT] THE FIRSTBORN THAT SHE BEARETH,.... To her husband's brother, now married to her: SHALL SUCCEED IN THE NAME OF HIS BROTHER [WHICH IS] DEAD; the meaning is, as the Targum of Jonathan, "he shall rise up in the inheritance in the name of his brother;'' or, as Jarchi expresses it, "he shall take the inheritance of the deceased in the goods of his father;'' that is, he shall have his part and share in the inheritance that the deceased brother would have had if he had lived, which would come to him by his father: THAT HIS NAME BE NOT PUT OUT OF ISRAEL; that the family be not lost in Israel, and the inheritance belonging to it pass to another. This law was designed to keep families distinct, and inheritances in them, until the Messiah came, and that it might appear from what family he came; as he did from one in whom, as it is generally thought, this law took place:...

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

PUT OUT. blotted out....

Of Levirate Marriage If, of brothers dwelling together, one die childless, his widow shall not marry beyond the family, her husband's brother shall marry her, and their firstborn be the dead man's heir and continue his name in Israel (Deuteronomy 25:5 f.). But if the husband's brother decline this duty, even if after it is pressed on him by the elders, then, in their presence, shall the widow formally dishonour him as a recusant to the family, and the dishonour shall adhere (Deuteronomy 25:7-10). Peculiar to D's code, but neither in the direct address nor with D's phraseology. It has the same opening, the same care in putting the case, the same style of introducing conditions (_but if_and not D's _only_= _rak_, see on...

_VER._ 5-10. _IF BRETHREN DWELL TOGETHER,_ &C.— The great end of this law was, to preserve inheritances in the families to which they belonged: and the meaning plainly is, that, if a brother died without children, the next unmarried relation, whether brother or kinsman, was to marry the wife of the deceased, and raise up children to him. This appears evidently from the case put to our Saviour, as well as from the affair of Ruth and Boaz. A lenient provision, however, is made for such relations as should not choose to marry the brother's wife, though a degree of infamy is attached to the refusal. The wife, three months after her husband's death, was to go up to the gate where the court of judgment sat, where, the next relation being summoned, and refusing to marry her, she was _to loose his shoe from off his foot,_ as a mark of infamy, for his want of natural affection; importing, that he...