Topic
Brother's Wife
9 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Genesis 38:8ISBE
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
- Genesis 38:9ISBE
And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
- Leviticus 18:16ISBE
Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.
- Leviticus 20:21ISBE
And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.
- Numbers 27:8ISBE
And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.
- Deuteronomy 25:5ISBE
¶ 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.
- Deuteronomy 25:7ISBE
And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.
- Deuteronomy 25:9ISBE
Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.
- Mark 6:18ISBE
For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 9 references
(yebhemeth = "a sister-in-law," "brother's wife" (De 25:7,9); 'ishshah = "a woman," "wife"; `esheth 'ach = "brother's wife" (Ge 38:8,9; Le 18:16;20:21); he gune tou adelphou = "the brother's wife" (Mr 6:18)): A brother's wife occupies a unique position in Hebrew custom and law, by virtue of the institution of the Levirate. The widow had no hereditary rights in her husband's property, but was considered a part of the estate, and the surviving brother of the deceased was considered the natural heir. The right to inherit the widow soon became a duty to marry her if the deceased had left no sons, and in case there was no brother-in-law, the duty of marriage devolved on the father-in-law or the agnate who inherited, whoever this might be. The first son of the Levirate marriage was regarded as the son of the deceased. This institution is found chiefly among people who hold to ancestral worship (Indians, Persians, Afghans, etc.), from which circumstances Benzinger (New Sch-Herz, IV, 276) derives th e explanation of this institution in Israel. The Levirate marriage undoubtedly existed as a custom before the Israelite settlement in Canaan, but after this received special significance because of the succession to the property of the first son of the marriage, since he was reckoned to the deceased, inherited from his putative, not from his real father, thus preventing the disintegration of property and its acquirement by strangers, at the same time perpetuating the family to which it belonged. While the law limited the matrimonial duty to the brother and permitted him to decline to marry the widow, such a course was attended by public disgrace (De 25:5 ff). By the law of Nu 27:8, daughters were given the right to inherit, in order that the family estate might be preserved, and the Levirate became limited to cases where the deceased had left no children at all.
Frank E. Hirsch
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.