A Sex Problem
When brothers live together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall have relations with her and take her to himself as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. Deuteronomy 25:5 NASB
Husband’s brother – The levirate obligation. Certainly this is a moral issue today (and for a long time), but it seems that producing children and maintaining the family name was so important in the days of Moses that sex (for the purpose of conception) between the dead husband’s brother and the widow was obligatory. The Genesis account of Tamar confirms this divine obligation. But then, what do we do with Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21 in the same Mosaic code?
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness.
If there is a man who takes his brother’s wife, it is detestable; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness. They will be childless.
Everyone knows that “uncover the nakedness” is a Hebraic euphemism for sexual intercourse. So here are laws in Leviticus that seem to contradict an explicit command in Deuteronomy. “Oh, no,” you say, “the Leviticus passage applies to the wife of a living brother. In Deuteronomy, the brother has died, so it isn’t a contradiction.” But if the Leviticus passage is about sexual relations between a brother and the living brother’s wife, that would be adultery and there is a whole body of laws regarding that act. It seems rather arbitrary to claim that these verses do not apply to the widow of the brother. Nothing in the text suggests that the brother must be alive for the laws to apply. Furthermore, the Deuteronomy passage treats the levirate obligation as a marriage. That itself seems odd given the explicit description of marriage in Genesis 2.
The tension created by these two seemingly contradictory commands created various attempts at reconciliation.
The Samaritans held that only a man’s fiancée was subject to levirate marriage, not his wife. Some Karaite commentators held that the “brothers” referred to in this law are relatives, not literally brothers. The talmudic view is that the prohibition in Leviticus and the present levirate law are, respectively, a generality and an exception. This view is supported by Hittite Laws, which place the prohibition of relations with one’s brother’s wife and the levirate law side-by-side, thus making it clear that the latter is an exception to the former. Nevertheless, a feeling of unease persisted and some talmudic authorities held that levirate marriage was the preferred course of action only in the days when it was performed out of a sense of duty, but since men had begun to perform it for the sake of sexual gratification or money, it was preferable that they decline. This view was not widely accepted.[1]
Of course, since the Western world never adopted the levirate obligation, we don’t have a history of contentious exegesis here. Westerners generally treat this conflict as an oddity of the Mosaic age, now in the distant past and of no further consequence. Much like not wearing clothes of two specifically different fabrics. Just the ancient history of a primitive people. Theological water under the bridge, so to speak.
Except – except that these are commands supposedly given by God. So, does God contradict Himself in the same period of time with the same original audience? That would be a problem, for if it were true, then how can we rely on the rest of Scripture as God’s final word? If God isn’t consistent, who is? Now we don’t just have a sex problem; we have an inspiration problem.
What if we supposed that Deuteronomy was written much later, perhaps as late as the exile, retroactively placed in the mouth of Moses to give it legitimacy and authority? Some passages in Deuteronomy certainly seem to fit this position. What about this one? You might object. “Why would the author(s) of Deuteronomy endorse a practice that was prohibited in Leviticus and was not followed in the exilic age? What would be the point of including a statement that created conflict with the older revelation of Leviticus?” There are perhaps a few explanations.
First, we already know from the prophets that there was great hesitancy to go back and “correct” revelation on the basis of later historical events. In this case, that might mean keeping the Leviticus command despite its discord. Secondly, the Deuteronomy account makes tribal identity and continuity more important than some sexual mores. If Deuteronomy were actually written during the pre-exilic or exilic times, these issues were front and center when assimilation into another culture was a real threat. Inserting a command that guarantees perpetuation of the Israelite identity is completely understandable.
But finally, the real issue centers around an a priori commitment to textual consistency. We want the Bible to be consistent because we believe God is consistent. But that isn’t the conclusion of evidence. That is a choice, a faith commitment. So, when we run across verses like these, we do all we can to reconcile them rather than saying, “Well, men wrote these things in their attempts to communicate what they thought God wanted them to say—and men make mistakes.”
Or were you afraid to suggest such a thing?
Topical Index: levirate marriage, consistency, Leviticus 18:16, Leviticus 20:21, Deuteronomy 25:5
[1] Jeffrey Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (JPS, 1996), p. 232.
I’m good with saying what you are suggesting. However, this is a copy and paste from what I’ve read before:
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In Genesis, if you take the first “T”, then count 49 letters, the next letter (the 50th) is “O”; the next 50th is “R”; and then the next 50th is “H”. In other words, after the first “T”, in 50 letter increments, we find the letters spelling Torah (TORaH). In the Book of Exodus, we also encounter a similar result. In Numbers, we discover this 49-letter interval works with HROT,” that is, TORH backwards. A similar 49-letter interval also appears in the fifth book of the Torah, the Book of Deuteronomy. However, in the middle book, the Book of Leviticus, it doesn’t seem to work either way. But it does work for YHWH if you count in seven letter increments.
It appears that the Torah (TORH) always points toward the Name of God.
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How can there be errors in that if that seems to be a signature that is woven in the Torah that man couldn’t do since it a pictographic language and would make then no sense?
Revealed, yet hidden… If the premise, then the conclusion…
“For the remarkable thing is this, that you do not know where he is from, and he opened my eyes!… We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if someone is devout and does his will, he listens to this one. From time immemorial it has not been heard that someone opened the eyes of one born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything!”
They answered and said to him, “You were born completely in sin, and are you attempting to teach us?” And they threw him out. (John 9:30-34)
Skip, I agree that “Nothing in the text suggests that the brother must be alive for the laws to apply”, but that doesn’t stop the rabbinically trained Apostle Paul from later suggesting that it did. He apparently would have no trouble with a levirate marriage on the grounds of adultery for he writes in Romans 7:2-3:
“For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.”
You add, “That itself seems odd given the explicit description of marriage in Genesis 2.” Is it the “leaving” or “cleaving” or “one flesh” to which you are appealing? While not “naked”, I am “ashamed“ that I am not tracking with your argument. If the surviving brother was already married he would have previously left his father and mother and if he were single he would be required to separate himself from their custody, care and control ( unless he was underage perhaps, but certainly upon arrival of a marriageable age). Please help me to understand your thought process. Thanks.
I’m not sure that I understand your argument. Paul is using an analogy to instruct about the scope of the law. In his example, the widower is free to remarry because the husband has died, assuming that the new husband is also free of marital obligations. But Levirate obligation doesn’t apply only to a SINGLE brother. If the brother is married, he is still required to provide the widower with children. In fact, his action is considered a “marriage,” so essentially he becomes a polygamist under the law. That seems directly opposed to the Genesis 2 passage, and certainly is according to the way we read the text today. The fact that the widower is not considered an adulteress according to Paul seems to be based on Paul’s assumption that she marries another SINGLE man, but in the Deuteronomy text, it doesn’t matter if the man is married or single. He is still obligated. So either Paul sets aside the possibility that the brother is already married, and therefore his sexual union with the widower would be adultery, or Paul is endorsing polygamy.
Does this help?
Skip, I agree my argument was convoluted and confusing. Please forgive my folly for endeavoring to impersonate a rabbi by employing my version of Gezerah Shavah (“the teaching based upon an anology or inference from one verse to another”). My response was directed to your statement regarding the question of adultery where you stated: “It seems rather arbitrary to claim that these verses do not apply to the widow of the brother.”
I realize Paul is not addressing levarite marriage per se, but the principle he posits that death nullifies the marriage covenant renders any charge of adultery ( in or out of levarite marriage) baseless.
However I do agree that a married brother fulfilling his levarite obligation could considered a polygamist by our western standards, but as you teach context is primary. What did the jews of antiquity believe and practice? Apparently in the Mishnah an entire tractate (Yevamot) is dedicated to levarite marriages, but I’m confident that the rabbis long before Talmudic era would have delved into this textual quagmire in order to not be
drown again in the chaotic levarite schemes of their ancestors Judah and Tamar. As a sidebar, The Oxford Study Bible noted that Judah may have eventually married Tamar off to Shelah after he became of age because Shelah names his first son Er (1 Chron. 4:21), thus “implying that he had entered a levirate marriage with Tamar to produce an heir for his deceased, childless brother.”
My understanding is that even up to the second temple era levarite marriage was practiced, though not widely. Modern jewelry has remnants of this ancient rite still to this day in their “fallen soldier” laws whereby the sperm of a childless dead soldier can be harvested and frozen to bear a future child- to the widow (if married) or if she refuses to an unrelated surrogate mother – a complete reversal of roles from the biblical texts where it was the male relative who refused to comply with the demand of posterity! Yes, Torah IS flexible…and we are expected to be fertile- dead or alive!