The Biblical Surrogate
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
The duty – We should pay attention to the verb here. The usual verb for sexual relations between and husband and wife is yādaʿ (to know), but that’s not the choice here. In this verse, the “duty” of the brother is to “go in to her,” literally, from the verb bôʾ. This change is important. Having sex with the deceased brother’s wife is not a matter of intimacy or affection. It is a duty, that is, yābam, “to assume the responsibility to marry one’s widowed sister-in-law in order to raise up a male heir to the deceased brother.”[1] In fact, the verbal root is used in only two places in the Tanakh; here and in Genesis 38 when Judah’s second son is required to impregnate Tamar but instead, used her for ejaculation without the possibility of conception. What should be readily apparent is that this unusual situation is not meant to establish a human bond. It is purely functional.
Now consider, if you will, the complexities of such an obligation. Human beings are human beings, and it is difficult to imagine that a man can have sex with his brother’s wife without some sort of connection occurring. The circumstances are even more complicated if the brother is also married. Now he must have intercourse with his brother’s wife with the expressed intention of impregnating her even if he has his own wife. Imagine the family dynamics surrounding this. Oh, you don’t have to imagine too much since we have an example of the outcome in the lives of Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham. Could it be any more strained?
And, of course, the obligation continues until the brother’s wife is actually pregnant. How long will that take? How many times must the brother copulate with her until they know she is pregnant? Are we to suppose that during however many times it takes over whatever period of time he is “going in to her” he maintains a strictly business approach? He successfully resists emotional involvement—and, if he is also married, his own wife blesses the encounters as a command from God? Duty, indeed! And what happens if the brother’s wife gets pregnant but has a girl? Does the whole affair continue? It is very difficult for me to imagine all of this is accomplished without any deeper involvement. This is effectively human breeding, something that might seem normal with animals but certainly isn’t considered appropriate for humans.
Why, then, would God command such actions? If He knows how lethal sex is, why would he ask a brother—and the other “wife”—to engage in an indeterminate number of sexual liaisons? The answer is completely cultural. We might suppose, as is evidenced by ancient Roman practices, that the process is intended to create a clear line of inheritance, property rights, and social welfare. But this is not the biblical explanation. According to Deuteronomy, the reason God asks the brother and the brother’s wife to engage in intercourse is to provide the dead man with a son who will carry on his name. Why is this so important?
Jeffery Tigay provides some insight in the JPS Torah commentary on Deuteronomy:
“This reflects the belief that death does not put an absolute end to an individual’s existence. In biblical times it was believed that dead people’s spirits continue a kind of shadowy existence in Sheol (the netherworld, beneath the earth), and that the living could assist them in various ways. Many of these methods involved keeping a deceased man’s name present on earth, thus perpetuating his spirit’s contact with the living. Perhaps the reasoning was that just as the mention of a person’s name can conjure up a very real mental picture of him, whenever a person’s name was present his spirit was present. . . . Having descendants was one way in which a man’s name was kept present among the living . . .”[2]
Perhaps you thought that levirate marriage laws were intended to maintain family lines. Tigay suggests something connected to the influence of Egypt. This should not be surprising. Ruth is a counter example to the idea that levirate marriage ensures family lineage. Her son does not carry on the name of the dead husband, yet the levirate process is certainly part of her story.
Our Western culture still has some of these ancient roots, although even the rabbis discontinued the procedure on the basis that men used it as an excuse for sexual activity, not as a duty. Here’s an example from the cemetery in Genoa. The deceased man’s relief is there to remind us that he is still with us in some way. Sheol might have disappeared, but the idea of the “living dead” is part of the Christian theory of heaven.
Topical Index: levirate marriage, duty, Deuteronomy 25:5
[1] Alexander, R. H. (1999). 836 יָבַם. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 359). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Jeffery Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy, p. 482.
