Leviticus 18:18

The word

sister is here understood, either,

1. Properly, so some; whence others infer that it is lawful to marry one’s wife’s sister after the wife’s death. Or,

2. Improperly for any other woman, as not only persons, but things, of the same kind are oft called sisters and brethren, of which see plain examples, Exodus 26:3; Exodus 32:27,Exodus 32:29; Ezekiel 1:9; Ezekiel 3:13; Ezekiel 16:45,Ezekiel 16:48,Ezekiel 16:49. So the sense is, thou shalt not take one woman to another. And this sense may seem more probable,

1. Because else here were a tautology, the marriage of a man with his wife’s sister being sufficiently forbidden, Leviticus 18:16, where marriage with his brother’s wife is forbidden; as also Leviticus 18:9,Leviticus 18:11, where he forbids the marriage of one’s own sister, and cousequently the marriage of one’s wife’s sister, it being manifest and confessed that affinity and consanguinity are of the same consideration and obligation in these matters. Nor can this be added for explication, for then the comment would be darker than the text, nay, it would destroy the text; for then what was simply, and absolutely, and universally forbidden before, is here forbidden doubtfully and restrainedly, and might at least seem to be allowed after the wife’s death; which is rejected by those who own the former interpretation.

2. Because the reason of this prohibition, which is lest he should vex her thereby, is much more proper and effectual against marrying any other woman, than against marrying the wife’s sister, so near and dear a relation being most commonly and probably a means to induce them rather to love and please and serve, than to vex one another in such a relation. And therefore to take her natural sister to vex her, would seem a course unsuitable to his end or design.

3. Some add another reason, that polygamy, which Christ condemns, Matthew 19:5 is either forbidden here or no where in the law. But this may admit of great dispute. And it is observable, that Christ confutes polygamy and divorces, not by any of Moses’s laws, (which probably he would not have omitted, if they had been to his purpose,) but by the first institution of marriage, Genesis 2:23; whence also Malachi seems to fetch his argument, Leviticus 2:14,Leviticus 2:15. And that law, Deuteronomy 21:15,Deuteronomy 21:16, may seem to intimate that God did then, in consideration of the hard-heartedness of the Jewish nation, dispense with that first ; In her lifetime: this clause is added to signify God’s allowance to marry one wife after another, when she is dead, and thereby to intimate how the word sister is to be understood.