Leviticus 18:18

18. A wife to her sister This is a much disputed verse in the debate about marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. Our English version is supported by a whole chain of authorities of the first rank. Some contend for the marginal translation, “one wife to another,” and argue that this prohibition is directed against polygamy. The Seventy render it γυναικα επ ’ αδελφη , αυτης , a wife in addition to her sister; and the Vulgate, sororem uxoris tuae, a sister of thy wife. But it is objected that the same Hebrew expression in seven other places can have only the translation “one to another.” See Exodus 26:3; Exodus 26:5-6; Exodus 26:17; Ezekiel 1:9; Ezekiel 1:23; Ezekiel 3:13. The fact that all these have a preceding noun in the plural, which is lacking in this verse, is fatal to the marginal rendering, as well as the violent change in the meaning of “wife” and “sister” from their meaning in the previous verses. The Targums sustain our English version. Moreover, polygamy was recognised, though not expressly approved, by the Mosaic law, (Exodus 21:10; Deuteronomy 21:15,) and therefore cannot be forbidden in this passage, especially in view of the fact that in Leviticus 18:29 the death penalty is denounced against the abominations specified in this chapter. If polygamy is prohibited in this passage, we have the following legislative contradiction and absurdity: 1.) Polygamy is pronounced an abomination which must be punished by death; and 2.) A law is enacted conserving the rights of the first wife after the marriage of the second, and another statute entitling the children of the hated wife to inherit with those of the favourite. Thus the second law supposes that the man put to death under the first law has begotten a family of children, and in advanced age is sitting down to make his will. As there can be no such collision of laws emanating from the same legislator, we are constrained to reject the marginal rendering which makes this verse a prohibition of polygamy, and to say that it forbids the simultaneous marriage of two sisters. The jealousies and rivalries incident to the polygamous household arising between sisters tenderly bound by the ties of blood when thus thrown into an unnatural and hostile attitude toward each other, turning the gentle amenities of domestic life into fiendish hate, the merciful lawgiver would prevent by this law.

To vex her This little word vex R.V., “to be a rival to” speaks volumes concerning the bickering broils and heart burnings of polygamy, especially when intensified by the soured sweetness of sisterhood. No hate is so bitter as that of angered love. In 1 Samuel 1:6, Peninnah is called “the adversary,” or vexer, of devout Hannah, provoking her” year by year;” therefore she wept and did not eat. The households of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exhibit the same bellum domesticum, the brand of the divine disapproval of the attempt to improve the paradisaical perfection of monogamic marriage.

In her life This means as long as she lives. The inference that marriage with a sister after the death of the first wife is legal would seem to be conclusive, as the Talmudists taught. But the Karaites and others denounced it as an abomination. “It is directly against the scope of all these laws,” says Selden, “which prohibit men to marry at all with such persons as are here mentioned, either in their wives’ lifetime or after. And there being a prohibition (Leviticus 18:16) to marry a brother’s wife, it is unreasonable to think Moses gave them leave to marry their wife’s sister. These words, therefore, ‘in her life,’ are to be referred, not to the first words, ‘neither shalt thou take,’ but to the next, ‘to vex her,’ as long as she lives.” On the contrary, it is stoutly alleged that this prohibition refers expressly only to the time when the wife is living, as in the case of Jacob, and that all the arguments brought to prove that marriage with the sister of a dead wife is, according to Mosaism, a sin, and the analogies on which this conclusion is based, are quite worthless. In the year 1882 Lord Dalhousie asked the opinions of the professors of Hebrew and of Greek in all the universities of Europe, their attention being specially directed to the Levitical law and to Ephesians 5:31. Those of one hundred professors were received. One, a professor of Greek, declines to express an opinion on what he regards as a question of Hebrew, and another is ambiguous, while the late Dr. Pusey alone states that the marriage of a man with the sister of his deceased wife is forbidden by Leviticus chap. 18. All the other professors declare either that such a marriage is not forbidden by the portions of the Bible referred to, or that there is no prohibition of it either in the Old or the New Testament. See Concluding Note.