Levirate law

A Dictionary of the Bible

Levirate law An injunction that if a married man died without children, it was the duty of a brother or other near relative to marry the widow, and the son of the union would be reckoned to be the son of the first husband (Deut. 25: 5–10). The law did not forbid a man to be married twice (Deut. 21: 15–17), but it was possible for a brother or kinsman to relinquish his right to marry a widow by taking off his shoe and giving it to a neighbour (Ruth 4: 7). Levirate law seems to be presupposed in the dialogue of Matthew 22: 23–30 between Jesus and the Sadducees—religious conservatives, who did not believe the comparatively recent doctrine of resurrection but did acknowledge the authority of the Pentateuch. Jesus argues that life after death is of a different order from that of the present, and the Levirate law does not apply to the case cited by the Sadducees. Jesus quotes Exod. 3: 6.

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© A Dictionary of the Bible 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997.

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