What is a levirate marriage?

But in these near relationships marriage was unnatural and dishonourable in the measure of the nearness. And that intercourse which was proper to the married tie, forbidden in every case outside it, was here sinful and shameful in the highest degree, whether in the superior place of father or mother, and the nearest on either side, or in the equal one of sister howsoever born, or in the inferior one of daughter-in-law. And who would be bold enough to deny that the corresponding ones, not here specified, are not really implied? It is the man who is here prohibited: surely the woman is so no less. Further, the prohibition goes beyond blood-relations and extends in like degree to those by marriage connection. Of great moment it was to cultivate the warmest affection between all that stood together in near kin or connection. But still more was it essential that their mutual love should be ordered in all purity.

There was a marked exception requisite to keep up tribal inheritance in Israel, which though existing elsewhere applied to no other people as to them, still less to a Christian; a Levirate or brother in-law marriage. It was when a man died childless, and his brother or next of kin was called to raise up seed to the deceased, the aim being to bind up the family line and the inheritance; so much this, that if the nearer kinsman refused, the widow was entitled publicly to loose his shoe and spit in his face.

Verse 17 shows that the prohibition goes beyond this to the incongruous and unnatural intercourse with a woman and her daughter, or her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, though all strangers to him. And verse 18 forbids an Israelite to have two sisters together, for the reason assigned. Christianity goes to the root of the matter by recalling, as our Lord did, to what was at the beginning when God made one man and one woman. If a man lost his wife by death, he was not only free to marry another but might find it his duty for the children's sake or his own.

The Resurrection. — Accordingly they approached Him with a difficulty professedly based on the Word of God, thus making Holy Scripture a ground for disbelieving an indisputable truth of revelation. A special provision was made in the law for what is called a levirate marriage, by which a surviving brother was bound to marry his brother's widow in the event of that brother having died childless, to preserve the dead man's portion of the inheritance, that his name should not be blotted out of Israel (Deut. 25:5-6). Now a case, they averred, had occurred where seven brothers, one after the other, in observance of this law, had married the same woman. All had died without offspring. At last the woman died also. "In the resurrection, therefore," they asked, "whose wife of them shall she be? for the seven had her to wife." One can well suppose the eagerness with which they waited for the Lord's answer, and their confidence that He could say nothing in support of the doctrine which they denied. But what disappointment must have been experienced when they heard His reply! Ignorance, He gave them clearly to understand, lay at the root of their opposition: ignorance, on the one hand, of the condition of people in the other world; ignorance, on the other, of the Scriptures of truth. The Lord dealt with the first of these before He touched on the second. And though both Matthew and Mark relate the same incident, Luke supplies his readers with particulars unnoticed by them, and which set forth how fully the Lord refuted this special tenet of the sect, the denial of a resurrection.

The ordinance in Deut. 25 teaches us, that an Israelite was bound to marry the widow of his brother, if that brother had died childless, and raise up seed to his brother, so that his name and his inheritance might be secured in the firstborn of that marriage. If he refused to do this service to his deceased brother, he was put to public shame, a mark of degradation being affixed to him.

These ordinances are illustrated in Ruth and Jeremiah. In the beautiful history of Ruth, we find Boaz doing this part of a brother or a kinsman, in Israel according to the ordinance in Deut. 25, in a very special and admirable way. The inheritance of Mahlon, an Israelite of Bethlehem-judah, had been sold, and his wife, by birth a Moabitess, had been left of him, a childless and penniless widow. She had nothing but her virtue, the unstained excellence of her character and reputation. She was a stranger, who at the cost of her own diligence and labour, supported her mother-in-law, her late husband's mother, for whose sake, in the spirit of a true or adopted daughter of Abraham, she had left home and country and father's house.

This law had application only in cases of brothers living together. If one of them was married, yet died having no son, his brother was not to marry an outsider, but was to take his deceased brother's widow as his wife (v.5). (Of course this was only in cases where the living brother had not married before.) But if a son was born of the newly married couple, he was to be the successor of the first husband, so that his name would remain in Israel (v.6). After that any sons born would be those of the second husband.

It might be, however, that the man would not want his brother's wife. In this case the wife was allowed to bring the matter to the court (in the gate of the city) and the elders could call the man and seek to persuade him to marry the widow (vs.7-8). If he should firmly refuse to marry her, then the widow would be permitted to remove the sandal from the man's foot and spit in his face saying at the same time, "So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house" (v.9). This is why, in Ruth 4:1-8, a closer relative than Boaz had his sandal taken off when he could not take the place of husband to Ruth. This relative represents the law, which was in close relationship to Israel, but was helpless to redeem that nation. Boaz pictures the Lord Jesus, the only One who can redeem, to build up the house of one whose hope was gone, taking off the sandal had become a custom in Israel, but spitting in the face is not mentioned. Spitting speaks of the contempt of the one for the other, while the sandal removed signified the confessed weakness of the one in the presence of a superior, just as the law must confess its weakness in contrast to Christ, the Man of strength and of infinite grace.

There was a merciful provision in the law (Deut. 25:5-10) that no man's family should be allowed to die out, while a brother survived to perpetuate the line. In Israel, to be childless was a reproach, and for a man's name to be blotted out — his family to become extinct — was regarded as a special mark of God's displeasure. The Sadducees, in our Lord's day, might seek to ridicule the truth of resurrection by bringing in this merciful provision, but they only showed their ignorance of "the Scriptures and the power of God." It was provision for the earthly not the future life, that God had made. Most appropriate was it, therefore, that He should see that names should not be blotted out in Israel, save to mark, as in Achan, His solemn judgment of an awful sin. There seems, too, to be a recognition in His provision of that hope in the heart of every Hebrew woman, that through her in some way the promise of "the woman's seed" might be fulfilled. This was to be clone literally in the line which was to be preserved through Ruth.

The "nearer" kinsman-redeemer (goel) was ready to exercise his legal right and to purchase the property. By so doing he would add to his own estate. Altogether, the proposal seemed to him a good bargain. "And he said, I will redeem it" (Ruth 4:4). But apparently he was unaware that the transfer of the allotment to him required that he should also marry Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, Elimelech's son. "And Boaz said, On the day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance" (Ruth 4:5). This compulsory marriage was in accordance with the provision made in Jehovah's law (Deut. 25:6), in order that the family name might continue with the family freehold, even though its head died without heir, as had been the case of both Elimelech and his two sons. And it was the will of Jehovah that the inheritance of each family of the righteous people should be its perpetual possession (Lev. 25:23).

The commandment given by Moses, that a surviving brother is to marry his brother's widow is seen in its working in the story of Ruth and the kinsman-redeemer. The law itself was founded upon an old traditional custom, which we find already in Genesis 38:8-11. Moses here recognized this custom was not to be considered compulsory.

"The taking off of the shoe was an ancient custom also, adopted, according to Ruth 4:7, in cases of redemption and exchange, for the purpose of confirming commercial transactions. The usage arose from the fact, that when any one took possession of landed property, he did so by treading upon the soil, and asserting his right of possession by standing upon it in his shoes. In this way the taking off of the shoe and handing it to another became a symbol of the renunciation of a man's position and property."

Here in Ruth we find even a forth task of the redeemer. The duty of an Israelite mentioned in Deut. 25:5 to marry the widow of a deceased brother to maintain this latter's name was apparently also applied to the go'el (who could also be a remote relative). - Yet this practise was no longer customary in later Judaism.

In relationship by marriage, the principal point of interest is the degrees of relationship within which marriage was forbidden. Thus a woman must not marry two brothers, unless her husband had died without issue, when the brother was required to raise up seed to the deceased. Apparently a man might by the law of Moses marry his deceased wife's sister; but not the second in the life-time of the first, Lev. 18:18, though Jacob before the Law was given had two sisters for wives at the same time. Near relatives may not marry: cf. Lev. 18. Many codes respecting the degrees of affinity have been made by nations, more or less in agreement with the law of Moses. See MARRIAGE.

The other law pertained to a man of Israel who had died without children (Deut. 25:5-12). His brother was to marry the wife of the deceased to raise up children for him. The word "brother" was used for any close male relative. Since Ruth's husband (an Israelite) had died, then Ruth, though a Gentile, could be brought into the congregation through a relative who had the right of redemption. Ruth did as Naomi told her, thus lying down at the feet of Boaz (vv.6-7). This is a picture of the godly remnant of Israel in the latter days virtually creeping to the feet of the Lord Jesus, in total submission to Him, yet to boldly claim His protection.