will refer to the Hebrew Bible, he will find that in the passages just quoted in each case the verse contains two clauses of three words each, thus, by the use of the sententious expression, the regular form of the construction of the lines is preserved, whilst by using the fuller expression the first clause would then have two words more than its parallel clause. Hence, in longer verses where the difference in the length of the clause is not so perceptible the full expression is always employed. Thus, for example, (Ps. xxiii., 6), "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." (Compare also Ps. xxvii., 4). In such a purely prose composition as we have in Lev. xviii. such a poetic expression would be altogether out of place.
Besides, if the sacred writer merely wished to convey the command that a man may not marry his deceased wife's sister, why employ such ambiguous and circumlocutory language? By omitting the words "to cause enmity," and "beside the other in her life time," the command would at once have been intelligible and emphatic, "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister." Or it might have been given in the same manner as in verse 17, where it is forbidden to marry a woman and her daughter, "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a wife arid her sister." Expressed in this manner, there would be no longer any doubt as to its meaning.
We can come, therefore, to no other conclusion than in as much as the words, "to cause enmity" (or jealousy) and "beside her, in her lifetime," were used by the sacred writer, he intends to convey to us the permission, that after the death of one sister, when the marriage with another sister can no longer " cause enmity," such a union is permissible.
Then we must also not omit to notice that the Hebrew word לצרר (litzror) rendered in the English
