eradicating any incestuous practices that the people may have adopted during their stay in Egypt, but that they were likewise to serve for their future guidance after having entered the promised land, we cannot for one moment doubt that the Israelites were carefully instructed in all the laws appertaining to forbidden degrees.
Now, what do we find to have been the practice among the ancient Jews, as far back as we are able to trace it, in regard to marriage with a deceased wife's sister? We have already stated that the Septuagint version, executed several centuries before the Christian era, and the Targum of Onkelos, or Chaldee paraphrase, made about the Christian era, have both rendered the eighteenth verse in such a manner as leaves no doubt that such a union was allowed. These translations were made by learned Jews not only thoroughly familiar with Hebrew, but no doubt also thoroughly familiar with the laws and practices of their nation. Had there existed any difficulty as to the proper meaning of the original, they would doubtless in this instance, as they indeed have frequently done in other places, have rather given a free rendering, such as would have removed all doubt as to its meaning, than adhered so closely to the original text. Their not having done so must be accepted as a proof that the Hebrew text appeared perfectly clear to them, and that it admitted of but one interpretation.
Philo Judæus, — sometimes called the Jewish Plato, or Pythagoras, — who flourished in the first century of the Christian era, and who is the oldest writer on the laws of Moses whose writings have come down to us, remarks: "Again, He does not permit the same man to marry two sisters, neither at the same time nor at different periods, even if he have put away the one whom he previously married, for while she is living, whether she be living with him, or whether she be put
