Sir John David Michaelis, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Göttingen, remarks, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses: "Marriage with a deceased wife's sister he permits, but prohibits on the other hand the marrying of two sisters at once. The words of the law, Lev. xviii. 18, are very clear, "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to be her rivals and to uncover her nakedness along with hers in her lifetime." After so distinct a definition of his meaning, and the three limitations added, I. As to one being the other's rival (to express which we may observe, by the way, that the same word is used, as in 1 Sam. i. 6, where two wives have but one husband; 2. As to the man's uncovering the nakedness of both, and 3. As to his doing so in the life time of the first, I cannot comprehend how it should ever have been imagined that Moses also prohibited marriage with a deceased wife's sister, — that very connection which we so often find a dying wife entreating her husband to form." Vol. ii. pp. 112, 113.
F. E. C. Rosenmüller, the distinguished orientalist and profound scholar and commentator, whose opinions are always highly esteemed, in his learned production "Scholia in Vetus Testamentum," in explaining Lev. xviii. 18, has the following remarks: "Uxorem ad sororem ejus ne ducas, duas sorores ne ducas in matrimonium, scil, בחייה in vita ejus, ut in fine versus additur i. e., uxore tua vivente. Non igitur prohibit Moses matrimonium cum sorore uxoris mortiæ. לצרר. Ad infestandum, s. infestando, quod Onkelos bene sic reddidit: ad dolorem ei creandum, ita ut oriatur æmulatio sive lis inter eas, ut in matrimonio Jacobi."
Dr. Alex. McCaul, late of Trinity College, London, likewise decidedly held that marriage with a deceased wife's sister was not prohibited under the Mosaic dispensation.[1]
- ↑ "The ancient interpretation of Lev. xviii. 18," pp. 36-38.
