Dr. Gardiner observes, in his preliminary remarks on Lev. xviii.: "Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is clearly allowed under the Levitical law, not merely by not being prohibited, but being prohibited during the life time of the sister first taken to wife, it becomes doubly certain that it was permitted afterwards. It is even made still more clear by the reason assigned; the relation of two wives of the same man are not apt to be friendly, and Moses would not allow, either that the natural affection of sisters should be subjected to this strain, or that the inevitable animosities of the harem should be increased by previous familiar relation of sisters.[1]
Keil and Delitzsch observe: "No punishment is fixed for the marriage with two sisters; and, of course, after the death of the first wife, a man was at liberty to marry her sister: Com. on Leviticus, vol. ii., p. 410.
Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rabbi of the religious community of Israelites in Frankfort-on-the-Main, remarks on our verse: "Es ist nun gesagt: du kannst nicht zwei Schwestern zugleich heirathen dass sie in einem Ehebund zusammen vereinigt seien. Wenn du daher eine geheirathet hast so kann die andere, so lange die erste lebt, nicht deine Gattin werden.[2]
"It is now said here, you are not permitted to marry two sisters at the same time, so that they would be united in one marriage bond; if you, therefore, have married one, then the other may not become your wife as long as the first lives."
We might yet adduce a host of similar opinions of the best critics and commentators of America and Europe, but, we think, those above quoted are sufficient
- ↑ "Commentary on Leviticus," published in "Lange's Commentary on the Bible".
- ↑ "The Pentateuch translated and interpreted." Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1873.
