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not being permitted to obey the injunction of the law of the Levirate, as to taking the other's wife in the particular case of the one brother leaving a widow whilst the other brother's wife is yet living.
I would reply, secondly—
That the objection, from the exception in Deut. xxv. not possibly having been then made, is as nothing when the lawgiver is not man but God, who knows from the beginning all which He intends.[1]
I would reply, thirdly—
That a fair and reasonable account of the statements in Leviticus xviii. not alluding directly to the law of Deut. xxv., and not in any way indicating the exception there made or to be made to the prohibition of verse 16, is to be found in this: that all the statements in that chapter of Leviticus are prohibitions, whilst the record in Deuteronomy is a permission or indeed a command; that, therefore, it is perfectly reasonable and natural that we should not find prohibitions and relaxations of the law mixed up together. Thus Leviticus keeps to its prohibitions, verse after verse, with the warnings and denunciation of penalties proper to its subject; and Deuteronomy deals with its exceptional relaxation, and the duties and consequences therewith connected. And it may be just worth while to add that although the 18th verse of Leviticus xviii. is an exception, it is still in the sense and application which I have been enforcing, a prohibitory not a permissive exception; a consideration which not only shows it is in its due place among the other prohibitions, but also strengthens the view taken in this letter of its being no more than a prohibition. It prohibits the taking two sisters simultaneously, even under circumstances which, but for its existence, would have
- ↑ It is, moreover, evident that something of the kind of the law of the Levirate was a usage of the Patriarchal times, from the history recorded as to the sons of Judah in the book of Genesis.
