state of society ; but they are utterly unaccountable if the law be one of permanent and universal obligation. A rule of inter- pretation which brings uniformity and consistency into these enactments of Scripture, is certainly to be preferred to one which renders them confused and inconsistent.
Prohibited Degrees.
The cases specifically mentioned are : 1. Mother. 2. Step- mother. 3. Grand-daughter. 4. Sister and half-sister, u born at home or born abroad," i. e., legitimate or illegitimate. 5. Aunt on the father's side. 6. Maternal aunt. 7. The wife of a father's brother. 8. Daughter-in-law. 9. Brother's wife. 10. A woman and her daughter. 11. A wife's grand-daughter. 12. Two sisters at the same time.
The meaning of Leviticus xviii. 18, has been much disputed. The question is, Whether the words rTnhW'bs nu£w, " a woman to her sister," are to be understood in their idiomatic sense, "one to another," so that the law forbids bigamy, the taking of one wife to another during her lifetime ; or, Whether they are to be taken literally, so that this law forbids a man's marrying the sister of his wife while the latter is living. It is certain that the words in ques- tion have in several places the idiomatic sense ascribed to them. In Exodus xxvi. 3, " Five curtains shall be coupled together one to another," literally, " a woman to her sister ; " so in verse 5, the loops take hold, " a woman and her sister ; " ver. 6, the taches of gold unite the curtains, " a woman and her sister." Also in ver. 17. Thus also in Ezekiel i. 9, it is said, " their wings were joined one to another," " a woman to her sister ; " and again in ch. iii. 13. The words therefore admit of the rendering given in the margin of the English version. But it is objected to this interpretation in this case : (1.) That the words in question never mean " one to another," except when preceded by a plural noun ; which is not the case in Leviticus xviii. 18. (2.) If this explanation be adopted, the passage contains an explicit prohibition of polygamy, which the law of Moses permitted. (3.) It is unnatural to take the words " wife" and " sister " in a sense different from that in which they are used throughout the chapter. (4.) The ancient versions agree with the rendering given in the text of the English Bible. The Septuagint has ywai/«x hr dScA.^ avTfjs ; the Vulgate, " sororem uxoris tuae."
In this interpretation the modern commentators almost without exception agree. Thus Maurer renders the passage : " i Uxorem
416 PART JH. Ch. XIX. — the law.
ad (i. e., praeter) sororem ejus ne ducito,' i. e., Nolli prseter tuam conjugem aliam insuper uxorem ducere, quae illius soror est." l Baurugarten's comment is : " From the fact that the prohibition of the marriage of a wife's sister is expressly conditioned on the life of the former, we must infer with the Rabbins, that after the death of the wife this marriage is permitted. True, the degree of affinity is here the same as in ver. 16, but there the relationship is on the male, here on the female side ; this makes a differ- ence, because under the Old Testament the woman had not at- tained to the same degree of personality and independence as the man." 2 Rosenmuller says : " Uxorem ad sororem ejus ne ducas, duas sorores ne ducas in matrimonium, scil. n\*.rj5 in vita ejus, i. e., uxore tua vivente. Non igitur prohibet Moses matrimonium cum sorore uxoris mortuae." 8 Knobel says : " Finally, a man shall not marry .... the sister of his wife, so long as the latter lives. .... To marry one after the other, after the death of the other, is not forbidden." 4 Keil understands v. 18 in the same way. It forbids, according to his view, a man's having two sis- ters, at the same time, as his wives. " After the death of the first wife," he adds, " marriage with her sister was allowed." 6
The inference which these writers draw from the fact that in this passage the marriage of a wife's sister is forbidden during the life of the wife, that the marriage of the sister, after the death of the wife, is allowed, is very precarious. All that the passage teaches is, that if a man chooses to have two wives, at the same time, which the law allowed, they must not be sisters ; and the reason assigned is, that it would bring the sisters into a false re- lation to each other. This leaves the question of the propriety of marrying the sister of a deceased wife just where it was. This verse has no direct bearing on that subject.
The cases not expressly mentioned in Leviticus xviii., although involving the same degree of kindred as those included in the enumeration, are : 1. A man's own daughter. This is a clear proof that the enumeration was not intended to be exhaustive. 2. A brother's daughter. 3. A sister's daughter. 4. A maternal
1 Commentarius Grammaticus Criticus in Vetus Testamentum, Leipzig, 1835, vol. i. p. 51.
2 Theologischer Commentar zum Pentateuch, Kiel, 1844, vol. i. part 2, p. 204.
8 Scholia in Vetus Testamentum in Compendium redacta, Leipzig, 1828, vol. i. p. 539.
* Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament. Exodus und Leviticus erkldrt, von August Knobel, Leipzig, 1857, pp. 505, 506.
* Biblischer Commentar uber das Alte Testament, Herausgegeben von Carl Friedr. Keil and Frank Delitzsch; Die Biicher Moses, von C. F. Keil, Leipzig, 1862, vol. ii. p. 117.