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OPINION OF PROFESSOR BUSH EXAMINED.

other woman. The principles, then, of a fair exegesis would seem to compel us, if we understand woman or wife by n, ishah, to understand sister by пnns, a'hothah. Again, it appears that in every other case the phrase has a reciprocal import; that is, a number of things are said to be so and so one to another. But here we perceive nothing of this. There is no trace of mutual, reciprocal action, or relation. It is simply taking one object in addition to another, and leaving the whole phraseology utterly imperfect as compared with the Hebrew usage. We cannot but think, therefore, that a wife to her sister' is the appropriate rendering in this place."

66

6

He endeavours to find a reason for the change in the form of speech in the 18th verse, in the fact that a reason for the command is assigned, whereas in the preceding precepts it is a simple act of authority. There does not seem much force in this, though it is assigned by another writer who takes this view. But on his criticism I venture the following remarks. He says, of the instances of idiomatic use of the phrase "one to another," "In no case do we find any reference to relationship by blood." The meaning of this is not, at first sight, very obvious. On attentively considering it, however, it is a confirmation of the argument of the phrase that is used idiomatically in Lev. xviii. 18; because it is not, on the view supposed by us, a relationship by blood" at all, and therefore strengthens the marginal reading, and, in this respect, corresponds with its use in all other cases. While admitting the very great strength of the position, that thirty-four out of thirty-five instances are without question idiomatic, he yet doubts, in the one case before us, if it be idiomatic, because he says, "It will be observed that, in every other instance, not only are the things which are to be added to each other inanimate objects of the feminine gender, but the subject of discourse is first mentioned, and by that is the import of the phrase governed." Granting the facts to be as here stated, that the things which are to be added are in these instances, where it is used in the feminine form," inanimate objects," is there any thing in the nature of the idiom to forbid its being, in this instance, applied to objects having life? The idiom is applied many times in the masculine form to things having life. What is there in the nature of the thing to forbid it being used, as in the case before us, to things having life in the feminine form? I can see no reason for its being so forbidden. In the case in question, the subjects of discourse are plain enough,-viz., women. The answer to his question is not very difficult. The question should be interposed thus:-"Thou shalt not take,"―take, or marry what? The answer is, objects of the same kind,—that is, women, one woman to another." Nothing else can be the question, and nothing else can be the answer in the case in hand. As to the last difficulty in the mind of Professor Bush, few will be able to apprehend it as such. He says, "It appears that, in every other case, the phrase has a reciprocal import; that is, a number of things are said to be so one to another. But here we perceive nothing of this. There is no trace of mutual, reciprocal action, or relation." In many of the cases we have adduced, such as Gen. xiii. 11, xxvi. 31, the only number of persons or things consists of two,-Abraham and Lot, Abimelech and Isaac, and yet the idiom is employed. In the case before us, there may be any number of women distributively, and forbidden to stand to each other in the relations of wives to a common husband. If I comprehend Professor Bush, I see no difficulty in this case at all. Neither he nor any other is at liberty

66

PROFESSOR BUSH ON THE PHRASE " LIFETIME."

115

to assume that one wife is first married, and that then the question arises in regard to the other. In such a state of the question, there might be some appearance of plausibility in saying that the idiom was destroyed. But I demur to this state of the question. The question is raised at a previous stage, and must be so, for any effect fitted to serve the end of a law, and to save the rights of all parties, and to prevent the evils of "one wife to another," —that is, before the man is married at all; and the question is, whether he may marry more wives than one, be it two, or three, or more? If this be not the question, if it must be confined to the case of one married first, and then another after, then let him marry them all at once, and there will be no prohibition. The writer has married to several men several women at one and the same time. He has known a brother marry seventeen couples at one and the same instant. Why not as many women to one man? It is presumed the Grand Turk serves himself heir to the whole seraglio at once, and, though I am not versant in such mysteries, it is presumed there is no actual form of marriage to more than one wife; and she is THE wife, THE Sultana. This accounts for the change of expression to "Thou shalt not take, or take not," and for the different reason assigned for the vexing, viz., that it is not here a question of incest but of polygamy. We cannot say we have removed this difficulty of Professor Bush, not being able to apprehend it as a difficulty at all; but if others feel it, it is, at least, satisfactory to know that his own difficulty in receiving the idiomatic meaning in this verse does not in the least lead him to favour the conclusion drawn by others from the verse-viz., that it implies the permission to marry the sister when the first wife dies. The writer is much gratified to find that, in his own independent consideration of the verse, he had come to the very same conclusion on the bearing of that latter part of it, as that come to by Professor Bush, who adds

"But although we feel constrained to give up the argument drawn from the Hebrew idiom, and usually applied in this connection to convert the passage before us into a direct prohibition of polygamy, and therefore as having nothing to do with the question of the disputed marriage; and though we cannot in fairness avoid admitting that the connection here forbidden is marriage with a wife's sister; yet we do not for that reason feel laid under any necessity of admitting the inference which is so commonly drawn from the final clause of the verse. "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other in her lifetime. From this, it is said, the implication is palpable, that the obligation of the law is limited by the lifetime of the first wife, and that upon her decease there is no bar to the husband's marrying her sister. This we must regard as a gross non sequitur. The expression in her lifetime,' is too slight to be allowed to vacate the force of all the considerations which we have before adduced in proof of the implied prohibitions contained in the preceding verses. If the inference which we have shown to be deducible from ver. 16 be intrinsically sound, it cannot be set aside by any expression in the verse before us; for there is nothing here more certain than we have found above. At the very utmost it is merely setting one inference against another. The genuine import of the phrase 'in her lifetime,' in this connection undoubtedly is, as long as she lives, without the least implication of any thing that is to follow, or that may follow. You are not to take a step which will be sure to imbitter the lot of the first wife during the whole period of her life. The consequence of your

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PROFESSOR BUSH ON LEV. XVIII. 16.

rashness, or indiscretion, or malevolence, will be that she will know peace no more as long as she lives."

Again, he

says

,לגלות ערוחה עליה .Heb

"But we proceed with the exposition. To ver her. Heb., itzror, to vex; i e., to produce vexation in the family, to the first wife mainly, no doubt, but not to her alone, as the appropriate word for 'her' is wanting in the original. Still it is properly enough inserted in our translation. The original is happily expressive of the mutual broils and bickerings which are so prone to arise under a system of polygamy, and of which we have an example in the case of Hannah and Penninah, in the family of Elkanah. 1 Sam. i. 6, 7, And her adversary (ny, tzârâtháh, her vexer) also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb. And as she did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept and did not eat.' If this was a state of things to be deprecated between women who were not related before marriage, how much more between sisters! "To uncover her nakedness besides the other. legalloth errathâh âlëhâ, to uncover her nakedness upon her. The phraseology is somewhat ambiguous, as it does not at once appear to which of the sisters the suffix 'her' infers. Is it the one who is vexed whose nakedness is uncovered, or the other? It is to be observed that, in the original, there is no word strictly answering to the other. That which our version renders besides the other,' is in the Heb. by, upon or by her, and the feminine suffix hâ, her, undoubtedly refers to the same person as the nhâ, her, in ny, ervatháh, nakedness. The true reading, then, is—“ To uncover her (the first wife's) nakedness upon her (the first wife) in her lifetime.' This appears to be the necessary grammatical construction; but how does this vex the first wife, to uncover her own nakedness upon or by herself? The solution of the difficulty, we believe, is to be found in the fact clearly intimated in ver. 7, that the nakedness of the husband is the nakedness of the wife, and that what is here termed the uncovering of her nakedness' is really the uncovering of the nakedness of the husband, and exposing it to the second wife, which is of course done by, upon, beside the first, and therefore to her grievance and vexation.

6

"In her life-time. Heb. na, behayëhâ, in her life. That is, as intimated above, during the period of her life, as long as she lives."

And he goes on still farther to prove that the word lifetime refers to vexing as long as she lives. For an excellent summary of the whole argument in favour of the view of those who hold the marriages in question unlawful, we cannot do better than refer them to Bush. He sums up as follows:- "To our mind the evidence decidedly preponderates in favour of the opinion that the laws contained in the present chapter (xviii. ver. 6-17) have respect not merely to lewdness in general, but to incest,—that they are in their nature moral, and not ceremonial, and therefore universally and perpetually binding; that the implied prohibitions are equally authoritative with the express; and consequently that marriage with a deceased wife's sister is clearly contrary to the revealed will of God."

In connection with the discussion on this text (Lev. xviii. 18)—I may here quote the following admirable passage which I translate from Broüwer, the celebrated and very learned Dutch jurisconsult. In his 15th chapter, "De nuptiis ob affinitatem prohibitis summaria," he states the heading of his 5th section thus:-"The widow of my brother I cannot marry."

In

BROUWER ON LEV. XVIII. 18.

117

illustrating this section he states the view of Calvin, that "brother, in Deut. xxv. 5, 6, 7 is not the brother-german, but blood relations of a remoter degree.' So strong is the view he takes of the prohibitions-Lev. xviii. 16, and xx. 21-that he cannot think Deut. xxv. 5-7 even an exception. Broüwer does not agree with Calvin in this. He discusses the whole case as an able lawyer, fearing God and his Word, would do. He shows that there were many cases in which the brother was not held bound to marry the widow of his brother, referring to Selden and Buxtorf for their enumeration, and then sums up thus :-" What then? Was marriage with a widow of a deceased brother lawful? By no means. For the Lord expressly forbade it, under pain of extermination; and this special exception to the contrary confirms the rule. Thus, among the commands prohibitory of certain marriages, he hath placed the general law of not marrying a brother's widow; that other special law he hath put in another place, and as a special exception from the general rule, that he might indicate that the first precept bound all; that what was singular it pleased him to put in another. Therefore, no man is to imitate it without the express will of God; that which, without that will, is found forbidden to every human being. What then? Shall it be said that that is contrary to natural reason which sometimes hath pleased God. Be it so (ita); but as we have said, what human reasoning concludes to be abominable and indecent, that, by the will of God, may sometimes become decent and just. God, the Author and Lord of nature, whose will is superior to all human reasoning, hath fixed the law TO US, not to HIMSELF. What he orders is just. But we must not follow what, in a certain case, his secret counsel hath sometimes approved, as often as the general law enacted by him is to the contrary; but rather his command, which is above all laws, and the act, at whose deep secret reasons our curiosity cannot perfectly reach."

His 6th head is thus stated: "A sister-in-law, that is, the sister of my deceased wife, I cannot marry." This latter, his 6th head, he illustrates thus:-"As it is not allowed to marry the brother's wife, so neither is it allowed to marry the sister of a deceased wife, whom we call the pro-soror, or sister-in-law. The general rule is, that, by divine right, the marriages of all related by affinity are prohibited, if the marriages of those blood relations whom they represent are forbidden. The reason of this law is," (he here refers to Carpsovius, lib. 2, tit. 6, defin. 88, et seq. Jurispr. Consist.), "because a wife uniting (coalescens) into one flesh is accounted of the flesh of him, who is a partaker of one flesh with the husband. Nor is it any objection to this doctrine, both that God nowhere expressly forbids connection with a sister-in-law, or that the greater abomination (fœditas) is allowed the custom of the levirate with the brother's widow-because (quia) (quam ? which) one woman contracts from two blood relations, than when the sister-in-law is joined to one husband, and two blood relations cleave to one man. This latter argument, as may be also urged in favour of the marriage of a maternal or paternal uncle with the widow of a son by the brother or sister-concerning which hereafter-I shall here pass by in silence, and address myself entirely to the former. It is true that God has expressly prohibited the marriage of a brother with a brother's wife, but not of a sister-in-law with the widower of her sister. But, by parity of reason, he hath left place for arguing from what is expressed to what is not expressed; so that, since the marriages of the brother-in-law and the brother's widow are interdicted, also the marriages of these are, for the

118

BROUWER ON LEV. XVIII. 18.

same reason, said to be forbidden by the sense of the divine law. Truly, as it has little modesty, so the following argument has no reason, which is wont to be adduced to the contrary, viz.-that God says, the nakedness of the wife is that of the husband, but nowhere that the nakedness (pudenda) of the husband is that of the wife; hence, marrying the brother's widow uncovers the nakedness of the brother, but he who has connection with a sister-in-law uncovers no one's nakedness: for the nakedness of a sister-in-law is not the nakedness of our wife.' But, that I may briefly answer to this obscene argument”—(used, however, by many of our moderns)—" the nakedness of the husband is the nakedness of the wife, who has coalesced with the husband into one human being (hominem): For a wife has the same power over the body of the man that the man has over the body of the woman. That although God only speaks of the nakedness of the wife, the same thing must be said, from the nature of marriage, concerning the nakedness of the husband, viz.-that it is contrary to natural modesty in the husband of a sister, or sister's widower, to uncover the nakedness of her sister. Otherwise, this same argument would make marriage with a daughter-in-law lawful; because the nakedness of a daughter-in-law is not the nakedness of our wife, which, however, God expressly forbids-Lev. xviii. 17. Therefore, the words of God—' because it is the nakedness of thy brother'—are to be received as meaning, because she is the wife of thy brother. They do not rightly understand the intention (mentem) of the law, who affirm that God only prohibits the marriage of a sister with the husband of a sister during the lifetime of the sister, that the married sister be not vexed: for that law has no respect to this matter; for God forbids polygamy, when in Lev. xviii. 18 he prohibits the taking of one sister to another: for all Israelites called themselves sisters and brothers, acknowledging the same father, Abraham.-Calvin, ad. 7. Præcept. Decal. in loc. Lev. xviii. 16. Wherefore, it seems to me, the version of Junius and Tremellius is to be approved, one woman to another take not, to vex her,' (hanc, this), by uncovering the nakedness of her (illius) that married upon this (hanc) in her life (in vita ipsius), as is gathered from Malachi rebuking polygamists-cap. ii. 14, 15." He then goes on to show that many heathen nations, as well as the Christians, condemned such marriages; and concludes this section thus :—" The opinion of some Rabbins may here be noted in passing,—that in honour of Jacob, the husband of Leah and Rachel, God declared no special punishment against this custom, as, indeed in other incestuous marriages.Buxtorf, pat. 1. § 23. De Sponsal. et Divor. Ebr. But the Papists have followed the divine law, and the law of Justinian.-C. 8, caus. 35, 9, 2, 3. Our laws, act. 10; Political Const. of Holland, act. 19; Pol. Const. of Zealand; The Transysoluni, act. 20; Ord. Van Matrim. Sæck.; Van Overyssel. act. 61; Éght. Regl. Vande Stat. General Synod held at Middleburg, ann. 1581, act. 85 et 87; Synod Holl. Amstr. held Enchus, ann. 1624, act. 54; held Horn. 1629, act. 5811; and, Bechstad being witness, ALL GERMANY." *

-

After all that has been adduced on this text is considered by the reader, he will possibly be disposed to think that the following censure is somewhat in danger of recoiling on its author:-" I ask for the name of any Hebrew scholar, whose name is of any authority, that ever held Dr

* Henrici Brouwer, J. C., De Jure Connubiorum apud Batavos recepto, Libri Duo, &c. Amstelodami, 1665.