in," according to a common usage of the future tense, is clear from the provision that is made immediately after, in case he should decline. It is extremely made permis- probable, moreover, that the ceremony which took

An obligatory law of the heathen

sive only

among Jews. place before the elders was intended as a modification of a severer penalty imposed under heathen regulations. It consisted of two parts-First, the widow loosed the shoe from off his foot;1 this was her security that the unwilling brother had renounced all right over the wife and inheritance of the deceased. Secondly, she "spat in his face," and said, "So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house." According to Jewish interpretation, she spat "before him," not "in his face;" it was to mark her sense of contempt for the man who had slighted her, and done dishonour to her husband.

Again, Moses introduced another limitation, for he made the law inapplicable save for such brethren as dwelt together in the same neighbourhood. Without this limitation it might become a serious burden to a man to have to remove his abode to a distance, or else to fetch the widow and all that appertained to her to his own house.

1 Just as to plant the foot upon any thing or place symbolised possession, so to loose the shoe and give it to another implied renunciation.

stamped with marks of inferiority.

Yet, further, in proof that such a custom, as Moses sanctioned it, may not be interpreted as lending any general countenance to marriage with one so near of kin as brother-in-law or sister-inlaw, it is worth while to notice how little like a real marriage such an union was regarded. We showed before in the case of remarriage after divorce under the Mosaic dispensation, that the second con- A Levirate tract was stamped with marks of distinct inferiority; 1 marriage so it is here. The very object of the union was something immeasurably below that for which marriage was instituted; its highest aim was held to be not the supply of "an help meet for man," but simply "to raise up seed"; and the very term employed to describe the action was not that of "marrying," but one which in the Hebrew signifies "making pregnant." 2 The offspring, too, of the union was not in the eye of the law its father's, but its uncle's child.3 Thus in its essential features it was as unlike a true marriage as it is possible to conceive; there can be little justification, therefore, in dragging it into a precedent for the union of such close relations in regular and lawful wedlock.

1 Cf. supra, pp. 31, 32.

is the title of the Treatise in the Mishnah for the יכמות : יבם 2

regulation of such unions.

3 This was the same in the Hindu law. Cf. Maine, 106.

the Divine

Such we believe to be the right way of regarding this custom. That it was repugnant to Moses there can be little doubt, in the light of the fact that, under ordinary circumstances, he distinctly prohibited such an union: "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife"; 1 but so was polygamy, and so was divorce; nevertheless he was obliged to concede the right in consequence of prejudices which he was powerless to withstand.

A Divine law may be suspended under excepThe right of tional circumstances. It derives its force from the revealed will of an unquestioned authority, but if, suspend the under altered circumstances, that same authority of an infringe- withdraw the obligation, its operation ceases. For

Lawgiver to

penal nature

ment.

instance, Moses was commanded to lay down the enactment, "Thou shalt not kill"; but its general observance was not inconsistent with the belief that under some conditions homicide might possibly be justifiable. When in his righteous anger against the worship of Baal-peor, Phinehas took a javelin in his hand and slew Zimri and the Midianitish woman, God manifested His approval by staying the plague from the children of Israel.2 So it might be in regard to union within the forbidden degrees. God, Who made the law, might suspend the inces

1 Lev. xviii. 16.

2 Numb. xxv. 8.

tuous character of it; He had done so in the beginning of the race, and the legislator, while making all possible provisions for discouraging the practice, nevertheless admitted it, under special and exceptional circumstances, as part of his concessive and temporary legislation.

on which the

Jews justify

the right to marry a

wife's sister.

V.

A Second Illustration of Concessive

Legislation.

JEWISH authorities claim permission to marry a deceased wife's sister; and a careful and unbiassed examination of what is written in the Law has convinced us that, while all analogy and legitimate inference would have forbidden such an union, it was nevertheless, for reasons which have not been revealed, as in the preceding exemption, allowed to the Jews by Moses.

Talmudists assert that the permission is based on The grounds perfectly intelligible grounds. Now I do not think that it devolves upon us to test the validity of these. We have to face the fact; they satisfied Jews, and they have been acted upon in the almost universal practice of the nation. We do not by any means accept them, but they were recognised by Moses as sufficient to satisfy him that some concession was called for to meet the case. It is quite possible that