LAW OF FORBIDDEN DEGREES OF MARRIAGE, AND OF CHASTITY 3. Some of the unions here forbidden as incestuous were permitted among the nations of antiquity. The early Egyptians, e.g. permitted marriage with a full sister. Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 20:12), a practice here forbidden (Leviti... [ Continue Reading ]
FATHER'S WIFE] This is not the same as 'mother' in the previous v. so that polygamy is here presupposed. It was common, perhaps universal, in the East at the time of Moses. The Mosaic Law did not seek all at once to abolish polygamy, which might have been the occasion of great hardship in the circum... [ Continue Reading ]
This law was not absolute, the so-called levirate marriage, or marriage with the widow of a deceased brother, being not only permissible but almost compulsory: see on Deuteronomy 25:5.... [ Continue Reading ]
IN HER LIFE _time_] This implies that after the death of the first wife a man might marry her sister. It is not a law against polygamy but only against a special form of it, viz. marrying two sisters. The restriction is professedly made in the interests of domestic peace and happiness. For TO VEX _H... [ Continue Reading ]
Cp. Leviticus 20:1. MOLECH] ('king') the firegod of the Ammonites and Canaanites, and especially of the Phœnicians, to whom children were sacrificed in burnt-offering. PASS THROUGH _the fire_] see 1 Kings 11:5; 2 Kings 3:27; 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 32:35. The idea u... [ Continue Reading ]