the only true version. The Heb. has, one another; 1o ish keâ'hiv, npo 83 nnna 3a UN ishah el a’hothûh a man as his brother, i. e. one man as lo tikka'h, a wife, or woman, to her sis- another; 777 ish veâ’hiv, a man ter thou shalt not take: As to the and his brother, i. e. one man with meaning of the separate terms there is another; 78 28 ish meâ'hiv, a no doubt. It is admitted on all sides man from his brother, i. e. one man that UN ishah means 'woman' or from another; 1 2 ̄N_ish_â'hiv, a wife, el, to, and is a'hothâh, man his brother, i. e. one man another; sister. But it is not clear what the 150 wx ish mëal â'hiv, a man words import when taken altogether, from his brother, i. e. one from another;

אחיו

is lethio, a man to his איש לאחיו אשה אל אחתה as we find the phrase

ishah el a’hothâh used idiomatically to brother, i. e. one to another. The usage signify the adding of one thing to ano-in these cases is too obvious to need ther, as is also the corresponding phrase TTA ZA UN ish el a'hiv, a man to his brother. Of these phrases the former

remark; but we are more especially concerned with the feminine form, which we now proceed to illustrate.

אשה אל אחתה (.2)

A Woman to her Sister.

a man to his brother '-occurs twentyfive times in the Hebrew scriptures, and the latter- a woman to her sister' -ten times. Neither of the phrases Ex. 26. 3, 'The five curtains shall are confined to persons; they are both be coupled together one to another frequently, and in fact generally, spoken MN a woman to her sister), of inanimate substances as will appear and other five curtains shall be coupled from the citations which we give, in-one to another ( 38 N a wocluding all the important instances.

איש אל אחיך (.1)

A man to his brother.

Gen. 37. 19, And they said one to

man to her sister).'

Ex. 26. 5, That the loops may take

אשה אל אחתה) hold one of another

Ex. 26. 6. And couple the curtains

a woman to אשה אל אחתה) a man to his together איש אל אחיו),another

brother).'

Ex. 25. 20, And the faces of the cherubim shall look one to another

(1 38 28 a man to his brother.)'

Ex. 37. 9, The cherubim stood with

her sister).'

Ex. 26. 17. Two tenons shall be set one against another ( 38 ms a woman to her sister)."

Ezek. 1. 9, and 11. 'Their wings were

איש אל אחיו)

אשה אל אחתה) joined one to another | איש אל) their faces one to another

אשה) a .(a woman to her sister אל אחתה

straight one towards another איש אל אחיו) one against another

אשה) creatures touched one another | איש אל אחיו) north one with another

man to his brother).'

Jer. 25 26, And all the kings of the

a man to his brother).'

Ezek. 24. 23,'And mourn one towards

אשה a man to his the present, where the phrase איש אל אחיו) another

brother).

In addition to the above we find, in the masculine form, several equivalent modes of expression slightly varying from that now given; as 7 IN U78 ish eth a'hiv, a man his brother, i. e.

stance do we meet with the literal version, a wife or woman to her sister. So in the twenty-five instances of the masculine form, the rendering of our translators is uniform, one to another, whe ther spoken of persons or things. In no case do we find any reference to relationship by blood. The question therefore arises whether the literal version in this place, involving, as it does, a departure from common usage, is warranted. It is admitted that the thirty-four indisputable cases in which this mode of speech occurs in an idiomatic sense go very far to establish this | as in all cases the genuine signification of the phrase. It would seem, at first view, that such an overwhelming majority of instances would be completely decisive of the point in dispute; and yet we cannot but concede that there is in this one case very great rea

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; and it is not a matter of small weight in confirmation, that all the ancient versions, as the Chal. Targ. of Oukelos, the Samaritan, the Syriac, and the Arabic, adhere to the literal construction. The Greek of the Seventy also, which elsewhere renders the Heb. phrase by one to another, here has γυναικα επ' αδελφῃ ου ληψῃ, a woman to her sister thou shalt not take. At the same time, the advocate for the idiomatic interpretation has a right to demand a probable reason for the change of diction observable in this verse, when compared with the preceding. Why does it not commence with the

ערות אשה ואחתא לא תגלה son to doubt. For it will be observed formula

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ervath eshah vea’hothah lo tegalleh, the nakedness of a wife and her sister thou shalt not uncover? To this it is perhaps a satisfactory answer, that the writer wished to introduce the terms for

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.' uncovering nakedness' in a little dif If we take the expression here according to its import in every other case in which it occurs, we shall be obliged to render the verse, 'Thou shalt not take one to another to vex,' &c. One what? -it might properly be asked. If it be said, one woman, this is immediately giving a new latitude to the phrase be yond what it idiomatically implies; and yet its force as an idiom is all that is relied upon in proof of its referring not to a sister, but to any other woman. The principles then of a fair exegesis would seem to compel us, if we understand woman or wife by UN ishah, to understand sister by 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

ferent relation in the subsequent part of the verse, and so to connect them with other words as to form a strong dissuasive against the union forbidden. On reading the verse entire we should doubtless find it extremely difficult to hit upon any mode of expression so well adapted to convey the sense intended as that which actually occurs, and this is what necessitated a departure from the fixed phraseology that runs through the other precepts, because we have here not the precept only, but an argument to enforce it-an argument drawn from the effects of such a marriage upon domestic happiness. The lawgiver, in the other verses, speaks for the most part the language of simple absolute authority; in this he hints at a reason for his command. We might expect, therefore, a slight change in the form of speech.

to them; and can it be supposed that
David, for instance, knew there was
such a law, and yet spent his life in
open violation of it?
'Again,' says
the author of an able series of articles
on this subject in the N. E. Puritan,
we show that polygamy is not prohib-

But although we feel constrained to my? To this we are for ourselves congive up the argument drawn from the strained to answer, No. Although poHebrew idiom, and usually applied in this lygamy was essentially contrary to the connexion to convert the passage before genius of the marriage institution, and us into a direct prohibition of polygamy, never truly sanctioned by the Most and therefore as having nothing to do High, yet it was evidently tolerated, with the question of the disputed mar- and the divine legislation not only reriage; and though we cannot in fair- cognized its existence, but provided ness avoid admitting that the connexion against its abuses. If the text in queshere forbidden is marriage with a wife's tion contains a positive prohibition of sister; yet we do not for that reason feel | that sin, the good men of Israel must laid under any necessity of admitting | have known it. Whatever ambiguity the inference which is so commonly it may have to us, it could have none 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 life-time.' From this, it is said, the implication is palpable, that the obligation of the law is limited by the life time of the first wife, and that upon her decease there isited in this text by a plain reductio ad no bar to the husband's marrying her sister. This we must regard as a gross non sequitur. The expression' in her life time' 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 infer ence which we have shown to be dedu-ishment by death is indisputable. Now cible from v. 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 life time' in this con-posal of their estates among the children nexion 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 embitter the lot of the first wife during the whole period of her life. The consequence of your rashness, or indiscretion, or malevolence, will be, that she will know peace no more as long as she lives.

But what, it may be asked, is the real scope of the precept? Is it a direct and categorical prohibition of polyga

.

absurdum. For in the first place, if that be the sin forbidden, it is a sin whose penalty is death. For after completing the series, the lawgiver says, 'Whosoever shall commit any of these abomninations, even the souls that commit them, shall be cut off from among the people.' That these terms import pun

suppose the crime thus threatened, to have been that of marrying two wives. Then we have the absurdity of an express law against bigamy, declaring that bigamists shall be punished with death; and then afterwards a law re quiring all bigamists to make a fair dis

of their two wives. For in Deut. 21. 15, we read; If a man have two wives, one beloved and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn be hers that was hated, then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated.' Now this is a strange law to come in after a law that had denounced death on any one that should have two wives. For

| sister, a marriage which was forbidden before, are wholly gratuitous. Such an implication cannot be shown to have entered at all into the drift of the precept. Its genuine purport was to intimate that the vexation created by such a step to the first wife would last as long as she lived that there would be no discharge in that (domestic) war.' And with a very malicious or evilminded man, this fact might of itself be in some cases a prompting motive to such a union. But upon all such con siderate cruelty as this, the divine pre cept would frown in advance.

On the whole, therefore, we are una

If, then, polygamy is not forbidden in this passage, what is? We answer, that it was designed to discountenance the practice which is implied in the plain and literal terms of the text-the taking simultaneously of two sisters to wife. This was a practice which, as able to perceive that the precept we are general fact, would be attended with now considering has any, even the most unhappy consequences to the domestic remote, relation to the subject of incesrelations of all the parties concerned. tuous marriages treated of in the preReference is undoubtedly to be had all ceding context. The whole law conalong to the prevalent sentiments and cerning incest closes with the 17th usages of the Oriental nations. It is verse. The prohibition in the 18th rewell known that among them the cus- spects altogether another subject, and tom of having more than one wife in a is as distinct from incest as any of the single household is very apt to engender other crimes mentioned and forbidden rivalries, jealousies, and feuds between in the remaining parts of the chapter. those who share the divided marital It might indeed appear, from the use favors and affections of their common of the word 'neither' at the commencelord. In such a state of things, there ment of the verse, that it was intimately was something peculiarly repulsive in connected with the foregoing. But this the spectacle of two natural sisters, rendering is not borne out by the origi who ought to be tenderly bound to each nal. It is the simple particle 7 ve, and, other by the ties of blood, and studious which we find in the Hebrew text, and of each other's happiness, thrown as a is precisely the same word which in the matter of course into a species of hos- three subsequent verses is translated tile attitude one towards the other, and respectively, also, moreover,' and thus proving each to each a source of 'and;' and the usual paragraph discontinual irritation and vexation. Thus tinction might very properly have been we see it was in the family of Jacob; introduced here. and it is highly probable that as in one of the foregoing precepts there was a latent allusion to the case of Abraham, so here was a designed, though implicit, reference to that of Jacob. The Most High would so frame the precept as to counteract the plea of patriarchal example for its violation.

But all inferences, drawn from the phrase 'in her life time,' as if that legitimated, after the death of the one

។

But we proceed with the exposition. -¶ To vex her. Heb. blitzror, to vex; i. e. to produce vexation in the family, to the first wife mainly, no doubt, but not to her alone, as the appopriate 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, a

and

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