Deuteronomy 25

If a man who was married died without issue, his surviving brother was required to marry the widow, so as to raise up a successor to the deceased, who should be his heir. The brother who refused this duty must be publicly disgraced. The design of this institution—which was not originated by Moses, but came down from early times (Gen. 38:8), and is to be found among other nations than the Jews, and that even in the present day—was to preserve a family from becoming extinct and to secure the property of a family from passing into the hands of a stranger.

7-10. If the man refused to marry the widow of his deceased brother, he was free to do so; but the woman had her redress. She was to bring the matter before the elders of the town, sitting as magistrates at the gate, and they were to summon the man and speak to him, and if he persisted in his refusal, the woman was to take his shoe from off his foot, and spit before his face, and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. The taking off of the shoe of the man by the woman was an act of indignity to him; it amounted to a declaration that he was not worthy to stand in his brother’s place, and was scornfully rejected by the woman herself. W. L. A.

The Jealousy Offering (Nu. 5:11-31).

We find among the covenant people adultery forbidden in the Ten Commandments, and in the more full explanation of the Law, threatened with death. The prohibitions of marriage in cases of near kinship are intended to protect the holy family bond, which is founded on marriage. The whole constitution of the people of Israel, with their tables of genealogies, resting, as this constitution did, on the patriarchal family unity, necessarily inculcated the great importance of a pure and unmixed descent. Hence the appointment of the jealousy-offering, which was intended to bring to light the truth of the suspicion of adultery. It is remarkable that the woman must appear with an offering before the Lord. This was an offering of barley with wheat-meal—no oil, no frankincense, might be on it. She lay under grave suspicion. In this, at least, she was not blameless. Yet she might bring the offering, since she was only suspected, not judged. By making the offering she confessed herself pure before God; she appealed to him to defend her innocency; in case of guilt, she challenged his judgment to fall upon her more heavily. Holding the offering in her hand, she must take the oath that she is clean, which is the main point of the whole transaction. All besides is intended to make the perjury in this case the more fearful. Therefore she must now drink the water wherein is placed dust taken from the floor of the sanctuary, and figuratively charged with a curse. The meaning is not that the water has thereby received any actual power to do her any injury: it was rather an earnest and token of the Divine judgment which now passed over her. From the moment of drinking it she might be sure that, as certainly as the curse had figuratively passed into the water and the water into her, so surely would God know how to find her out with his punishments. Gerl.

The national covenant had its parallel in every family of Israel, in the marriage-tie that bound together man and wife. This relation was chosen as an expressive image of that in which the whole people stood to God. It was, therefore, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Mosaic legislation that the strongest enactments should be made respecting this domestic relation, that the behavior of man and wife to each other throughout the families of Israel might present a faithful image of the behavior Israel should maintain toward God; or if otherwise, that exemplary judgment might be inflicted. Not only must ascertained guilt be punished, but strong suspicions of guilt must be brought by solemn appeal to God. Therefore it was that the ritual respecting the trial and offering of jealousy was prescribed. Of course, the actual infliction of the curse depended upon the will and power of God, whose interference was at the time so solemnly invoked. But the whole service was fitted to convey a deep impression of the jealous care with which God watched over even the most secret violations of the marriage vow, and the certainty with which he would avenge them. P. F

The Amalekites were a kindred people (Gen.

36 : 15, 16) ; and living as they did in the peninsula of Sinai, they could not but have well known the mighty acts God had done for his people in Egypt and the Red Sea ; yet they manifested from the first a persistent hostility to Israel (cf. Ex. 17 : 8 ; Nu. 14 : 45). They provoked therefore the sentence here pronounced, which was executed at last by Saul. Espin. (See Section 99.)—The crime of the Amalekites was falling upon the hindmost, who were faint and weary. It was an act of cruelty untempered by any mercy ; and the decree of God is their extermination because they were merciless. “For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy” (Jas. 2 : 13). Elgar.