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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 25

1 If controversy arises between people, they should go to court for judgment. When the judges hear the case, they shall exonerate the innocent but condemn the guilty.⁠ 2 Then, if the guilty person is sentenced to a beating, the judge shall force him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of blows his wicked behavior deserves. 3 The judge may sentence him to 40 blows, but no more. If he is struck with more than these, you might view your fellow Israelite with contempt.⁠ 4 You must not muzzle your ox when it is treading grain. 5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law.⁠ 6 Then the first son she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel. 7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!” 8 Then the elders of his city must summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, “I don’t want to marry her,” 9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” 10 His family name will be referred to in Israel as “the family of the one whose sandal was removed.” 11 If two men get into a hand-to-hand fight, and the wife of one of them gets involved to help her husband against his attacker, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his private parts, 12 then you must cut off her hand—do not pity her. 13 You must not have in your bag different stone weights, a heavy and a light one. 14 You must not have in your house different measuring containers, a large and a small one. 15 You must have an accurate and correct stone weight and an accurate and correct measuring container, so that your life may be extended in the land the Lord your God is about to give you.⁠ 16 For anyone who acts dishonestly in these ways is abhorrent to the Lord your God. 17 Remember what the Amalekites did to you on your way from Egypt,⁠ 18 how they met you along the way and cut off all your stragglers in the rear of the march when you were exhausted and tired; they were unafraid of God. 19 So when the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies who surround you in the land he is giving you as an inheritance, you must wipe out the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven—do not forget!

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 25:5 and Mark 12:19

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

Deuteronomy 25 commands a surviving brother to marry his deceased brother’s childless widow. In Mark, Sadducees cite this Mosaic law to present a legal dilemma regarding resurrection.

Passages

Deuteronomy 25:5

Hebrew Bible
4 You must not muzzle your ox when it is treading grain. 5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. 6 Then the first son she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Mark 12:19

New Testament
18 Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) also came to him and asked him, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man must marry the widow and father children for his brother.’ 20 There were seven brothers. The first one married, and when he died he had no children.
60–75 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Mark

References

... Single women were especially attracted to Jesus's new family, for the women who accompany him are not embedded in family systems. Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman, the adulterous woman, Anna, the Syro-Phoenician, Joanna, Susanna, Mrs. Zebedee—none is accompanied by a husband. In Jesus's family, relationship was determined not by marriage or biology but by faith: his "mother and brothers and sisters" are those who follow divine will (Mark 3:31–35)... Concerning the Sadducees who ask Jesus about the woman married to seven brothers (Mark 12:18–27), they quote Moses's command in Deuteronomy 25:5 regarding Levirate marriage... ...
Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2006), 137, 143.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 25:5 and Mark 12:19

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