21
or the case of the one hour commented upon by the Mishna, or at least this case no further than as it brings out into the plainest prominence Dr. M'Caul's own witness to the sense of Lev. xviii. 18, that it forbids "B to marry A's widow, because to marry two sisters simultaneously is forbidden by Lev. xviii. 18." That is, by the law of the Levirate simply, this would have been required, but by the exception of the above verse it is forbidden.[1]
And this is what I mean by saying the passage shews all I want. It proves incontestably that according to the Mishna, according to the Jewish Rabbis, according to Dr. M'Caul, the enactment of the 18th verse of the xviii. of Leviticus was inserted, for the very purpose which I have all along supposed:—that it was the declaration of God's will, that when the operation of the law of the Levirate per se would bring about the brother taking his own wife's sister to wife to raise up seed unto his brother, then the exception to the exception came in and forbade him to do so, if her sister, his own wife, were alive. And this is what made me say (p. 13) that Dr. M'Caul came very near to the application of that text which I have been unfolding, though I was obliged to add, he overlooked its importance in interpreting the law as contained in Leviticus, for he allows that the 18th verse of Leviticus xviii. reaches to, is intended to reach to, and to forbid, this especial union, which otherwise would have been enjoined by the law in Deut. xxv., but it appears never to have occurred to him that this is the ample and sufficient explanation of the existence of that 18th verse. He never seems to have conceived it possible that it should be restricted to being the exception to the Leviratical Law, and not be a general Law itself.
I would, my Lord, for many reasons, had it so pleased God, that Dr. M'Caul were alive. His ability and learning, his strong sense and true piety, and not least his willing readiness to
- ↑ Appendix B.
