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shalt not take her in her lifetime to vex her, alluding probably to the case of the jealousies and vexations which subsisted between Lea and Rachael, and by which the family peace was so often disturbed."
The Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic and Chaldee paraphrases agree in this interpretation, which is adopted by Grotius, Montesquieu, Mr. Justice Story, and Chief Justice Vaughan. The last says:
"Within the meaning of Leviticus, and the constant practice of the commonwealth of the Jews, a man was prohibited not to marry his wife's sister only during her life, after he might; so the text is (citing it). This perhaps is a knot not easily untied, how the Levitical degrees are God's law in this kingdom, but not as they were in the commonwealth of Israel, where first given."
This is the only manner in which the precept can be reconciled with the precept in Deuteronomy (xxv. V. 5), where a marriage in the same degree of kindred is injoined as a duty:
"If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her."
The Archbishop of Dublin pointedly observes:—"As for the allegations from the Levitical law, if any one brings them forward in sincerity, he should be prepared to advocate adherence to it in all points alike; among others,
