CHAPTER XII.
Conclusion.—Leviticus 18:18.—Meaning.—Objections.—Implication often rejected.—Penalties of the Hebrew civil law
In the last chapter it was shown, by just rules of interpretation, that it is unlawful for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, for the following reasons:
1. He sustains to her precisely the same relation which he sustains to his brother's wife, whom he is expressly forbidden (v. 16) to marry.
2. As the law addresses women as well as men, when it says to a man, Thou shalt not cohabit with thy brother's wife, it virtually says to a woman, Thou shalt not cohabit with thy sister's husband.
3. A man's sister-in-law is near of kin to him; and so comes under the general rule of prohibition in the 6th verse.
4. She is blood-kin to her sister, with whom her brother-in-law has cohabited.
