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The eighth commandment
Deuteronomy 25.5-10
“‘If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.” Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, “I do not wish to take her,” then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, “So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.” And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, “The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.”’”
Ruth 4
This is a difficult statute for us to understand in our time and culture. However, keeping it helped to maintain order and justice in the communities of ancient Israel, as we see in Ruth 4. When this law of inheritance, which included marriage to the wife of the deceased by his nearest unmarried kin, was properly observed, all questions about property were taken care of in a single stroke.
Any many who refused to marry his deceased relative’s wife thus put in jeopardy both her purity and the stewardship of the family’s property. Again, this may not make sense to us, but in ancient Israel it was an essential rule for maintaining order and justice in communities.
This series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.