Page:The ancient interpretation of Leviticus XVIII. 18 - Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is lawful.djvu/52

 and others too. From the prohibition, Lev. xxii. 28 — "Whether it be cow or ewe, ye shall not kill her and her young one both in one day" — it is inferred that to kill them on different days was lawful. From Lev. xxiii. 7, 8 — "In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation, ye shall do no servile work therein.... In the seventh day is a holy convocation, ye shall do no servile work therein" — it is inferred that on the intermediate days, excepting the seventh-day Sabbath, servile work might be done. Even in the New Testament the lawfulness of a man's marrying a second time is left to be proved by inference from the permission given to a widow (Rom. vii.) to take a second husband. Thus, most important consequences affecting the happiness and life of the individual, as the marriage of a widow or a penitent harlot, the deliverance of an innocent man from capital punishment, the permission to the labourer, the artisan, and the tradesman to earn their bread on the intermediate days between the first and seventh of the great feasts, depend altogether on inferences from a limitation. The inference drawn from the limitation in Lev. xviii. 18, "in her lifetime," is as old as the days of Philo, has been drawn by the great body of the Jewish nation ever since, and by a host of the most learned and thoughtful Christians, of various nations and opposing creeds, down to the present time — not only those who draw it in favour of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, but of those who, opposing that marriage, interpret Lev. xviii. 18 of polygamy. Both assert that the words, "in her lifetime," is a limitation, and that, when the wife is dead, a second marriage is lawful; and thus the united strength and learning of these two parties — and there are only a few individual commentators who do not belong to the one or the other — are combined in affirming the validity of this conclusion.

There are, however, some few who admit that the