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126 wife, is woman. So it is translated in very many places; and therefore, according to his rule, he ought to assign a reason for its being rendered, in these texts, by the term wife. Had he recollected this primary sense of the Hebrew word, he would not (guided by sound) have said, "It may seem presumption in me, to contend that the text means what it says." We shall not put him to this trouble; we shall agree to receive the translation as correct.

We have however a reply to offer to a question he proposes in p. 17: "Is not then the inference irresistible, that when no such special reasons for departing from the accustomed use can be shown, the term wife is to be understood to mean wife, and nothing else?"

Now, while we admit the correctness of the version of the term, we contend, that in all the statutes included in verses 6–16, the term wife does signify more than what it usually expresses; it means, from the very import of these prohibitory statutes, the wife, not only while her husband is living, but when he is dead, and she left in a state of widowhood. How long is a man forbidden to have incestuous intercourse