Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/192

188 On this passage of Omicron we offer the following remarks:

1. His censure of the English version is groundless; for the original word is not the one quoted by him, but a very different word, which is rightly rendered by the English word family.

2. The kinsman spoken of is the kinsman of the deceased man's father, that is next to him of his family.

3. When a Hebrew died without a son, the inheritance went, according to law, to his daughter, (v 8:) but if he had no daughter, then it went to his brethren; if he had no brethren, then to his father's brethren; and if his father had no brethren, then to his father's kinsman that is next to him of his family. It is true that the inheritance passed the nearest affinity-relations; and so, with the exception of a daughter, it passed the nearest female blood-relations, as sisters and mother, and even his father, that it might go to his father's brethren or a more remote kinsman, (Num. 27:9–11.) Now, from this legal arrangement about inheritance, what argument can, with propriety, be drawn to limit the signification of the Hebrew word to blood-