Levirate Misuse

We couldn’t watch television in our college dorm. My roommate loved NBA basketball. The solution: we put a mirror before the tv and watched the mirror. The dean saw us and said we were breaking the rule, to which we said we weren’t watching television but a mirror.

The levirate law said that if a brother died without giving his wife a child, one of the younger brothers of the dead brother must have sex with his sister-in-law until she had a child so that the dead brother’s name would not be forgotten (Deut 25:5–10). The younger brothers found a loophole in the law – if they didn’t give a child to their sister-in-law, they could keep the older brother’s property and have unconditional sex, which they did by spilling their semen on the ground (Gen 38:8–9).

Where a law is, people find loopholes!

The Hebrews found a way to misuse the levirate law, leaving women with multiple “husbands” in Jesus’s time (e.g., John 4). They had no recourse since the men seemed to abide by the law.

After Jesus outsmarted the Pharisees and Herodians, the Sadducees came to test him. They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead (which was why they were sad-u-see! My teacher’s joke). They posed a levirate misuse as a test case: a woman had seven men, and all died, including the woman (Mark 12:18–23). If the resurrection was true, whose wife would she be at the resurrection? Jesus said,

“Aren’t you deceived by not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God?” (12:24)

Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees didn’t know the law. They were a political, not a religious, group. Saying that, Jesus explained the power of God first and then the Scriptures (in an ABBA structure, also known as chiastic or hamburger-like, where the outer (AA) and inner (BB) topics match).

A – They didn’t know the Scripture (v. 24a)

B – They didn’t know the power of God (v. 24b)

B – The story about the angels that proved the power of God (v. 25)

A – The Scripture that proved the resurrection (v. 26–27a)

The power of God prevented those seven men and their woman from entering a bartering situation: “marrying and given in marriage.” In Hebrew culture, men married (active voice), whereas women were given in marriage (passive voice) by their parents. Marrying and given in marriage were done on earth where death terminated a marriage, and a new marriage had to be negotiated. But if death didn’t terminate one’s marriage, as was in heaven, then no one would enter a bartering of marrying and given in marriage. That was the angels’ state – never having their relationship end because of death. (This verse doesn’t say angels do not marry or heaven doesn’t have familial relationships. We will still know our spouses, parents, siblings, and friends.)

About the resurrection and the Scriptures, God’s said to Moses,

“I am the God of Abraham; I am the God of Isaac; and I am the God of Jacob. They are not dead but living.” (12:26–27)

The Sadducees believed that only the first five books of the OT were God’s words. Jesus cited a passage from Exodus to argue that God is (and not was) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because they all were still living. (A good grammarian!)

Jesus said twice that they were deceived (v. 24, 27). Refusing to believe in the resurrection was (and is) deception, not truth. The essence of our faith is believing in the God of the living and our resurrection (1 Cor 15).