not merely an exception, but a contradiction to the parallel case of what is forbidden in verse 16 as to the brother’s wife, and permitting the union with a wife’s sister, so that it be not in the lifetime of the former.  We thus come to what Dr. M’Caul himself considers to be a case of over-riding, where we must determine whether (to use again his own words) “the inferential prohibition from verse 16 is to over-ride the expressed command of verse 18, or the plain letter of this latter verse to over-ride the inference from the former.” [14]

Now, what I am anxious to see is, whether there is any need to force upon us this over-riding at all.  I think not.

To show what I mean, I ask this—Take the prohibition of the brother’s wife first in its plain literal terms, verse 16, and then is there, independently of the 18th verse, any direct exception to it?  Certainly there is.  When we come to the further explication of the Jewish polity, and God’s designs in reference to it, we find a special provision in the law of the Levirate, (that is, the law of raising up seed to the deceased brother), which will clash with that prohibition; for the brother is required to take his brother’s wife and raise up seed to a house in danger of becoming extinct in Israel.  “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.  And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.  And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.  Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.  And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.”  Deut. xxv., 5–10.

In this passage there is, not what I should call a contradiction to the general law, but an exception in a particular case, and for a particular case only.  It is no general permission over-riding and making of none effect the general prohibition, but a particular injunction for a special purpose in one defined contingency.  If a man’s brother die childless, his brother shall take his wife and raise up seed unto his brother.  As it was exactly quoted in the gospel: “Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.” [15]

We have already observed that the authority of Him who gave the prohibitory law is sufficient to give also the permissive, or more than permissive, exception, so that we come into no difficulty as to the one, in such measure, over-riding (to use again the term) the other.

But of course the opponent’s rejoinder is: Are you not in the very same case as to the other over-riding?  Is not the authority which gave the prohibition of the 16th verse equal to give the permission of the 18th?

Granting that it is so, yet I must again call attention to this; how wholly unlikely it is that, without making any special exception, for any suggested or defined cause, there should be within two verses of each other two general laws exactly contradictory, for so they are, if the argument from parallelism is allowed.  And therefore I must again urge how probable this makes it, if there be any other reasonable sense or application of the second passage not involving this contradiction, that such sense and application should be the true one, and there should be thus no over-riding at all between those two verses.

Is there then any such reasonable sense and application of the prohibition of the 18th verse?  I think there is.  To see what it is, go back to the exception under the law of the Levirate, [16] and ask whether the application of that law might not involve a man’s marrying two sisters.  Undoubtedly it might.  Suppose two brothers to have married two sisters, and the one brother to die, leaving no child, if, by the Leviratical law the brother, as he would do under that law simply, took his brother’s widow to raise up seed unto his brother, he would also be taking to wife his own wife’s sister, and this, it would seem under the injunction in Deuteronomy, he would not only be permitted but enjoined to do.  But was this to be without exception?  I answer, No!  If his own wife, the sister of the other were still alive, the Almighty did not intend this rule to be carried out in such case.  He, the surviving brother, in that contingency, should not “take a wife to her sister to vex her, . . . beside the other in her life-time.”  The prohibition of the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus comes in.  It comes, in the translation of the authorized version.  It comes, in the sense contended for, as prohibitory if both sisters are alive together.  It comes, as tacitly sanctioning the union if they are not; but it comes as limited in its application to this one case and one contemplated contingency, as God’s own exception touching the two sisters “in their life-time:”—His exception, as to both sisters alive together; the exception to the exception contained in the law of the Levirate, but as having nothing at all to do with the general law: as therefore in no way interfering with or over-riding the general law of the 16th verse; in no way making its general provision of none effect, as it would do if taken in the sense and application of these reformers of our marriage law.  And the above-mentioned sense and application which everyone must allow the 18th verse will bear, nay, which Dr. M’Caul tells us all Jewish authorities claim and sanction, as at least included in its legislation, is, I must contend, ample and sufficient to explain the standing of the 18th verse, and its full meaning, without supposing any other application whatsoever.

And let it be observed that this statement of such application to the case of two brothers having married two sisters, and the consequent duty, in the case of one brother dying childless, of the other brother to take his widow under the law of Deuteronomy, modified by the exception of the 18th verse of Lev. xviii, that such union is not to take place, if his own wife be still alive, is not mine, but Dr. M’Caul’s, in a full examination of certain passages in the Mishna upon this subject.  Indeed it was Dr. M’Caul’s own statement, in his Letter addressed, my Lord, to yourself in 1860, which brought to my mind the main line of argument which I am endeavouring to unfold.  I asked myself;—If all this in the Mishna and in Dr. M’Caul’s explication of the