Deuteronomy 25:5 - Meaning and Application

Here is the law about marrying a brother’s widow. From Judah’s family story, we can see that this had been an old custom (Genesis 38:8). It was meant to keep family lines going. The case here is common enough, a man dies without children, maybe in the prime of life, soon after marriage, while his brothers are still too young to be married.

In that case, the widow was not to marry into another family, unless all her husband’s relatives refused her. That way, the property she received with marriage would not pass out of the family. Her husband’s brother, or nearest relative, was supposed to marry her. This showed kindness to her, since she had left her own people and her father’s house. It also honored the dead husband, so that he would not be forgotten or lost from the records of his tribe. The first son born to that union was to be counted as the dead man’s child and placed in the family line under his name (Deuteronomy 25:5, 25:6).

Under that old covenant, people did not have as clear a hope of life after death as we do now. The gospel has brought life and immortality to light. So it mattered more to them to live on in their children’s names. This law helped with that natural desire in a harmless way. Even if a man had no child by his wife, his name would not be erased from Israel, that is, from the family record, or left there marked by childlessness. The Sadducees later used this law in a question to Jesus, trying to confuse the doctrine of the resurrection (Matthew 22:24 and following). They may have implied that there was no need to stress the soul’s immortality or a future life, since the law had already made such careful provision for preserving names and families.

If the brother, or nearest relative, refused to do this duty, what then? He was not forced to marry her (Deuteronomy 25:7). If he did not like her, he was free to refuse her. Some think the law had not allowed that freedom before Moses. Love is essential to the comfort of marriage. Since affection cannot be forced, the marriage itself should not be forced without it.

Still, he was to be publicly shamed for refusing. The widow, who had the most at stake in preserving her dead husband’s name, was to bring the matter before the elders. If he stayed unwilling, she was to pull off his shoe and spit in his face in public court, or at least spit before his face, as the Jewish teachers later softened it (Deuteronomy 25:8-10). This marked him with dishonor, and the shame would cling to his family after him. Those who will not help preserve another person’s name and honor justly lose honor themselves. If he would not build up his brother’s house, he deserved to carry a sign of disgrace on his own house, as one whose shoe had been loosed, showing he deserved to go barefoot. We see this law carried out in the case of Ruth (Ruth 4:7). But there, since another man was ready to do the duty, it was that other man, not Ruth, who took off the shoe.

There is also a law here for punishing an unseemly woman (Deuteronomy 25:11, 25:12). The woman who complained against her husband’s brother for refusing to marry her had to be bold and confident. But lest that kind of confidence grow into shamelessness, there is here a strict but fair law against bold indecency. The act itself is admitted to be shameful in the highest degree. A woman could not do such a thing unless she had lost all sense of virtue and honor.

The setting might partly excuse the act, since she was trying to help her husband against someone stronger than he was. But if doing it in anger, and with such a seeming good motive, was punished so severely, how much more if it was done from lust and wicked desire? The punishment was that her hand should be cut off, and the judges were not to act as if they were kinder than God: “Your eye shall not pity her.” Perhaps Jesus had this law in mind when he told us to cut off the right hand that causes us to sin. It is better to endure the greatest hardship in the body than to ruin the soul forever. Modesty is a guard around chastity, and both men and women should carefully protect it.