25:5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, 16 and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. 17
1 tn Heb “you,” and throughout the verse (cf. NASB, NRSV).
2 tn Heb “the small,” but referring to social status, not physical stature.
3 tn Heb “his glory and his greatness.”
4 tn Heb “this day we have seen.”
5 tc The MT reads only “the land.” Smr supplies עַם (’am, “people”) and LXX and its dependents supply “the inhabitants of the land.” The truncated form found in the MT is adequate to communicate the intended meaning; the words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT).
7 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, indicated in the translation by the words “without fail.”
8 tn Heb “your brothers,” but not referring to siblings (cf. NIV “your brother Israelites”; NLT “a fellow Israelite”). The same phrase also occurs in v. 20.
9 tn Heb “your brothers.” See the preceding note on “fellow citizens.”
10 tn Heb “to fight against it to capture it.”
11 tn Heb “you must not destroy its trees by chopping them with an iron” (i.e., an ax).
12 tn Heb “you may eat from them.” The direct object is not expressed; the word “fruit” is supplied in the translation for clarity.
13 tn Heb “to go before you in siege.”
14 tn Heb “give [over] your enemies.”
15 tn Heb “nakedness of a thing”; NLT “any shameful thing.” The expression עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers specifically to sexual organs and, by extension, to any function associated with them. There are some aspects of human life that are so personal and private that they ought not be publicly paraded. Cultically speaking, even God is offended by such impropriety (cf. Gen 9:22-23; Lev 18:6-12, 16-19; 20:11, 17-21). See B. Seevers, NIDOTTE 3:528-30.
16 tn Heb “take her as wife”; NRSV “taking her in marriage.”
17 sn This is the so-called “levirate” custom (from the Latin term levir, “brother-in-law”), an ancient provision whereby a man who died without male descendants to carry on his name could have a son by proxy, that is, through a surviving brother who would marry his widow and whose first son would then be attributed to the brother who had died. This is the only reference to this practice in an OT legal text but it is illustrated in the story of Judah and his sons (Gen 38) and possibly in the account of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2:8; 3:12; 4:6).
18 sn The removal of the sandal was likely symbolic of the relinquishment by the man of any claim to his dead brother’s estate since the sandal was associated with the soil or land (cf. Ruth 4:7-8). Spitting in the face was a sign of utmost disgust or disdain, an emotion the rejected widow would feel toward her uncooperative brother-in-law (cf. Num 12:14; Lev 15:8). See W. Bailey, NIDOTTE 2:544.
19 tn Heb “build the house of his brother”; TEV “refuses to give his brother a descendant”; NLT “refuses to raise up a son for his brother.”
20 tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).
21 tn Heb “increase of herds.”
22 tn Heb “growth of flocks.”
23 tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”