Deuteronomy 17:19

17:19 It must be with him constantly and he must read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and observe all the words of this law and these statutes and carry them out.

Deuteronomy 25:5

Respect for the Sanctity of Others

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, ¹  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ² 

Deuteronomy 25:7

25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ³  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

Deuteronomy 25:9

25:9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. ⁴  She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 27:3

27:3 Then you must inscribe on them all the words of this law when you cross over, so that you may enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, ⁶  said to you.

Deuteronomy 33:2

33:2 He said:

A Historical Review

The Lord came from Sinai

and revealed himself ⁷  to Israel ⁸  from Seir.

He appeared in splendor ⁹  from Mount Paran,

and came forth with ten thousand holy ones. ¹⁰ 

With his right hand he gave a fiery law ¹¹  to them.

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¹ tn Heb “take her as wife”; NRSV “taking her in marriage.”

² 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).

³ tn Heb “want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister in law.” In the second instance the pronoun (“she”) has been used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

⁴ 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.

⁵ 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.”

⁶ tn Heb “fathers.”

⁷ tn Or “rose like the sun” (NCV, TEV).

⁸ tc Heb “to him.” The LXX reads “to us” (לָנוּ [lanu] for לָמוֹ [lamo]), the reading of the MT is acceptable since it no doubt has in mind Israel as a collective singular.

tn Heb “him”; the referent (Israel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tn Or “he shone forth” (NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

¹⁰ tc With slight alteration (מִמְרִבַת קָדֵשׁ [mimrivat qadesh] for the MT’s מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ [merivvot qodesh]) the translation would be “from Meribah Kadesh” (cf. NAB, NLT; see Deut 32:51). However, the language of holy war in the immediate context favors the reading of the MT, which views the Lord as accompanied by angelic hosts.

¹¹ tc The mispointed Hebrew term אֵשְׁדָּת (’eshdat) should perhaps be construed as אֵשְׁהַת (’eshhat) with Smr.