Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 22:19 
Context22:19 They will fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, for the man who made the accusation 1 ruined the reputation 2 of an Israelite virgin. She will then become his wife and he may never divorce her as long as he lives.
Deuteronomy 22:24
Context22:24 you must bring the two of them to the gate of that city and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry out though in the city and the man because he violated 3 his neighbor’s fiancée; 4 in this way you will purge 5 evil from among you.
Deuteronomy 25:5
Context25:5 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, 6 and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. 7
Deuteronomy 25:7
Context25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she 8 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
Context25:9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. 9 She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” 10
Deuteronomy 29:18
Context29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. 11
1 tn Heb “for he”; the referent (the man who made the accusation) has been specified in the translation to avoid confusion with the young woman’s father, the last-mentioned male.
2 tn Heb “brought forth a bad name.”
3 tn Heb “humbled.”
4 tn Heb “wife.”
5 tn Heb “burn.” See note on the phrase “purge out” in Deut 21:21.
6 tn Heb “take her as wife”; NRSV “taking her in marriage.”
7 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).
8 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.
9 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.
10 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.”
11 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.”
