[ ]Levirate from the Hebrew Bible Through the Mishnahastic about levirate marriage. Both Deuteronomy and Genesis indicate a
resistance on the part of men to levirate marriage. Deuteronomy allows
a man to avoid levirate marriage without incurring physical or finan-
cial injury. Women are portrayed as the strongest advocates of levirate
marriage. Perhaps providing for widows rather than securing offspring
for the deceased had come to be seen as the primary benefit of levirate
marriage. If so, we can understand why biblical women are seen pro-
moting levirate marriage while biblical men seem less concerned about
the institution.
Biblical texts offer a mixed portrait of levirate marriage in ancient Is-
rael. On one hand, the law in Deuteronomy and the story of Judah and
Tamar indicate that levirate marriage was known in ancient Israel and
t hat it may have ser ved t he sa me f u nct ion or f u nct ions i n Israel ite societ y
that it did elsewhere. The texts suggest that women and some men saw le-
virate marriage as a desirable response to a childless man’s death. At the
same time, the texts underscore the reluctance of men to enter into le-
virate marriages. Concern for the self trumps fraternal loyalty. However
unpleasant the shaming ceremony described in Deuteronomy might
have been, it offered a formal, legal escape for the unwilling levir.
We cannot know what role levirate marriage actually played in pre-
exilic Israelite society. We can be certain that traditions concerning le-
virate became part of the Hebrew Bible. As such, they would be seen by
later Jewish exegetes as sources of law and guides for appropriate behav-
ior. In the second part of this chapter and in subsequent chapters, I will
consider how these texts were interpreted by Jews in antiquity and how
these interpretations shaped Jewish law regarding levirate marriage.
Levirate in Second Temple Literature
There is very little mention of levirate in Jewish literature from the Sec-
ond Temple period. Philo does not mention levirate marriage. In his dis-
cussion of inheritance, Philo states that “if the deceased had no descen-
dants, [his] brothers must proceed to the succession, for brothers rank
next in tables of relationship with sons and daughters.”^56 Philo is follow-
ing the order of inheritance found in Numbers : – and does not dis-
cuss the possibility of producing a posthumous heir through levirate.
Josephus does discuss levirate, praising it as an institution that pre-
serves families and benefits widows: