Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]no residential basis and is best understood as “the enlargement of the
kinship circle to include lineages related by marriage.”^10 Neither Mey-
ers nor Lemche associates the term with a single household comprising
individuals related by blood or marriage.
The word mishpaha appears numerous times throughout rabbinic
literature. In general, the term indicates an extended family or descent
group. The Bavli contains twenty references to b’nai mishpaha, mem-
bers of an extended family or clan. In Mishnah Bekhorot :, Rabbi Yo-
hanan ben Beroqa rules that a man should return land he inherits from
his wife to her family in the Jubilee year. In this mishna, mishpaha would
presumably mean the wife’s extended family on her father’s side (if she
has inherited family land, her father has died, and she has no brothers).
The Mishnah’s assumption is that the wife has inherited ancestral land
that should revert to the original owners in the Jubilee.^11
In many cases, the word mishpaha i s u sed i n d i sc u ssion s about fa m i ly
pedigree. Commenting on Mishnah Taanit :, which describes young
women calling out to prospective husbands, “Pay attention to family
(mishpaha),” the Bavli explains, “Those who had pedigrees would say,
‘Pay attention to mishpaha, for a wife is [chosen] only for children.”^12
Elsewhere, rabbinic sources discuss mishpahot that traced their lineage
back to named individuals or to individuals whose marriages may or
may not have marred the family pedigree, making them ineligible to
marry priests.^13 The term is often used in construct with a name.^14
In conclusion, the word mishpaha can probably be best translated as
“lineage” or “extended family,” conveying the sense of a group of indi-
viduals who trace their lineage to a common male ancestor. The word is
not used in rabbinic literature to indicate shared household residence
and is clearly not used to describe a nuclear family.
In the Hebrew Bible, the word sh’eir indicates close family ties, some-
times in conjunction with the words haqarov eilav, “the relatives who
are close to him.” In Leviticus and , the word is used in the delinea-
tion of incest prohibitions. In Leviticus :, sh’eiro is followed by a list of
family members that includes parents, children, and siblings. In Leviti-
cus , sh’eir b’saro describes relatives who might redeem a family mem-
ber or family land. In Numbers :, the phrase sh’eiro haqarov eilav
appears at the end of a passage outlining the order of inheritance. In
the absence of children, brothers, or paternal uncles, a man’s property