申命记 25:9

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

他哥哥的妻子就要當著長老的面前，走到那人跟前，脫去他腳上的鞋子，吐唾沫在他的臉上，說：‘那不為自己哥哥建立家室的，人人都要這樣對待他。’

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
他 哥 哥 的 妻 就 要 当 着 长 老 到 那 人 的 跟 前 ， 脱 了 他 的 鞋 ， 吐 唾 沫 在 他 脸 上 ， 说 ： 凡 不 为 哥 哥 建 立 家 室 的 都 要 这 样 待 他 。

Contextual Overview

⁵ If two brothers are living together, and one of them dies without having a son, his widow must not marry someone outside her husband's family. Her husband's brother must marry her, which is his duty to her as a brother-in-law. ⁶ The first son she has counts as the son of the dead brother so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel. ⁷ But if a man does not want to marry his brother's widow, she should go to the elders at the town gate. She should say, "My brother-in-law will not carry on his brother's name in Israel. He refuses to do his duty for me." ⁸ Then the elders of the town must call for the man and talk to him. But if he is stubborn and says, "I don't want to marry her," ⁹ the woman must go up to him in front of the leaders. She must take off one of his sandals and spit in his face and say, "This is for the man who won't continue his brother's family!" ¹⁰ Then that man's family shall be known in Israel as the Family of the Unsandaled. ¹¹ If two men are fighting and one man's wife comes to save her husband from his attacker, grabbing the attacker by his sex organs, ¹² you must cut off her hand. Show her no mercy.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

loose his shoe: Pulling off the shoe seems to express his being degraded to the situation of slaves, who generally went barefoot; and spitting in or rather before (biphney) his face, was a mark of the utmost ignominy. Ruth 4:7, Ruth 4:8, Isaiah 20:2, Mark 1:7, John 1:27

spit: Numbers 12:14, Job 30:10, Isaiah 50:6, Matthew 26:67, Matthew 27:30, Mark 10:34

So shall: Genesis 38:8-10, Ruth 4:10, Ruth 4:11, 1 Samuel 2:30

Cross-References

Genesis 25:9
His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron east of Mamre. (Ephron was the son of Zohar the Hittite.)

Genesis 25:10
So Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah in the same field that he had bought from the Hittites.

Genesis 25:20
When Isaac was forty years old, he married Rebekah, who came from Northwest Mesopotamia. She was Bethuel's daughter and the sister of Laban the Aramean.

Genesis 25:29
One day Jacob was boiling a pot of vegetable soup. Esau came in from hunting in the fields, weak from hunger.

Genesis 25:30
So Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red soup, because I am weak with hunger." (That is why people call him Edom.)

Genesis 35:29
So Isaac breathed his last breath and died when he was very old, and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Genesis 50:13
They carried his body to the land of Canaan and buried it in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre. Abraham had bought this cave and field from Ephron the Hittite to use as a burial place.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders,.... The time and place being appointed the evening before by three Rabbins, and two witnesses, as Leo of Modena says p; of which she was apprized, and ordered to come tasting:

and loose his shoe from off his foot; his right foot, which was thus done;

"they bring him a leather shoe, which has a heel, but not sewed with linen (linen thread), and he puts it on the right foot, and binds the latchet on his foot, and stands, he and she, in the court; he fixes his foot on the ground, and she sits and stretches out her hand in the court, and looses the latchet of his shoe from off his foot, and pulls off his shoe, and casts it to the ground q:''

this he suffered to be done to show that he gave up his right to her; and he was so used by way of reproach, to signify that he deserved not to be reckoned among freemen, but among servants and slaves, that went barefooted, having no shoes on: and in the mystical sense of it, as Ainsworth observes, it spiritually signified, that such as would not beget children unto Christ (or preach his Gospel for that purpose), it should be declared of them that their feet are not shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Christ, Ephesians 6:15;

and spit in his face; in a way of contempt, as a token of shame and disgrace; but the Jewish writers generally interpret this in a softer manner, as if it was not in his face, but in his presence, upon the floor, and seen by the judges r:

and shall answer and say, so shall it be done unto the man that will not build up his brother's house; that is, in this contemptuous and shameful manner shall he be used.

p Ut supra, sect. 4. (Leo Modena's Hostory of Rites, &c. l. 1. sect. 4.) q Maimon. ut supra, (Yebum Vechalitzab, c. 4.) sect. 6. r Ibid. sect. 7. Targum & Jarchi in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The law of levirate marriage. The law on this subject is not unique to the Jews, but is found (see Genesis 38:8) in all essential respects the same among various Oriental nations, ancient and modern. The rules in these verses, like those upon divorce, do but incorporate existing immemorial usages, and introduce various wise and politic limitations and mitigations of them. The root of the obligation here imposed upon the brother of the deceased husband lies in the primitive idea of childlessness being a great calamity (compare Genesis 16:4; and note), and extinction of name and family one of the greatest that could happen (compare Deuteronomy 9:14; Psalms 109:12-15). To avert this the ordinary rules as to intermarriage are in the case in question (compare Leviticus 18:16) set aside. The obligation was onerous (compare Ruth 4:6), and might be repugnant; and it is accordingly considerably reduced and restricted by Moses. The duty is recognized as one of affection for the memory of the deceased; it is not one which could be enforced at law. That it continued down to the Christian era is apparent from the question on this point put to Jesus by the Sadducees (see the marginal references).

Deuteronomy 25:5

No child - literally, “no son.” The existence of a daughter would clearly suffice. The daughter would inherit the name and property of the father; compare Numbers 27:1-11.

Deuteronomy 25:9

Loose his shoe from off his foot - In token of taking from the unwilling brother all right over the wife and property of the deceased. Planting the foot on a thing was an usual symbol of lordship and of taking possession (compare Genesis 13:17; Joshua 10:24), and loosing the shoe and handing it to another in like manner signified a renunciation and transfer of right and title (compare Ruth 4:7-8; Psalms 60:8, and Psalms 108:9). The widow here is directed herself, as the party slighted and injured, to deprive her brother-law of his shoe, and spit in his face (compare Numbers 12:14). The action was intended to aggravate the disgrace conceived to attach to the conduct of the man.

Deuteronomy 25:10

The house ... - Equivalent to “the house of the barefooted one.” To go barefoot was a sign of the most abject condition; compare 2 Samuel 15:30.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Deuteronomy 25:9. And loose his shoe — It is difficult to find the reason of these ceremonies of degradation. Perhaps the shoe was the emblem of power; and by stripping it off, deprivation of that power and authority was represented. Spitting in the face was a mark of the utmost ignominy; but the Jews, who are legitimate judges in this case, say that the spitting was not in his face, but before his face on the ground. And this is the way in which the Asiatics express their detestation of a person to the present day, as Niebuhr and other intelligent travellers assure us. It has been remarked that the prefix ב beth is seldom applied to פני peney; but when it is it signifies as well before as in the face. See Joshua 21:44; Joshua 23:9; Esther 9:2; and Ezekiel 42:12; which texts are supposed to be proofs in point. The act of spitting, whether in or before the face, marked the strong contempt the woman felt for the man who had slighted her. And it appears that the man was ever after disgraced in Israel; for so much is certainly implied in the saying, Deuteronomy 25:10: And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.