# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S20
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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where the same phrase is used of the faces of the cherubim on the ark of the covenant, Exodus 26:5 and 6, where it is used of curtains, v. 17, where of boards, Ezekiel 1:9 and 23 and chap. 3:13, where of wings, and Joel 2:8, where of locusts. But when we find that such a manner of speaking is used in all other cases without exception in a certain meaning, and indeed even in such cases from which it is evident that in this phrase the words had lost their original meaning, it would be most questionable to depart from the constant usage in a single case. In this sense Fecht also expresses himself, when he writes:

"It is untenable to doubt that Lev. 18:18, where it says (according to Luther's translation): 'Thou shalt not take thy wife's sister beside her' (Mulierem ad sororem non accipito), forbids simultaneous polygamy, since that manner of speaking אִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחתָהּ in the whole of Holy Scripture, where it occurs very often and four times in the 26th chapter of Exodus alone, and never in another sense, never means anything other than 'one to the other.' Why, then, should it alone in this passage be forcibly drawn to another and indeed unusual sense? Since, moreover, God deliberately alters the form of speech in this verse, and whereas He had said before: 'Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father, thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy aunt (matertera), thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother,' and so on, and constantly in infinitum, now says: 'Take not a wife to the other,' and adds the reason, לִצְרֹר 'to vex,' since not only the sister, after the example of Rachel and Leah, but any other woman, after the example of Hannah, who therefore calls Peninna עֲסַתָּהּ, "her adversary" (Luther: 'Widerwärtige'), 1 Samuel 1:6, can be burdensome to the rightful wife. How obscure and improper it is said: וְאִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחתָהּ לֹא תקָּח; what does that mean: 'And a wife to a sister thou shalt not take'? Why would God not rather have spoken properly, if He had wanted to be properly understood: ולֹא תִקָּח לָךְ אֶשְׁתְּךָ לְאשָּׁה, that is, thou shalt not take for thyself the sister of thy wife to wife? Finally, how the interpreters, so to speak, torment and torture themselves in the exposition of this addition to this sentence: בְּחַיֶּיהָ, that is, while she is still alive? So that from it the conclusion may not be drawn that after the death of the wife her sister might be married, who after all is bound to the man by just as close a bond of the flesh as the widow left by a brother, whom according to the divine law one may not marry! Whereas according to our view the sense of all and each of the words is so bright and clear: that only one wife may be married at a time, so that no bitterness arise from several among the spouses, and that after her death the husband is free of the law which bound him during her lifetime, 1 Corinthians 7:39. I wonder

[The Hebrew is given with the vowel points visible at 600 ppi. The word after "Peninna" is printed without the initial כ of כִּעֲסַתָּה (1 Sam. 1:6).]