# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S35
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 35 —

the word of God compelled a different understanding. That the degree of kinship which is here designated by שְׁאֵר בּשָׂרוֹ [sheʾer besaro], "flesh of his flesh," is expressed in other places of Scripture by the bare שְׁאֵר [sheʾer], need not trouble us. Every German knows that among us a brother-in-law's brother-in-law is often called a brother-in-law, and a brother's brother, that is, a stepbrother's brother, is often called a brother. But if the expression "brother's brother" occurred in such a rule, it would indeed be strange to suppose that, because occasionally where "brother" is said a brother's brother is meant, one could conversely understand every brother wherever "brother's brother" is said. For every brother's brother is in a certain sense my brother; but not every brother is also a brother's brother. It is the same with the expression "flesh of the flesh": my flesh's flesh is always in a certain sense my flesh; but conversely my flesh is not always also my flesh's flesh. The Lord evidently means to say: not only have I forbidden you to marry your flesh, but also your flesh's flesh. And the Holy Spirit probably chose this double expression because He wished to indicate that a person can be related to another person also through an intermediate link, an intermediate person, and that a person so related is not to be taken in marriage.

Furthermore, it would probably be hard to furnish proof for the assertion that Leviticus 20:19 calls the aunt "flesh" (שְׁאֵר) of the nephew. For this understanding of the passage can rest on a mistaken reference of the words "his flesh." It explains them as equivalent to "his own," that is, the nephew's, flesh, and takes Luther's translation thus: "for such a one has uncovered his own nearest blood relative." But here it is simply presupposed that the pronoun "his" (the Hebrew suffix וֹ) refers to the nephew who does the uncovering. The important proof that and why this reference must hold is entirely lacking. Rather, by "his" flesh is meant not the nephew's flesh but that of the father named immediately before, a reference which appears all the more natural since in the Hebrew text the word "such a one," inserted by Luther (incidentally with justification), does not stand at all. Translated literally, the words according to our explanation read thus: And the nakedness of your mother's sister and of your father's sister you shall not uncover; for his (that is, his father's) flesh he (the one uncovering, or with Luther, such a one) has uncovered. They shall bear their iniquity. That this is the right reference of "his flesh" follows from the following grounds: 1. from the word order; for if one reads the words in the Hebrew word order, the reference to the "father," just read and therefore known, is more natural and unforced than to the subject, "he" or "such a one," which follows only afterwards and is hidden in the verb; 2. from the evident reference of this passage to Leviticus 18:12 and 13; for there it is expressly stated that your father's sister is the flesh (שְׁאֵר) of

[Pointing partly illegible: in בּשָׂרוֹ (l. 4) only one dot of the vowel under the ב is visible.]