If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.
A widow whose husband died childless shall not marry outside the family until the brother-in-law refuses levirate marriage
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
לֹא־תִהְיֶה אֵשֶׁת־הַמֵּת הַחוּצָה לְאִישׁ זָר
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר שאר האנשים שלא לבא על היבמה והיא תחת זיקת יבמה. והוא אמרו לא תהיה אשת המת החוצה לאיש זר. והעובר על לאו זה לוקה. והתבארו משפטי מצוה זו ביבמות. (שם, שם):
He prohibited other men from having sexual intercourse with a levirate wife when she is tied to the bond of her levirate husband. And that is His saying, "the wife of the deceased shall not be married to a stranger, outside" (Deuteronomy 25:5). And one who transgresses this negative commandment is lashed; and the regulations of this commandment have been explained in Yevamot. (See Parashat Ki Tetzeh; Mishneh Torah, Divorce 9.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a case law — "if X, then Y"
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding, with modification
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Rejected
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite Reinterpreted
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Genesis Rabbah 85:5 expanded it homiletically
- Ruth Rabbah 7:7 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 3.27-28 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.254-256 rationalized it
The New Testament
- Matthew 22:23-28 The catalog describes this reception as: presupposed Sadducean test-case presupposes levirate obligation as operative in Second Temple practice; cf. Mark 12:18-23, Luke 20:27-33
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- hittite laws hierarchy of kinsmen obligated to marry a childless widow Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence §193 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- middle assyrian laws fraternal/paternal obligations regarding widow and bridewealth Relationship to the parallel: parallel with divergence A §§30, 33, 43 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
-
Article 16
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The commandment restricts a widow's freedom to marry by requiring her to await the surviving brother-in-law's formal refusal (ḥălîṣāh), subordinating her marital autonomy to a male kinsman's decision; CEDAW Article 16 guarantees the same right to choose a spouse freely regardless of sex.
-
general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
The levirate framework assigns the widow a subordinate legal status in which her remarriage capacity is held in abeyance until the brother-in-law acts; no parallel obligation restricts a widower's freedom to remarry.
-
Article 23
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 23(3) requires that no marriage be entered without the free and full consent of the intending spouses; the commandment compels the widow's legal status to remain contingent on a third party's choice, which structurally denies her free and independent consent to remarriage.