This week’s readings are all from Mark chapter 12. Click here to see a full listing of each day’s reading and the full chapter of Mark 12. Full readings of each day’s smaller segments of the readings will be posted on this site during the week.
Today's Reading
Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) also came to him and asked him, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us: ‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man must marry the widow and father children for his brother.’ 20 There were seven brothers. The first one married, and when he died he had no children. 21 The second married her and died without any children, and likewise the third. 22 None of the seven had children. Finally, the woman died too. 23 In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For all seven had married her.” 24 Jesus said to them, “Aren’t you deceived for this reason, because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 Now as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” (Mark 12:18-27)
Parallel Passages
‘If a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man must marry the widow and father children for his brother.’
This passage is from Deuteronomy 25:5. This is known as levirate (not to be confused with Levite! 😀) marriage. The NET Bible note explains:
“The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.”
W. Hall Harris, eds. The NET Bible Notes. 2nd ed.
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019), paragraph 68470.
In the Hebrew scriptures, Levirate marriage is what causes Boaz to be the 'kinsman redeemer' for Ruth. Ruth's husband had died and so had his brother and father, so the next role fell to outside relatives, and Boaz was one of those relatives (see Ruth 4). Such marriage was not an option but a legal obligation unless there was significant valid reason or protest that it not take place, and those who failed to fulfill this obligation had great loss of honor in the community (see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 4.254-256 | 4.8.23). This is the law in the Torah, and the Mishnah devotes an entire section to these customs: Mishnah Yevamot).
The Sadducees are using this law to mock the logic of resurrection by saying: 'If a woman has been the wife of seven brothers through levirate marriage, whose wife will she be in the world to come?' Jesus' response fits with a common Jewish thought on at the time: 'There is no marriage in the world to come.'
When my father was in his last days he was so eager to see my mother, who had died several years earlier. This passage leaves me wondering about their reunion.
@paulmoore405 I have a sense/hope that love will be deeper in the reality to come than we can know in this present reality, not less.
Paul, my husband, was quite taken back when he heard this verse for the first time at a funeral. Like your father, he believed we would be man and wife forever. My husband and I had long discussions on heaven and resurrection. We both believe now that after death we will be reunited in an even better relationship which will be completely centered around real God. I believe we will know our relatives and friends who have also made Heaven their home. But relationships in Heaven will be different than here on earth. I hope this is helpful and not to wild an idea for some.