ContradictionsReading order 325Bible context 2 min read
Is it okay to marry your wife's sister, while your wife is still alive?
Jacob's marriage to Leah and Rachel contrasts with the later prohibition of marrying a living wife's sister.
- Textual conflict
- Weak tension
- The alleged conflict needs substantial assumptions, such as treating an omission as a denial or figurative language as literal.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
Jacob's earlier conduct is not an explicit approval under the later prohibition, and the divine sister pairing is expressly metaphorical.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Jacob marries both sisters and Ezekiel uses a sister pairing
And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid for an handmaid. And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
Genesis 29:24-28
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Genesis 29
The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names;