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Genesis 38:7-9
New Catholic Bible
Genesis 38:7-9
New Catholic Bible
7 But Er, the firstborn of Judah, did things that were wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord caused him to die.
8 Judah then said to Onan, “Marry the wife of your brother to fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her and to assure descendants for your brother.”[a] 9 But Onan knew that the child would not have been considered to be his own. Every time that he slept with the wife of his brother, he spilled his seed on the ground so that he would not have to give his brother a son.[b]
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Genesis 38:8 This verse describes “the law of the levirate” (from the Latin, levir, meaning “brother-in-law), which was decreed in Deuteronomy (25:5-6) and constituted a legal obligation in Israel (see Mt 22:24).
- Genesis 38:9 The law of the levirate required that in marrying Tamar, widow of Er, Onan should provide the dead man with a posterity. His sin is twofold: against social justice and Tamar, by deliberately and unlawfully preventing primogeniture, and against marriage, by frustrating its purposes.
