the phrase has a reciprocal import; that is, a number of things are said to be so and so one to another; that there must be a plural antecedent; while in the present case there is no antecedent, nothing and nobody are mentioned which can have any relation one to another.
The conditions are all fulfilled, the difficulties of grammar and morality are at once got rid of, by reading verses 17 and 18 together, as they should be: "Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son's daughter, or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness: it is wickedness: and one with the other thou shalt not take, to rival, to uncover her nakedness besides her as long as she liveth."
Observe, the conjunction in the Hebrew is copulative, not disjunctive; and it is not placed in connexion with the negative, as in the e. v., but in the order here given.
Now it becomes quite clear that the restriction in her life is not a contingency any how removeable, but belongs equally to the whole life of both mother and daughter. It matters not that the daughter and grand-daughter are no blood relations of the man—enough that they are her near kinswomen." Wnat now becomes of the implied liberty on the removal of the restriction, "as long as she liveth?" Does the point need to be pressed? Do we not now see that all things are not to be concluded as sanctioned by law, which are only not expressly forbidden by it? Does Mr. Punshon "bow" to so clear a meaning?
The only wonder is that verses 17 and 18 should have been so generally read apart—the occasion of so much misapprehension. But, as the Rev. W. B. Galloway, in the pamphlet (Rivingtons, 1870.) to which I am indebted for this, says, "That it has been so construed in ancient times is manifest from the following passage from Philo Judæus. 'For the intermarriages of strangers produce new relationships not short of those which are by blood; for which reason he hath also debarred many other connexions, enjoining a man not to contract marriage with a grand-daughter-in-law;, the wife (widow) of a daughter's son or of a son's son; nor with a wife's aunt, whether on her father's or on her mother's side; nor with one who has been the wife of an uncle, or of a son, or of brother, [observe, no illusion to any imagined exception]: nor again to wed with a step-daughter, whether widow or virgin, in addition to his wife if she be living, but not even after her death ...... Again: he does not permit the same man to marry two sisters, either at the same time or at different times. For while she who cohabited with him still lives, even if divorced, whether she continues single, as in widowhood, or even have been married to another he deemed it unholy for the sister to come into the lot of her who had been unfortunate;" (De Specialibus Legibus. 0pp. Ed. Mangey vol. ii. p 303.) Mr. Galloway justly says, "There is no other part of Scripture, and no other mode of reading this, which could have (illegible text) It is true that Philo seems also
