Deuteronomy 25:10
in Deuteronomy 25And his family name in Israel will be called “The House of the Unsandaled.”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.
KJV
And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.
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This verse in Deuteronomy 25
Commentary
4 notes on this verseA commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
But the Mosaic law rendered the custom obligatory (Mt 22:25) on younger brothers, or the nearest kinsman, to marry the widow (Ru 4:4), by associating the natural desire of perpetuating a brother's name with the preservation of property in the Hebrew families and tribes.
This site's exposition
If brethren dwell together
on Deuteronomy 25:5-10
The statute exists so that a dead man's name be not put out of Israel, and Genesis 38 shows the duty already assumed in Judah's house before there was a law for it. A brother who refuses is not compelled but shamed, since the widow looses his shoe before the elders and spits, and his house carries the name of the shoe loosed from then on. Ruth 4:7-8 is the ceremony being performed, though there the shoe passes between the nearer kinsman and Boaz rather than from the widow's own hand. The Sadducees build their resurrection puzzle out of this law at Matthew 22:24, taking seven brothers and one wife in turn.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
In the case of Ruth we find this law executed ( Ruth iv. 7 ), but because, upon the refusal of the next kinsman, there was another ready to perform the duty of a husband's brother, it was that other that plucked off the shoe, and not the widow--Boaz, and not Ruth.
And his name shall be called in Israel,....
How the passage was read
On Deuteronomy 25:5-10On Deuteronomy 25:5-10
The law behind Ruth, and behind a famous riddle
This is levirate marriage (from Latin levir, “husband's brother”; in Hebrew yibbum): when a man dies childless, his brother marries the widow, and the first son “shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead.” The same passage provides the release ceremony (chalitzah, the loosing of the sandal) for a brother who refuses. The book of Ruth turns on this family duty, and the tradition built a whole tractate of the Mishnah, Yevamot, on its cases.
This law is the machinery of the Sadducees' riddle in Matthew 22:23-33: seven brothers, one widow, “in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be?” The riddle only works because the duty was real law. Jesus answers the question behind the question, proving the resurrection from the Torah itself (Exodus 3:6), the one canon His questioners fully granted.
What the Jewish commentators add
And it will be entitled in Yisroel, the house of the divestiture of the shoe.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Sources: Mishnah Yevamot 1:1 (the tractate built on this law)
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 6 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְנִקְרָ֥א | venikra' | and it will be called | H7121 → | 733 times |
| שְׁמ֖וֹ | shemo | name its | H8034 → | 864 times |
| בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל | beyisrael | in Israel | H3478 → | 2507 times |
| בֵּ֖ית | beit | [the] house of | H1004 → | 2046 times |
| חֲל֥וּץ | chalutz | [the] [one] drawn off of | H2502 → | 44 times |
| הַנָּֽעַל׃ ס | hanaal | the sandal | H5275 → | 22 times |
וְנִקְרָ֥אand it will be called
venikra'H7121 →733 times
שְׁמ֖וֹname its
shemoH8034 →864 times
בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑לin Israel
beyisraelH3478 →2507 times
בֵּ֖ית[the] house of
beitH1004 →2046 times
חֲל֥וּץ[the] [one] drawn off of
chalutzH2502 →44 times
הַנָּֽעַל׃ סthe sandal
hanaalH5275 →22 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Deuteronomy
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.