Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first having married a wife, died; and not having issue, left his wife to his brother.
ησαν δε παρ ημιν επτα αδελφοι και ο πρωτος γαμησας ετελευτησεν και μη εχων σπερμα αφηκεν την γυναικα αυτου τω αδελφω αυτου
9 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Individuals who rejected the notion of the resurrection of the dead and maintained that the soul ceases to exist with the demise of the body crafted a narrative to reveal the illusion held by those who advocate for the resurrection. It is possible that such occurrences may have genuinely taken place within their time.
The question posed was made more complex by mentioning seven husbands. The Sadducees aimed to challenge Him: regardless of whether He affirmed one or seven, they could argue that if there were to be marriages again, it would naturally lead to childbirth, property ownership, trials, conflicts, illnesses, and death—essentially mimicking life as we know it. If life were the same after resurrection, the purpose of resurrection would be negated. This leads to the question, who then is Christ?
(The wife can symbolize humanity, with the seven brothers representing the divine laws provided to her over time for cultivating the fruits of righteousness. Humanity, as the wife, experienced no true spiritual fruit from her relationships with any of these laws, which acted as husbands. The initial law was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden, the second was provided after the fall, the third related to Noah and the ark, the fourth to Abraham concerning circumcision, the fifth once again regarding the sacrifice of Isaac, the sixth was delivered to Moses, and the seventh through the prophets. Those who doubt the resurrection, influenced by deceiving spirits, pose the insidious question: if there is a resurrection, which of these seven laws will govern humanity? No matter which law is selected, they assert that it implies life would again be unfruitful and fraught with the same troubles. However, the true and salvific teachings silence such doubts, affirming that a different existence follows resurrection. Whether one considers the present world's seven thousand years or the seven epochs of human experience, the conclusion remains clear. Post-resurrection, she will no longer be bound by any of these laws, as they will all reach their conclusion, allowing her to enter into another age, the eighth, which is everlasting.)
Due to this regulation, the following took place: seven siblings existed; the eldest, upon taking a wife, passed away, and since he had no offspring, he entrusted his spouse to his brother.
When the Pharisees were left speechless by this response, the faction of the Sadducees, who were part of the same Sanhedrin, delighted in their embarrassment and promptly posed a query concerning the doctrine of resurrection, which they had dismissed due to the absurd conclusions they had drawn. Just as the Lord had confronted the Pharisees, He similarly addressed this matter, challenging the very basis of the viewpoint they had invalidated. They cited the example of a woman who had been married to seven brothers according to human law. The Lord demonstrated to the Sadducees that their misunderstanding arose from two main issues: (1) their failure to comprehend the Scriptures, and (2) their lack of grasp regarding God's omnipotence.
Had they truly understood the texts they accepted—not just their literal meaning, but also their spiritual significance—they would have recognized the essential connection between the religious teachings within them and the belief in the everlasting personal existence of humanity. Additionally, if they acknowledged God's omnipotence, they would not view man's future existence as merely a continuation of the present state, but would realize that God is capable of bestowing upon existence a transformed and glorified nature. He then revealed that the life to come must align with that of higher beings. To affirm this initial idea, He referred to the phrases commonly found in the writings of Moses, namely, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How could God maintain such an intimate relationship with these revered individuals, granting them such significance and honor as to be called their God, if they were merely fleeting entities rather than beings destined for eternity?
The collaboration of the Sadducees with the Pharisees in this scenario is not clearly indicated in the Gospel narratives. It is possible that, witnessing how Jesus had embarrassed the Pharisees and feeling satisfaction in that, they desired for Him to also mock the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection of the dead, which was held by many to mean that all Israelites would be resurrected and dwell in the holy land with the advent of the Messiah. At the very least, Jesus' response pleased the scribes, as noted in Luke 39, and the Sadducees’ defeat in this exchange only served to buoy the Pharisees, as pointed out in Matthew 34.
The Sadducees contended that, due to the law concerning levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-6) which allows a woman to have multiple husbands during her lifetime, the concept of resurrection life, as envisioned by the Pharisees, is hardly plausible. Thus, either the law must be deemed unreasonable or the possibility of resurrection must be dismissed; since the divine law is not unreasonable, it seemingly affirms that resurrection does not occur. The Sadducees’ objections stemmed from the Pharisees’ fundamentally materialistic view of life after resurrection. In response, Jesus asserts that both the Sadducees and the Pharisees do not “know the Scriptures” and clarifies their misunderstanding by stating that after resurrection, people “neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 30). Since the Sadducees based their objections on the belief that a decayed human body cannot resurrect, the Lord counters by stating that they are unaware of “the power of God.” He reinforces this by referencing the Scriptures (Exodus 3:6) to demonstrate that life exists beyond the grave, affirming that there will indeed be a resurrection of the dead.
Citing the Mosaic law, they presented a scenario: "There were seven brothers; the first married but passed away without children. His wife was then taken by the second brother, who also died without offspring. The third brother took her, followed by the fourth, and so forth, until all seven brothers had died, leaving the woman childless. Ultimately, she too died. Now, if there is a resurrection of the dead, to whom will this woman belong as a wife? After all, she has had seven husbands! It cannot be that she will be the spouse of all or none, as that would be nonsensical. Such a prominent and divinely guided lawgiver as Moses could not allow for such a contradiction in his teachings. Therefore, according to Moses, there can be no resurrection."
The primary followers of Christ were predominantly the Pharisees. On the other hand, the Sadducees, who represented the affluent classes and religious leaders, had largely remained uninvolved in the events surrounding Christ and had treated Him with the disdain typical of their dismissive attitude towards the uneducated Galileans. However, as the teachings of the Galilean Master began to resonate throughout Jerusalem, and they recognized the remarkable insights He had shared that captivated the Pharisees, the Sadducees opted to engage with this preacher to probe His understanding of the Law and Jewish theology. They crafted a particularly intricate question, focusing on a topic that revealed their skepticism: the existence of an afterlife and the concept of resurrection.
They presented the hypothetical scenario of a woman who had married seven brothers successively, each dying without children, and sought to understand to whom she would belong in the resurrection. Although this scenario was fictional, it was grounded in the Law which mandated that if a man died without heirs, his brother should marry his widow to preserve his lineage and name, with the firstborn son of this union being regarded as the deceased man's son. The Sadducees, who did not believe in life after death or resurrection, presumed that Jesus, who had taught about resurrection and held views similar to those of the Pharisees, would be caught off guard by their perplexing question, allowing them to mock Him and the doctrine of resurrection. While some rabbis entertained more elevated views about the afterlife, the majority adhered to more base interpretations. They believed resurrection involved a return not only to one’s previous body but also to past desires and pursuits; the resurrected would continue to eat, drink, and marry, even rising clad in the same garments they had worn during life, retaining their physical features and imperfections, “so that people might recognize that they were the same persons whom they had known in life.” The very question posed by the Sadducees had already found responses among the rabbis who suggested that “a woman who has been married to two husbands in this world, will be given to the first in the world to come.” With this crude understanding of the afterlife, and firmly denying resurrection—as they believed the doctrine was not grounded in the Mosaic Law that they accepted—the Sadducees approached the Savior with their inquiry.
The Sadducees approached the Saviour with a peculiar tale instead of directly discussing the resurrection. They devised an unusual scenario, likely intended to confuse Him and undermine the concept of resurrection as Jesus understood it. They referred to Moses in their argument regarding a woman married to seven brothers, but I believe their entire story was fabricated. The third brother would be unlikely to take her as his wife after two of his siblings had already died, and if he had done so, it's improbable that the fourth or fifth would have married her. In fact, it is highly likely that the sixth and seventh brothers would have hesitated out of fear of the same outcome. Such anxieties were prevalent among the Jews.
Why did the Sadducees craft a story where one woman had seven husbands instead of two or three? They aimed to mock the belief in resurrection, suggesting that since all had been married to her, there was little left for Jesus to say. By invoking the law of Moses and suggesting a conflict between that law and the idea of resurrection, the Sadducees implied that the concept of resurrection contradicts the divinely instituted law meant to guide faith.
Numerous additional trials of this nature awaited Him, yet the Lord, in His profound wisdom, dismantled them with a spirit of love and compassion. After the Pharisees had been dismissed, new challengers approached Jesus Christ—specifically, the Sadducees—though with less malevolence. They consistently opposed the rigid legalism of the Pharisees, who denied the immortality of the soul and declared that there is no resurrection or spirit (Acts 23:8). Seizing upon the embarrassment of their competitors and hoping to elevate their own standing among the people, they dared to question the Divine Teacher on a matter that, in their debates with the Pharisees, served as a primary argument against the existence of eternal life and the resurrection of the dead.
The Pharisees, with their earthly perspective of the afterlife, likened it to current existence, found themselves unable to address this dilemma. Indeed, the reasoning of the Sadducees had some semblance of strength at first glance, particularly to a scrutinizing scribe, although, as St. John Chrysostom noted, it was based on "some fable, an incident unprecedented." By referencing the Mosaic Law regarding levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Genesis 38:8), the Sadducees sought to lend a veneer of credibility to their hypothetical scenario and to give their conclusion an illusory solidity. Much like the Pharisees, they initiated their dialogue with the Lord with all outward displays of deference: “Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, saying, If any brother die, and leave his wife, but leave no children, let his brother take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. There are seven brothers among us, and the first married and died without children, leaving his wife to his brother. Likewise, the second took her and died without a child, and the third in the same manner: and all seven had her and left no seed; and afterward, the wife died also. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife shall she be, for all seven had her as a wife?” The Pharisees might have concluded that the woman after resurrection would still be the wife of the first husband, but this answer would not resolve all complexities, leaving the status of the other legitimate husbands unresolved. The Sadducees likely believed that the Saviour supported the doctrine of immortality as espoused by the Pharisees, and thus expected that the question they posed would entangle Him significantly. They presumed He faced a choice: either endorse polygamy, which would contradict the Law of Moses, or deny the resurrection of the dead—certain of their victory ahead of time.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 22 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS