Leviticus 18:16
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You must not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would shame your brother.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Marriage with a brother's wife was a sin against the brother's nakedness, a sexual defilement, which God would punish with barrenness. This prohibition, however, only refers to cases in which the deceased brother had left children; for if he had died childless, the brother not only might, but was required to marry his sister-in-law (Deu 25:5).
Open source ↗Here is, I. A general law against all conformity to the corrupt usages of the heathen (Lev 18:1-5). II. Particular laws, 1. Against incest (Lev 18:6-18). 2. Against beastly lusts, and barbarous idolatries (Lev 18:19-23). III. The enforcement of these laws from the ruin of the Canaanites (Lev 18:24-30).
Open source ↗18:16 Sexual relations with your sister-in-law would be adulterous and disgrace your brother. The exception was the law of levirate marriage (see Deut 25:5-10), which called for a man to marry his brother’s widow in order to produce an heir who was considered the dead brother’s son.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity. He has uncovered the nakedness of his brother; they shall be childless.
When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man is to marry his brother’s widow and raise up offspring for him.
“Teacher,” they said, “Moses declared that if a man dies without having children, his brother is to marry the widow and raise up offspring for him.
For Herod himself had ordered that John be arrested and bound and imprisoned, on account of his brother Philip’s wife Herodias, whom Herod had married.
But when he rebuked Herod the tetrarch regarding his brother’s wife Herodias and all the evils he had done,