What’s in a name?

How people know and remember you.

Welcome to the Daily Bible Chapter. My name is James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as I attempt to read the Bible with fresh eyes, as if I don’t know anything about it, and without consulting experts on what it “really” means.. Let’s see where this takes us!

Deuteronomy 25

I’m reading Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Deuteronomy 25 has a mix of just commands, seemingly cruel commands, and curious ones.

The center of it, however, has to do with the survival of a man’s “name:”

5 “When brothers reside together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, 6 and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

If the brother refuses this duty, his own name will be disgraced.

Likewise,

11 “If men get into a fight with one another and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and…