Why does Jesus use the example of seven brothers in Luke 20:30 to address the Sadducees? Canon-Historical Setting Luke 20:27-40 unfolds during Passion Week, when various groups confront Jesus in the temple precincts. The Sadducees—an elite priestly party that “say there is no resurrection” (Luke 20:27)—pose a hypothetical case grounded in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 (levirate marriage). Their intention is to expose resurrection belief as illogical. Levirate Marriage Background Deuteronomy 25:5-6 commands a man to marry his deceased brother’s widow if the brother died childless, so that “his name will not be blotted out from Israel.” The law served two ends: (1) preservation of family inheritance within tribal allotments (Numbers 27:1-11), and (2) protection of a widow lacking male support. By Jesus’ day it had become a well-known legal provision, still theoretically binding, though rarely practiced because of changing social realities (cf. Mishnah, Yebamot 1-4). Why Seven Brothers?—Symbolic and Rhetorical Force 1. Completeness of the Number Seven In biblical literature seven often denotes fullness (Genesis 2:1-3; Joshua 6:15; Revelation 1:4). A sequence of seven brothers represents an exhaustive application of the levirate principle, pushing the scenario to its conceivable limit. 2. Maximizing the Apparent Absurdity By exhausting every earthly claimant to the widow, the Sadducees intend to make resurrection look ridiculous: “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will she be?” (Luke 20:33). The question presumes that resurrected life is merely an extension of present-age social structures. 3. Echoes of Second Temple Anecdotes A comparable tale appears in Tobit 3:8, where Sarah loses seven successive husbands to a demon on each wedding night. Whether or not the Sadducees drew from that story, their hearers would have recognized the seven-husband motif. Jesus permits the example without correction, using its familiarity to pivot to His own teaching. Jesus’ Twin-Pronged Answer 1. Correction of Their Theology of Power “You are in error, because you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God” (parallel, Matthew 22:29). Marriage is a temporal institution serving procreation and covenant lineage; in the age to come “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Luke 20:35). Thus the hypothetical collapse. 2. Appeal to Torah Authority Jesus cites Exodus 3:6—“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”—a text the Sadducees accept as inspired. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive” (Luke 20:38). If the patriarchs still stand in covenant relationship to Yahweh, they must yet live; ergo, resurrection. Summary Jesus allows the Sadducean illustration of seven brothers because the number heightens rhetorical effect, exposes their misunderstanding of Scripture’s power, and sets the stage to affirm resurrection truth through Torah authority. By dismantling their premise, He reveals that in the age to come, the living God unites His redeemed people in a reality where death and marital succession are obsolete, secured by His covenant faithfulness and ultimately proven by His own empty tomb. |
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