Consanguinity
Leviticus 18:6-30
None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.…


1. God the institutor of marriage (ver. 6).

2. Faith in Christ not commanded in the law (ver. 5).

3. Of the several kinds of kindred by consanguinity or affinity.

4. Of the computation of the degrees of consanguinity.

(1) Consanguinity is a communicating in blood, derived from one stock.

(2) Affinity is a respective alliance and kindred which comes in by marriage.

(3) A line is a collection of persons coming from the stock.

(4) And it is threefold: the right line Ascending, as the father, grandfather; or descending, as the son, &c.; or collateral above, as the father's brother — or in the middle, as brother, sister, uncle's children — or below, as brother's son or daughter, and their sons and daughters.

(5) A degree is the distance of persons from the stock.

(6) In the right line ascending or descending, there are as many degrees as generations and persons.

(7) In the collateral line there are as many degrees as persons.

(8) In the collateral line the prohibition is extended to the fourth degree.

(9) In the right line ascending and descending, the impediment is perpetual when they are alive or dead, as grounded upon the law of nature.

(10) The same degrees are forbidden ascending and descending by the like analogy.

(11) The same degrees are restrained by the like analogy in both sexes.

(12) Where the degree further off is forbidden, the nearer are inclusively interdicted.

5. Of the computation of the degrees of affinity.

(1) In what degree of consanguinity the husband is distant, in the same degree of affinity the wife is removed, because man and wife are one flesh.

(2) One person added to another by carnal copulation changes the kind of affinity, not the degree: as the brother's wife is of affinity in the second degree, and first kind; if after she marry another husband, he is in the same degree of affinity, but in the second kind.

(3) There are three kinds of affinity — the near, middle, and remote: as the brother's wife is in the first kind, the brother's wife's second husband in the second, the second husband's second wife in the third.

(4) Affinity in the first kind is a perpetual impediment.

(5) Between such as are of kindred in blood to the husband, and them that are of kin to the wife, there is no affinity to hinder marriage: as, two brothers may marry two sisters.

(6) In the degrees of affinity ascending and descending in the right line, the prohibition is infinitely extended without any limitation: as, it is not lawful to marry the wife's daughter's daughter, and so downward, nor the wife's mother, or grandmother, and so upward.

(7) In the collateral line, affinity is restrained to the third degree, as to uncle's wife, who is in the same degree of affinity that her husband is in consanguinity.

(8) Of the agreements and differences between the degrees of consanguinity and affinity.

(1) Agreement.

(a)  In what degree one is of consanguinity, the wife or husband is in the same degree of affinity.

(b)  The impediment in both continues not only during life but afterward.

(c)  The prohibition extends itself in both alike, in the right line ascending and descending without limitation; and in the collateral to the third degree expressly, and by a certain analogy to the fourth.

(2) Differences.

(a)  The efficient cause of consanguinity is a natural obligation, without any relation to the will and consent of man, in the propagation and the line of consanguinity; but in affinity there is a voluntary bond or obligation by consent in marriage.

(b)  Consanguinity is by generation from one, both father and mother; affinity is by the copulation of two. The first is real, the second by relation.

(c)  In consanguinity, on both sides the bond holds, both by the father and mother, but the kinsmen of the husband are not of affinity to the kindred of the wife; on the contrary, affinity holds only in the first kind, which changes by a new copulation, though the degree alter not, as the brother's wife's second husband is not properly of affinity; but in consanguinity, the kind and degree hold out together.

6. Marriage of divers wives successively, lawful, though not together (ver. 18).

7. The Scripture most pure, even when it makes mention of impure and obscene things.

(A. Willet, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.

WEB: "'None of you shall approach anyone who are his close relatives, to uncover their nakedness: I am Yahweh.




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