Matthew Poole and continuators on Deuteronomy 25:5

5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child , the wife of the dead shall not marry without, unto a stranger : her husbands brother shall go in unto her , and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husbands brother unto her.

Strictly so called, as is evident from ver. 7. Gen. 38. 8. Ruth. 1. 15. Mat. 22. 24, 25.

Either 1. strictly, in the same house or family: which is not probable, because the married brother may be presumed to have left his fathers house and set up a family of his own. Or 2. more largely, in the same town or city, or, at least, countrey. This is added for a releif of their consciences, that if the next brother had removed his habitation into remote parts, or were carried thither into captivity, which God foresaw, would be their case, then the wife of the dead had her liberty to marry to the next kinsman that lived in the same place with her.

Either 1. the first and eldest of them, as it was practised Gen. 38. 6, &c. and expounded Mat. 22. 25. one being oft put for the first, as Gen. 1. 5. and 2. 11. Hag. 1. 1. Mark 16. 2. And the chief care was about the first-born, who were invested with singular priviledges and were types of Christ. Or 2. any of them, for the words are general, and so the practise may seem to have been Ruth 3. and the reason of the law may seem to be in a great measure the same, which was to keep up the distinction as of tribes and families, that so the Messias might be discovered by the family from which he was appointed to proceed, so also of inheritances which were divided among all the brethren, the first-born having onely a double portion.

Heb. no son. But son is oft put for any child, male or female, both in Scripture and other authours, and therefore the Hebrew no son is rendred no child here, as it is in effect Mat. 22. 24. Mark 12. 19. Luk. 20. 28. And indeed this caution was not necessary, when there was a daughter, whose child might be adopted▪ into the name and family of its grandfather.

(i. e.) To one of another family, as that word is oft used.

Except he was married himself, as may appear by other Scriptures, and by the reason of the thing, and, as some adde, from the phrase of dwelling together, to wit, in their fathers family.

Marginal references: Mat. 22. 24. Mar. 12. 19. Luk. 20. 28.; Or, next kinsman.