“And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.”
Then Judah said to Onan: sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother. The levirate obligation — the duty of the surviving brother to raise up children for the dead brother's line — is the ancient Near Eastern legal custom that Judah invokes. Deuteronomy 25:5-6 codifies this practice for Israel. The application: the obligation to provide offspring for a dead brother's widow is the covenant family's protection for the widow — Tamar has a legal right that Onan will violate.
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