¹ For a summary of the literature on the subject, see J. Neubauer, Geschichte des Biblisch-Talmudischen Eheschliessungsrechts (1920), chs. 2,3.

² Cf. also, v. 5. For even according to the Masoretic text (LXX and most modern commentators read instead of ), refers to (cf. Targum ad loc.)

The passages in Gen. 31:14–16 and Hosea 2:3 are amply discussed in Neubauer, ibid., ch. 29. He rightly concludes that they shed no light on our problem. However, he fails to mention the passage in Ruth. Cf. M. Burrows, The Basis of Israelite Marriage (1938), pp. 28f. and p. 1, n. 1.

³ See S. Mandelkern's explanatory note in his Concordance on the Bible, s. v. .

⁴ See also E. Neufeld, Ancient Hebrew Marriage Laws (1944), p. 98, n. 2.

⁵ M. Burrows, op. cit. See also Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, III, 283f.

⁶ For the sources of their views, see nn. 10, 13.

⁷ Kiddushin 2b. The material of the first few pages of the B. Talmud Kiddushin is attributed by R. Sherira Gaon in his famous Epistle, ed. B. M. Lewin, p. 71, and by the early commentators of the Talmud to Saboraic or even Gaonic times.

⁸ The word , frequently found in the Mishnah as well as in the Bible, is not applicable here. The difference in meaning between (not found in the Bible in reference to marriage) and is that includes betrothal by intercourse whereas does not. We have the phrase (M. Middah 5:4) but not .

⁹ Though not throughout, for the word is, of course, not biblical. In Jer. 32:11, 14, 16, the same is called . Also the use of the feminine number with when associated with words that come in the feminine (), while good Mishnaic Hebrew (see M. Bikkurim 2:5—6: ) is not adhered to in the Bible (contrast Ezek. 23:13.). Perhaps the very use of for “means” is not quite biblical. However, the reading in the Mishnah is not certain. The Cambridge Ms., the Tosefta Kiddushin I, I, the P. Talmud and others have here the masculine (), contrary to B. Talmud Kiddushin 2b, (see n. 6).

¹⁰ A mimeographed copy is available at the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

¹¹ . He also calls attention to Ecclus. 36:29 (ed. Segal, p. 229), . However, the Hebrew recension of this book is of uncertain origin. Besides, wisdom literature uses terms not necessarily in the same way that they are used in legal contexts. It is with the latter that we are concerned. See also A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century (1923), Ahikar, 1. 218, p. 220, … . From the next line it appears that the woman referred to here is either a slave or a servant.

¹² A similar argument is advanced by Z. Frankel, Darke HaMishnah (Tel-Aviv, 1959), p. 12. Since the Shammaites and Hillelites disagree in the latter part of the Mishnah as to the sum the woman has to receive in order to be betrothed, our Mishnah must have antedated them. However, the Mishnah in Eduyoth 4:7 reads . J. N. Epstein, Mabo LeNusakh HaMishnah (1948), p. 403, has proved that the use of instead of the usual means that the editor had before him an anonymous Mishnah which he identified as Shammaitic. It is therefore highly plausible that the Mishnah in Kiddushin merely restates the controversy recorded in Eduyoth — one of the oldest Tractates — fully accepting the editor's identification to the extent of even omitting the word . (A similar result is obtained when one compares Eduyoth 5:2 with Hullin 8:1.) As to the controversy in Eduyoth, there is no evidence whatsoever that it had as its antecedent the first clause of the mishnah in Kiddushin. The controversy does, however, prove the antiquity of the custom to betroth with money, though not necessarily the antiquity of the Mishnah.

¹³ Prolegomena Ad Litteras Tannaiticas [Hebrew] (1957), pp. 53, 414.

¹⁵ See note 8.

¹⁶ See note 18.

¹⁷ The levir, in marrying his deceased brother's wife, also acquires the estate of his deceased brother. Hence, though transference of property is only one aspect of levirate marriage, the general term for the consummation of levirate marriage is , (locus classicus, M. Yebamoth 6:1 ), appropriate through its involvement in property transference. The primary purpose of levirate marriage is to safeguard the property of the deceased from passing into the hands of a stranger (see Ruth 4:1–10).

¹⁸ Cf. Tosefta Kiddushin 4:4 and parallels. The word or there refers also to the presents () which will become hers only if the marriage is valid. Thus, there, too, the use of in connection with marriage may be attributed to the latter's association with salable objects.

However, it is also possible that the authors of these statements, late-second-century (C.E.) rabbis, were unduly influenced by the terminology of the mishnah under discussion. Cf. also B. Ketuboth ioa-b: .

¹⁹ H. Danby's translation.

²¹ Ed. Horovitz, p. 137.

²² cf. B. Talmud Kiddushin 10b for variants.

²³ The term refers to the fact that by this act she became exclusively his (cf. Tosafot Kiddushin, 2b s. v. ). In levirate marriage she became his automatically when the brother died.

²⁴ Also in v. s see n. 2.

²⁵ This phenomenon is an extension of the Greek zeugma. An additional example of this type of zeugma is to be found in Tosefta Ketuboth 2:6 in the application of the word .