Mark 12:18-27

A Question About Marriage and the Resurrection

18 And Sadducees--who say there is no resurrection--came up to him and began to ask him, saying,
19 "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if someone's brother dies and he leaves behind a wife and does not leave a child, that his brother should take the wife and {father} descendants for his brother.
20 There were seven brothers, and the first took a wife. And [when he] died, he did not leave descendants.
21 And the second took her, and he died without leaving descendants. And the third likewise.
22 And the seven did not leave descendants. Last of all the woman also died.
23 In the resurrection, when they rise, {whose} wife will she be? For the seven had her [as] wife.
24 Jesus said to them, "Are you not deceived because of this, [because you] do not know the scriptures or the power of God?
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
26 Now concerning the dead, that they are raised, have you not read in the book of Moses {in the passage about the bush} how God spoke to him, saying, 'I [am] the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob'?
27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken!"

Footnotes 7

  • [a]. The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here ("began to ask")
  • [b]. Literally "raise up"
  • [c]. *Here "[when]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("died") which is understood as temporal
  • [d]. Literally "who of them"
  • [e]. *Here "[because]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("know") which is understood as causal
  • [f]. Literally "at the bush"
  • [g]. A quotation from Exod 3:6
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.