What does Matthew 22:27 mean?

This is part of a challenge posed to Jesus by the Sadducees. This highly political sect of Judaism did not believe that human beings will be resurrected from the dead. In fact, they did not believe in an afterlife or spirit world. What they are proposing to Jesus is a hypothetical scenario to illustrate what they see as an absurd theological idea: resurrection (Matthew 22:15–26).

Deuteronomy 25:5–10 defines a practice called Levirate marriage. This required the brother of a childless married man who has died to take the widow for his own wife. His duty was to have a son with his brother's widow in his brother's name and raise that son as the heir of his brother.

The Sadducees have imagined a group of seven brothers who each die childless, leaving the same widow to one brother after another until all of them have died. This would mean the woman was married to each of the seven brothers in turn. Now in this verse, the woman herself dies. The following verse reveals the point the Sadducees have been building to: their view that the resurrected woman now has seven men with claims to be her husband. Jesus will need to correct their mistaken assumptions in His response (Matthew 22:29–32).