The Sadducees approach Jesus with a question about the resurrection, which they denied because of their rejection of the Prophets and the Writings of the Old Testament. Using the command of Levirate marriage from the Law, they attempt to trap Jesus with a scenario of a woman being married to seven brothers in succession.

Their mistake is exposed when Jesus demonstrates from their own Scriptures they neither understand them nor the resurrection in which marriage was fulfilled. He ends with a challenge to their resurrection denial by quoting their Scripture that God is presently the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, three patriarchs who had been dead for hundreds of years when those words were first spoken to Moses at the burning bush.