Deuteronomy 21
DOYLYChap. XXII. ver. 5. The woman shall not wear &c.] It was an idolatrous custom, for men to wear the flowered garments of women, when they worshipped Venus; and for women to wear a coat of mail and armour, when they worshipped Mars; these dresses being accounted more pleasing to them, as better suiting their particular characters; for Venus was supposed to be the goddess of pleasure and love, and Mars the god of arms and war. The idolatrous notion of deities of different sexes was a great corruption of the knowledge of the true God; and gave great occasion for debauchery and impure rites, even in their religious worship. It was this custom which the present law was designed to discountenance. Lowman.
If there were no distinction of sexes, made by their habits, it would open a door to all manner of impurity: for which reason, if there were no other, this law was very wise and pious. Bp. Patrick.
Deuteronomy 21:10
10—13. When thou goest forth to war &c.] The law of Moses by this ordinance softened the horrors of war in the treatment of female captives especially, whom it projected from the insolence and brutality of the conquerors. Philo justly commends this, as an admirable ordinance: on the one side, far from tolerating that licentiousness, which the laws of war tolerated among other nations, it kept the soldier in a state of constraint for thirty days: during this interval, showing him his captive unattired and unadorned, and giving time for the first impulse of his passion to cool. On the other side, it humanely respected the captive’s grief, at being torn from her parents, if a maid, and not indulged with a husband of her own choice. Dr. Hales.
Deuteronomy 21:12
- — she shall shave her head, and pare her nails.] Or rather, as in the margin, “suffer her nails to grow,” to which is added, “she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her,” that is, the fine clothes, in which she is supposed to have been taken captive; instead of which she was to put on sordid apparel, or the habit of mourners. The intention of these things is thought to have been, to take away from her all that was inviting, that so such marriages might not be common. Bp. Patrick.
Deuteronomy 21:14
- And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, &c.] The liberation of the captive in this case was a just punishment on the captor for his fickleness, and a consolatory recompense to her for the affront of being rejected as his wife. And the design of the law, according to R. Bechal, was, “that the camp of the Israelites should be holy, and free from the fornications and abominations usually committed in the camps of the heathens;” with whom it was customary, not only to offer violence to their female captives, but when tired of them, either to sell them, or give them to their slaves. Dr. Hales.
Deuteronomy 21:18
- If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, &c.]
Deuteronomy 21:22
22.—and thou hang him on a tree:] That is, after he had been put to death. For hanging was not one of the capital punishments, commonly used among the Jews: but the idolater, and blasphemer, those accursed offenders, after they were stoned, were or might be hanged up. Bp. Kidder.
Deuteronomy 21:23
23.—is accursed of God:] Such persons are said to be “accursed of God,” because of their sin which deserved they should be thus exposed: hanging up being a token that the man had committed a horrid crime, whereby he had incurred the high displeasure of Almighty God. Bp. Patrick.
Hanging was not properly one of the punishments inflicted by the Jewish law: they were four; stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling the criminal as he stood on the ground. But none were hanged, till they were dead. And, as the Jewish rabbins, and many Christian commentators, say, only idolaters and blasphemers were so treated; having been first stoned, which was reckoned the most severe punishment of all. And as their crimes were the most heinous and offensive to God, this addition of hanging them afterwards was appointed, as a token to denote the Divine displeasure against those criminals; who are therefore said to be “accursed of God,” or “the curse of God,” that is, execrable to Him. And this treatment was designed to represent them as the worst of men, fit neither to live, nor to enjoy the common privilege of burial when dead. From the nature of this punishment, and the character of those who were liable to it among the Jews, St. Paul represents the wonderful condescension and compassion of our Saviour in submitting to die for us after the manner of their greatest criminals.
hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.