To deliver thee from the strange woman. — Another work of wisdom, to save from profligacy. Of the two epithets here used, strange” (zârah) and “stranger” (nokhrîyyah), the first implies that she belonged to another family, the second to another nation. It would seem as if the evil example of Solomon (1 Kings 11:1), in marrying foreign women, had become common in Israel, and that they, by their vicious lives, had become a deadly source of corruption. Brought up in the lax views of morality which prevailed among heathen nations at this time, they would not consider themselves bound by the high standard of purity which was enjoined upon Hebrew women by the Law.

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