Deuteronomy 22:15

_IF ANY MAN TAKE A WIFE, AND GO IN UNTO HER, AND HATE HER,_ If any man take a wife ... The regulations that follow might be imperatively needful in the then situation of the Israelites; and yet it is not necessary that we should curiously and impertinently inquire into usages unknown to the language of civilization. So far was it from being unworthy of God to leave such things upon record, that the enactments must heighten our admiration of His wisdom and goodness in the management of a people so perverse and so given to irregular passions. 'Nor is it a better argument that the Scriptures were not written by inspiration of God to object, that this passage, and others of a like nature, tend to corrupt the imagination, and will be abused by evil-disposed readers, than it is to say that the sun was not created by God, because its light may be abused by wicked men as an assistant in commit...

13-30 These and the like regulations might be needful then, and yet it is not necessary that we should curiously examine respecting them. The laws relate to the seventh commandment, laying a restraint upon fleshly lusts which war against the soul....

Verse Deuteronomy 22:15. TOKENS OF _THE DAMSEL'S VIRGINITY_] This was a perfectly possible case in all places where girls were married at ten, twelve, and fourteen years of age, which is frequent in the East. I have known several instances of persons having had two or three children at separate births before they were fourteen years of age. Such tokens, therefore, as the text speaks of, must be infallibly exhibited by females so very young on the consummation of their marriage....

EXPOSITION REGULATIONS REGARDING CATTLE STRAYED OR THINGS LOST, THE APPAREL OF THE SEXES, THE TAKING OF BIRDS, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. CONFUSIONS TO BE AVOIDED. FRINGES TO BE MADE ON VESTMENTS. PUNISHMENT OF WIFE-SLANDER, ADULTERY, RAPE, FORNICATION, INCEST....

THEN SHALL THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER OF THE DAMSEL TAKE,.... Power from the court, according to the Targum of Jonathan; having leave and licence granted them to do what follows, these were to, and would, concern themselves in such an affair, partly for the credit and reputation of their child, and partly for their own honour, who were in danger, as Jarchi observes, of coming into contempt for their ill education of her: AND BRING FORTH THE TOKENS OF THE DAMSEL'S VIRGINITY; the sheet she lay in when she first bedded with her husband, in her parents' possession, and kept by them as a witness of her purity, should there ever be any occasion for it: and which were to be brought UNTO THE ELDERS OF THE CITY IN THE GATE; which sat in the gate of the city to try causes: the Targum of Jonathan calls it the gate of the sanhedrim, or court of judicature; and, according to Maimonides q, this court...

18. AGAINST INHUMANITY AND DIFFERENT VIOLATIONS, False Testimony and Sins of Adultery CHAPTER 22 _ 1. Laws against inhumanity (Deuteronomy 22:1)_ 2. Concerning false testimony (Deuteronomy 22:13) 3. Sins of adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22) Laws on the second table are now more fully expounded by Moses. The love to the neighbor is to be expressed by guarding and preserving that which is his property. The strayed and fallen animal belonging to another had to be helped. To leave them in that condition would have been a violation of the law “love thy neighbor as thyself” as well as an act of inhumanity. Another interesting law is the one which forbids woma

SINS AGAINST PURE MARRIAGES. Deuteronomy 22:14. tokens of virginity: their absence is now known not to be necessarily a proof of pre-nuptial unchastity, though the ancient peoples held the contrary, as some peoples do still (see J. D. Michaelis, _The Laws of Moses_, i. p. 478ff.; Burckhardt, _The Bedouins_,_ etc._, p. 62f.; Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 123f.). The severe punishment for unchastity before (Deuteronomy 22:21) and after (Deuteronomy 22:22) marriage shows the uncompromising attitude of Dt. towards sexual sins a striking contrast to the prevailing customs of surrounding nations: why the difference?...

VIRGINITY. The Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Subject), App-6. explained by these words, "the tokens of"....

Charges against a Bride. He who, from a base motive, falsely accuses his wife of unchastity before marriage shall after solemn rebuke from the elders be fined 100 silver-pieces and have his right of divorce withdrawn (Deuteronomy 22:13-19); but if such a charge be true she shall be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20 f.). No direct address to Israel except in the closing formula which is Sg. The physical evidence, on which the woman is acquitted, was regarded as essential by many ancient races and is still called for and displayed (not only in judicial cases but after all marriages) by certain tribes in Syria, Egypt and Morocco (see further Driver's note; Westermarck, _Hist. of Human Marriage_, 123 f.); but its absence is by no means conclusive proof of a woman's previous unch

_VER._ 13-17. _IF ANY MAN TAKE A WIFE,_ &C.— The most probable arguments we can meet with, in support of the literal sense of this passage, amount to this; first, That the Jewish young women were married at the age of twelve or thirteen. Secondly, That we are not to judge of the constitution of the human body in other climates, by that of bodies in our own. Thirdly, That, in fact, customs wholly similar to those which Moses insinuates to have been common in his time, and which must have been so among the Jews after his death, are still observable in divers places of the East. Of this, Selden in his Treatise de Uxor. Heb. lib. iii. cap. 1 has collected together many proofs: other writers have multiplied those proofs, particularly Gensius, p. i. c. 9 and p. ii. c. 2. and we have the positive testimony of Leo Africanus, in his _Description of Africa,_ respecting the nuptial ceremonies of th...