Deuteronomy 24:5

_WHEN A MAN HATH TAKEN A NEW WIFE, HE SHALL NOT GO OUT TO WAR, NEITHER SHALL HE BE CHARGED WITH ANY BUSINESS: BUT HE SHALL BE FREE AT HOME ONE YEAR, AND SHALL CHEER UP HIS WIFE WHICH HE HATH TAKEN._ When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war. This law of exemption was founded on good policy, and was favourable to matrimony, as it afforded a full opportunity for the affections of the newly-married pair being more firmly engaged, and it diminished or removed occasions for the divorces just mentioned. It is somewhat remarkable that the same rule was put in practice by Alexander the Great in his expedition against Persia. For, after the battle of the Granicus, and previously to his retiring into winter quarters, he proclaimed to all of his soldiers who had married that year, that liberty was granted them to return home to Macedonia, and pass the winter in the society of th...

The immunity here given has for its object the awakening of that mutual love which may preserve the conjugal fidelity of husband and wife; for there is danger lest, if a husband departs from his wife immediately after marriage, the bride, before she has become thoroughly accustomed to him, should be too prone to fall in love with some one else. A similar danger affects the husband; for in war, and other expeditions, many things occur which tempt men to sin. God, therefore, would have the love of husband and wife fostered by their association for a whole year, that thus mutual confidence may be established between them, and they may afterwards continually beware of all incontinency. But that God should permit a bride to enjoy herself with her husband, affords no trifling proof of His indulgence. Assuredly, it cannot be but that the lust of the flesh must affect the connection of husband a...

5-13 It is of great consequence that love be kept up between husband and wife; that they carefully avoid every thing which might make them strange one to another. Man-stealing was a capital crime, which could not be settled, as other thefts, by restitution. The laws concerning leprosy must be carefully observed. Thus all who feel their consciences under guilt and wrath, must not cover it, or endeavour to shake off their convictions; but by repentance, and prayer, and humble confession, take the way to peace and pardon. Some orders are given about pledges for money lent. This teaches us to consult the comfort and subsistence of others, as much as our own advantage. Let the poor debtor sleep in his own raiment, and praise God for thy kindness to him. Poor debtors ought to feel more than commonly they do, the goodness of creditors who do not take all the advantage of the law against them, n...

Verse Deuteronomy 24:5. _WHEN A MAN HATH TAKEN A NEW WIFE_] Other people made a similar provision for such circumstances. Alexander ordered those of his soldiers who had married that year to spend the winter with their wives, while the army was in winter quarters. See Arrian, lib. i....

EXPOSITION LAWS RESPECTING DIVORCE, AGAINST MAN-STEALING AND INJUSTICE. DEUTERONOMY 24:1 _Of divorce_._ _If a man put away his wife because she did not any longer please him, and she became the wife of another man, by whom also she was put away, or from whom she was severed by his death, the first husband might not remarry her, for that would be an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and would bring sin on the land. This is not a law sanctioning or regulating divorce; that is simply assumed as what might occur, and what is here regulated is the treatment by the first husband of a woman who has been divorced a second time....

WHEN A MAN HATH TAKEN A NEW WIFE,.... A wife he has lately married, new to him, though a widow, as Jarchi observes; but the Targum of Jonathan says a virgin; however this is opposed to his old wife, and divorced; for this, as Jarchi and Ben Melech say, excepts the return of a divorced wife, who cannot be said to be a new one: HE SHALL NOT GO OUT TO WAR; this is to be understood of a man that had not only betrothed, but married a wife; a man that had betrothed a wife, and not married her, who went out to war, might return if he would, Deuteronomy 20:7; but one that had married a wife was not to go out to war: NEITHER SHALL BE CHARGED WITH ANY BUSINESS; as betrothed ones were; they, though they had a liberty of returning, yet they were to provide food and drink for the army, and to prepare or mend the highways, as Jarchi observes; but these were no

20. CONCERNING DIVORCE AND LAWS OF MERCY CHAPTER 24 _ 1. Concerning divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1)_ 2. Concerning pledge and slavery (Deuteronomy 24:6) 3. Concerning leprosy (Deuteronomy 24:8) 4. Concerning the oppression of the poor (Deuteronomy 24:10) 5. Concerning injustice (Deuteronomy 24:16) 6. The stranger, the fatherless and the widow remembered (Deuteronomy 24

The right of divorce on man's part (not woman's) is taken for granted here and elsewhere in the OT (see Deuteronomy 22:19; Deuteronomy 22:29; Leviticus 21:7; Leviticus 21:14; Leviticus 22:13 f., Numbers 30:9; _cf._ Matthew 19:9). Later Judaism (_Kethuboth_, vii. 10) extended to woman the right of divorce under certain specified conditions....

WHEN, &C. Compare Deuteronomy 20:7....

Exemption of the Newly Married. He shall not go out with the army, nor be under other (public) obligation for a year, for the sake of his house and wife. See introd. to Deuteronomy 20:1-9, and on Deuteronomy 20:7, which refers to military service alone. The addition here recalls such royal levies as in 1 Samuel 8:16 1 Kings 5:13 ff; 1 Kings 15:22. Cp. the Babylonian levies which were for service both with the army and on public works (Johns, _op. cit._ch. 19). The position of the law just here may be due to its having the same opening as