13If any man take a wife, and go into unto her, and hate her [after that], 14And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid [not virginity in her]: 15Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: 16And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this Man_1:-15 wife, and he hateth her, And lo, he hath given occasions of speech [lays deeds of words] against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid [with respect to her, or in her virginity]; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. 18And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; 19And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. 20But if this thing be true [truth is this word], and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: 21Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die; because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Witness-bearing generally, and especially false witness, has been treated already, Deu_19:15 sq., from the stand-point of the sixth command; and Moses therefore now speaks briefly as to the ninth commandment. It is rather as a supplement, corresponding entirely with the supplementary existence of the woman, and in connection with what precedes, since the wife is regarded as the property, possession, of the husband. But the ninth command goes down here—and this is the progress—from the judicial witness-bearing (Deu_19:15 sq.) to the social declaration, to slander, and this with respect to a case both disgraceful and dangerous. Deu_22:13. And go, as Deu_21:13. After the affection, at least manifested, the aversion (2Sa_13:15) breaking out through occasions of speech, literally, deeds (
òìéìä
from
òìì
the completed, finished) of words, i.e., actions with words, in that he says, or: things which exist only in words, and his words,—or: facts which occasion the words, report, scandal. Deu_22:14. (Mat_1:19).
áúåìéí
(
áúì
to separate, separated from close intimacy with men) abstract noun: virginity as it was supposed distinguishable (Sept.
ðáñèἑíåéá ôὰ ðáñèἑíéá
). The parents (Deu_22:15) for the sake of their child, and for the honor of their training, their household; after them came the first-born brother as the head of the family.
ðòø
, literally, the one thrust out, of the fruit of the human body, hence: the young, as the maiden passes into the young woman. That which they take and bring out of the house (Deu_14:28) as a proof of the virginity of their daughter, is, according to Deu_22:17, the piece of clothing with the distinctive blood stains, the cloth which they had thus in preservation. Comp. further Deu_21:19. Deu_22:16. The accusation, which in this case was limited truly and designedly to the mere report, in order that the parents should quietly take back their daughter, they bring with the motive of the slander, before the public forum. Deu_22:17. (Comp. Deu_22:14). The exhibition of the slander in words, its refutation by facts. Deu_22:18. Comp. Deu_21:18. The Jews understand bodily punishment with thirty-nine stripes, which is not expressed in the words, and is scarcely supposable in the case. He was not punished as a legal witness (Deu_19:18 sq.) but as a slanderer, and of his own honor in respect to his wife. Hence the chastisement, instruction, is first of all in place. The punishment, Deu_22:19, consists in the money to be paid to the slandered father [in other cases (see Deu_22:29; Exo_22:15-16) the fine was only fifty shekels; the Rabbins hold that if the woman were an orphan the fine came to herself,—A. G.], and in his loss for life of the right of divorce. [The distinction in the punishment here attached to the slanderer of his wife, and the penalty for false-witness, Deu_19:10 sq., is not to be explained upon the assumption “of the low position and estimation of the woman under the law,” (Bib. Com.), but by the fact above referred to that the case here is not strictly of false witness. The punishment was designed apparently to meet the motives in which the slander originated, “either a wanton desire for another marriage, or an avaricious desire for the maiden’s dowry.”—A. G.]. Deu_22:20-21. Connected with the foregoing, but the very opposite, and as to the penalty, literally a case belonging to the seventh command, where the man brings his case before the elders of the city and establishes it by the whole unmaidenly conduct of the bride generally, and not only by the fact that the proofs (Deu_22:17) could not be found. (Comp. Deu_13:15; Deu_17:4). To the slander, now follows the deceit. Deu_22:21. They, either the elders (Deu_22:18 sq.), or one shall, sq., out of the deceived husband’s house, or from some other place, but only to, before the door of the father’s house for a testimony against it, so far as it was a participant in the guilt through defective discipline, oversight, perhaps even in the deceit, in any case to suit the punishment to the guilt: the sin went out across this threshold, etc.
ðְáָìָä
presumptuousness, shamelessness, godlessness, especially of unchastity (Gen_34:7), which is not compatible with Israel’s dignity, and which thus concerns the body of the people in its spiritual character (1Co_6:13; 1Co_6:15 sq.; Mat_5:32). Further comp. Deu_13:6.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Slander is the act, with reference to our neighbor, introduced through falsehood; here touches the neighbor next to his own life, i.e., touches his own wife, where indeed even nature requires truthfulness. Thus nature vindicates itself against the lying, slanderous husband: the nature of the maiden, and the natural protection of father and mother, become her legal representatives and defence.
2. The method of proof in this case rests essentially upon the ground that nature will not deceive, much less lie. It appears as it is; it conceals nothing; it does not even deface anything when it presents itself to view.
3. Man who deceives may lie, but should not. The veracity of a man as to himself is in the thought, his inward recognition of the truth; as to others, in word and deed, his external confession of the truth. Thus appear, Deu_22:14, deeds of words.
4. Man is free only as he maintains veracity; the lie destroys his true freedom. The Israelite should learn this with respect to the freedom of divorce from his wife granted to him (Mat_19:8), forfeiting it in the case of the lie, the slander, against his wife.
5. Where love is presupposed, as here in the relations of man and wife, it demands first entire truthfulness. It is only lust which is followed by hatred, and thus the slander is begotten.
6. Israel must put away evil from among them, as here with respect to the deceitful and false betrothed. The Scripture elsewhere identifies the lie and evil. Here her own conscience must have been imposed upon and hardened before she represented herself to others as being what she was not.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Deu_22:13. Cramer: “We should never bring any one into reproach, nor cover them, or impose upon them with groundless suspicions.” Deu_22:15. The same: “Parents should not only care for the support, but the good name of their children, and should cheerfully defend it.” Deu_22:18. Starke: “God is the enemy of deceivers and liars, and will punish them.” Deu_22:19. Schultz: “Moses must have held a different view of unions in the face of great aversion than that prevalent among us.” Herxheimer: “In any case the great disgrace and severe punishment must have awakened in the parents great care in the preservation of modesty and purity.”
