18 If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment:
Give honour to your father and to your mother, so that your life may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Let every man give honour to his mother and to his father and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.
And again, if the fathers of our flesh gave us punishment and had our respect, how much more will we be under the authority of the Father of spirits, and have life? For they truly gave us punishment for a short time, as it seemed good to them; but he does it for our profit, so that we may become holy as he is. At the time all punishment seems to be pain and not joy: but after, those who have been trained by it get from it the peace-giving fruit of righteousness.
Children, do what is ordered by your fathers and mothers in the Lord: for this is right. Give honour to your father and mother (which is the first rule having a reward), So that all may be well for you, and your life may be long on the earth.
And I have sent destruction among you, as when God sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick pulled out of the fire: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. So this is what I will do to you, O Israel: and because I will do this to you, be ready for a meeting with your God, O Israel.
As for your unclean purpose: because I have been attempting to make you clean, but you have not been made clean from it, you will not be made clean till I have let loose my passion on you in full measure.
In you they have had no respect for father and mother; in you they have been cruel to the man from a strange land; in you they have done wrong to the child without a father and to the widow.
O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.
Why will you have more and more punishment? why keep on in your evil ways? Every head is tired and every heart is feeble.
The eye which makes sport of a father, and sees no value in a mother when she is old will be rooted out by the ravens of the valley, and be food for the young eagles.
There is a generation who put a curse on their father, and do not give a blessing to their mother.
He who takes from his father or his mother what is theirs by right, and says, It is no sin; is the same as a taker of life.
Do not keep back training from the child: for even if you give him blows with the rod, it will not be death to him. Give him blows with the rod, and keep his soul safe from the underworld.
If anyone puts a curse on his father or his mother, his light will be put out in the blackest night.
Give your son training while there is hope; let not your heart be purposing his death.
He who keeps back his rod is unkind to his son: the loving father gives punishment with care.
My son, give ear to the training of your father, and do not give up the teaching of your mother:
Cursed is he who does not give honour to his father or mother. And let all the people say, So be it.
Keep in mind this thought, that as a son is trained by his father, so you have been trained by the Lord your God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 21
Commentary on Deuteronomy 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
In this chapter provision is made,
Deu 21:1-9
Care had been taken by some preceding laws for the vigorous and effectual persecution of a wilful murderer (ch. 19:11 etc.), the putting of whom to death was the putting away of the guilt of blood from the land; but if this could not be done, the murderer not being discovered, they must not think that the land was in no danger of contracting any pollution because it was not through any neglect of theirs that the murderer was unpunished; no, a great solemnity is here provided for the putting away of the guilt, as an expression of their dread and detestation of that sin.
Deu 21:10-14
By this law a soldier is allowed to marry his captive if he pleased. For the hardness of their hearts Moses gave them this permission, lest, if they had not had liberty given them to marry such, they should have taken liberty to defile themselves with them, and by such wickedness the camp would have been troubled. The man is supposed to have a wife already, and to take this wife for a secondary wife, as the Jews called them. This indulgence of men's inordinate desires, in which their hearts walked after their eyes, is by no means agreeable to the law of Christ, which therefore in this respect, among others, far exceeds in glory the law of Moses. The gospel permits not him that has one wife to take another, for from the beginning it was not so. The gospel forbids looking upon a woman, though a beautiful one, to lust after her, and commands the mortifying and denying of all irregular desires, though it be as uneasy as the cutting off of a right hand; so much does our holy religion, more than that of the Jews, advance the honour and support the dominion of the soul over the body, the spirit over the flesh, consonant to the glorious discovery it makes of life and immortality, and the better hope.
But, though military men were allowed this liberty, yet care is here taken that they should not abuse it, that is,
Deu 21:15-17
This law restrains men from disinheriting their eldest sons out of mere caprice, and without just provocation.
Deu 21:18-23
Here is,