18 If a man have an unmanageable and rebellious son, who hearkeneth not unto the voice of his father, nor unto the voice of his mother, and they have chastened him, but he hearkeneth not unto them;
Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee.
Ye shall reverence every man his mother, and his father, and my sabbaths shall ye keep: I am Jehovah your God.
Moreover we have had the fathers of our flesh as chasteners, and we reverenced [them]; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed chastened for a few days, as seemed good to them; but he for profit, in order to the partaking of his holiness. But no chastening at the time seems to be [matter] of joy, but of grief; but afterwards yields [the] peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it.
Children, obey your parents in [the] Lord, for this is just. Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest be long-lived on the earth.
I have overthrown among you, like God's overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith Jehovah. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.
In thy filthiness is lewdness, for I have purged thee, and thou art not pure. Thou shalt no more be purged from thy filthiness, till I have satisfied my fury upon thee.
In thee have they made light of father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger; in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.
Jehovah, are not thine eyes upon fidelity? Thou hast smitten them, but they are not sore; thou hast consumed them, they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
Why should ye be smitten any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
The eye that mocketh at a father, and despiseth to obey a mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.
There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother;
Whoso robbeth his father and his mother, and saith, It is no transgression, the same is the companion of a destroyer.
Withhold not correction from the child; for [if] thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die: thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from Sheol.
Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in the blackest darkness.
Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope; but set not thy soul upon killing him.
He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the teaching of thy mother;
Cursed be he that slighteth his father or his mother! And all the people shall say, Amen.
And know in thy heart that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee;
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,