18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and, though they chasten him, will not listen to them;
"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
"'Each one of you shall respect his mother and his father. You shall keep my Sabbaths. I am Yahweh your God.
Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with a promise: "that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth."
"I have overthrown some of you, As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; Yet you haven't returned to me," says Yahweh. "Therefore thus will I do to you, Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, Israel.
In your filthiness is lewdness: because I have cleansed you and you weren't cleansed, you shall not be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.
In you have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of you have they dealt by oppression with the foreigner; in you have they wronged the fatherless and the widow.
O Yahweh, don't your eyes look on truth? you have stricken them, but they were not grieved; you have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.
Why should you be beaten more, That you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faint.
The eye that mocks at his father, And scorns obedience to his mother: The ravens of the valley shall pick it out, The young eagles shall eat it.
There is a generation that curses their father, And doesn't bless their mother.
Whoever robs his father or his mother, and says, "It's not wrong." He is a partner with a destroyer.
Don't withhold correction from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod, And save his soul from Sheol.
Whoever curses his father or his mother, His lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.
Discipline your son, for there is hope; Don't be a willing party to his death.
One who spares the rod hates his son, But one who loves him is careful to discipline him.
My son, listen to your father's instruction, And don't forsake your mother's teaching:
Cursed be he who sets light by his father or his mother. All the people shall say, Amen.
You shall consider in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so Yahweh your God chastens you.
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,