1 You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide yourself from them: you shall surely bring them again to your brother.
2 If your brother isn't near to you, or if you don't know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother seek after it, and you shall restore it to him.
3 So shall you do with his donkey; and so shall you do with his garment; and so shall you do with every lost thing of your brother's, which he has lost, and you have found: you may not hide yourself.
4 You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen down by the way, and hide yourself from them: you shall surely help him to lift them up again.
5 A woman shall not wear men's clothing, neither shall a man put on women's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
6 If a bird's nest chance to be before you in the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the hen sitting on the young, or on the eggs, you shall not take the hen with the young:
7 you shall surely let the hen go, but the young you may take to yourself; that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days.
8 When you build a new house, then you shall make a battlement for your roof, that you don't bring blood on your house, if any man fall from there.
9 You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole fruit be forfeited, the seed which you have sown, and the increase of the vineyard.
10 You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
11 You shall not wear a mixed stuff, wool and linen together.
12 You shall make you fringes on the four borders of your cloak, with which you cover yourself.
13 If any man take a wife, and go in to her, and hate her,
14 and lay shameful things to her charge, and bring up an evil name on her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came near to her, I didn't find in her the tokens of virginity;
15 then shall the father of the young lady, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the young lady's virginity to the elders of the city in the gate;
16 and the young lady's father shall tell the elders, I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he hates her;
17 and, behold, he has laid shameful things [to her charge], saying, I didn't find in your daughter the tokens of virginity; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. They shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.
18 The elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him;
19 and they shall fine him one hundred [shekels] of silver, and give them to the father of the young lady, because he has brought up an evil name on a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.
20 But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young lady;
21 then they shall bring out the young lady to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done folly in Israel, to play the prostitute in her father's house: so shall you put away the evil from the midst of you.
22 If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman: so shall you put away the evil from Israel.
23 If there be a young lady who is a virgin pledged to be married to a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones; the lady, because she didn't cry, being in the city; and the man, because he has humbled his neighbor's wife: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.
25 But if the man find the lady who is pledged to be married in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her; then the man only who lay with her shall die:
26 but to the lady you shall do nothing; there is in the lady no sin worthy of death: for as when a man rises against his neighbor, and kills him, even so is this matter;
27 for he found her in the field, the pledged to be married lady cried, and there was none to save her.
28 If a man find a lady who is a virgin, who is not pledged to be married, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;
29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the lady's father fifty [shekels] of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has humbled her; he may not put her away all his days.
30 A man shall not take his father's wife, and shall not uncover his father's skirt.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 22
Commentary on Deuteronomy 22 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 22
De 22:1-4. Of Humanity toward Brethren.
1. Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them, &c.—"Brother" is a term of extensive application, comprehending persons of every description; not a relative, neighbor, or fellow countryman only, but any human being, known or unknown, a foreigner, and even an enemy (Ex 23:4). The duty inculcated is an act of common justice and charity, which, while it was taught by the law of nature, was more clearly and forcibly enjoined in the law delivered by God to His people. Indifference or dissimulation in the circumstances supposed would not only be cruelty to the dumb animals, but a violation of the common rights of humanity; and therefore the dictates of natural feeling, and still more the authority of the divine law, enjoined that the lost or missing property of another should be taken care of by the finder, till a proper opportunity occurred of restoring it to the owner.
De 22:5-12. The Sex to Be Distinguished by Apparel.
5. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment—Though disguises were assumed at certain times in heathen temples, it is probable that a reference was made to unbecoming levities practised in common life. They were properly forbidden; for the adoption of the habiliments of the one sex by the other is an outrage on decency, obliterates the distinctions of nature by fostering softness and effeminacy in the man, impudence and boldness in the woman as well as levity and hypocrisy in both; and, in short, it opens the door to an influx of so many evils that all who wear the dress of another sex are pronounced "an abomination unto the Lord."
6, 7. If a bird's nest chance to be before thee—This is a beautiful instance of the humanizing spirit of the Mosaic law, in checking a tendency to wanton destructiveness and encouraging a spirit of kind and compassionate tenderness to the tiniest creatures. But there was wisdom as well as humanity in the precept; for, as birds are well known to serve important uses in the economy of nature, the extirpation of a species, whether of edible or ravenous birds, must in any country be productive of serious evils. But Palestine, in particular, was situated in a climate which produced poisonous snakes and scorpions; and the deserts and mountains would have been overrun with them as well as immense swarms of flies, locusts, mice, and vermin of various kinds if the birds which fed upon them were extirpated [Michaelis]. Accordingly, the counsel given in this passage was wise as well as humane, to leave the hen undisturbed for the propagation of the species, while the taking of the brood occasionally was permitted as a check to too rapid an increase.
8. thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence—The tops of houses in ancient Judea, as in the East still, were flat, being composed of branches or twigs laid across large beams, and covered with a cement of clay or strong plaster. They were surrounded by a parapet breast high. In summer the roof is a favorite resort for coolness, and accidents would frequently happen from persons incautiously approaching the edge and falling into the street or court; hence it was a wise and prudent precaution in the Jewish legislator to provide that a stone balustrade or timber railing round the roof should form an essential part of every new house.
9. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds—(See on Le 19:19).
10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together—Whether this association, like the mixture of seeds, had been dictated by superstitious motives and the prohibition was symbolical, designed to teach a moral lesson (2Co 6:14), may or may not have been the case. But the prohibition prevented a great inhumanity still occasionally practised by the poorer sort in Oriental countries. An ox and ass, being of different species and of very different characters, cannot associate comfortably, nor unite cheerfully in drawing a plough or a wagon. The ass being much smaller and his step shorter, there would be an unequal and irregular draft. Besides, the ass, from feeding on coarse and poisonous weeds, has a fetid breath, which its yoke fellow seeks to avoid, not only as poisonous and offensive, but producing leanness, or, if long continued, death; and hence, it has been observed always to hold away its head from the ass and to pull only with one shoulder.
11. thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts—The essence of the crime (Zep 1:8) consisted, not in wearing a woollen and a linen robe, but in the two stuffs being woven together, according to a favorite superstition of ancient idolaters (see on Le 19:19).
12. thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters—or, according to some eminent biblical interpreters, tassels on the coverlet of the bed. The precept is not the same as Nu 15:38.
13-30. If a man take a wife, &c.—The regulations that follow might be imperatively needful in the then situation of the Israelites; and yet, it is not necessary that we should curiously and impertinently inquire into them. So far was it from being unworthy of God to leave such things upon record, that the enactments must heighten our admiration of His wisdom and goodness in the management of a people so perverse and so given to irregular passions. Nor is it a better argument that the Scriptures were not written by inspiration of God to object that this passage, and others of a like nature, tend to corrupt the imagination and will be abused by evil-disposed readers, than it is to say that the sun was not created by God, because its light may be abused by wicked men as an assistant in committing crimes which they have meditated [Horne].