18 `When a man hath a son apostatizing and rebellious -- he is not hearkening to the voice of his father, and to the voice of his mother, and they have chastised him, and he doth not hearken unto them --
`Honour thy father and thy mother, so that thy days are prolonged on the ground which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee.
`Each his mother and his father ye do fear, and My sabbaths ye do keep; I `am' Jehovah your God.
Then, indeed, fathers of our flesh we have had, chastising `us', and we were reverencing `them'; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of the spirits, and live? for they, indeed, for a few days, according to what seemed good to them, were chastening, but He for profit, to be partakers of His separation; and all chastening for the present, indeed, doth not seem to be of joy, but of sorrow, yet afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those exercised through it -- it doth yield.
The children! obey your parents in the Lord, for this is righteous; honour thy father and mother, which is the first command with a promise, `That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live a long time upon the land.'
I have overturned among you, Like the overturn by God of Sodom and Gomorrah, And ye are as a brand delivered from a burning, And ye have not turned back unto Me, An affirmation of Jehovah. Therefore, thus I do to thee, O Israel, at last, Because this I do to thee, Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.
In thine uncleanness `is' wickedness, Because I have cleansed thee, And thou hast not been cleansed, From thine uncleanness thou art not cleansed again, Till I have caused My fury to rest on thee.
Father and mother made light of in thee, To a sojourner they dealt oppressively in thy midst, Fatherless and widow they oppressed in thee.
Jehovah, Thine eyes, are they not on stedfastness? Thou hast smitten them, and they have not grieved, Thou hast consumed them, They have refused to receive instruction, They made their faces harder than a rock, They have refused to turn back.
Wherefore are ye stricken any more? Ye do add apostacy! Every head is become diseased, and every heart `is' sick.
An eye that mocketh at a father, And despiseth to obey a mother, Dig it out do ravens of the valley, And eat it do young eagles.
A generation `is', that lightly esteemeth their father, And their mother doth not bless.
Whoso is robbing his father, or his mother, And is saying, `It is not transgression,' A companion he is to a destroyer.
Withhold not from a youth chastisement, When thou smitest him with a rod he dieth not. Thou with a rod smitest him, And his soul from Sheol thou deliverest.
Whoso is vilifying his father and his mother, Extinguished is his lamp in blackness of darkness.
Chastise thy son, for there is hope, And to put him to death lift not up thy soul.
Whoso is sparing his rod is hating his son, And whoso is loving him hath hastened him chastisement.
Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father, And leave not the law of thy mother,
`Cursed `is' He who is making light of his father and his mother, -- and all the people have said, Amen.
and thou hast known, with thy heart, that as a man chastiseth his son Jehovah thy God is chastising 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,