Deuteronomy 22:29

Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, For the abuse of his daughter; and besides this was obliged to give her her dowry also, as Philo (d) says, which is commonly said to be fifty more: and she shall be his wife; if her father and she agreed to it; and in such a case the man was not at his liberty to refuse, be she what she would, agreeable or not, handsome or ugly; he must, as the Jews express it, drink out of his pot, or marry her, if she is lame, or blind, or full of ulcers (e): because he hath humbled her he may not put her away all his days: to all the other parts of his punishment, paying a fine of fifty shekels to the damsel's father, a dowry of the same sum to her, obligation to marry her whether he likes her or not, this is added, that he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives; which was permitted to other men, and this was wisely ordered to preserve chastity. (d) De Special. Leg. p. 787. (e) Misn. Cetubot, c. 3. sect. 5.

Deuteronomy 22:29 . Shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels — Besides the dowry, as Philo, the learned Jew, notes, which is here omitted, because that was customary, it being sufficient here to mention what was peculiar to this case. She shall be his wife — He was not at liberty to refuse her, if her father consented to his marrying her, and he was deprived of the privilege of ever divorcing her.

Fifty shekels of silver, besides the dowry, as Philo the learned Jew notes, which is here omitted, because that was common and customary, and because it might easily be gathered out of Exodus 22:16 , it being sufficient here to mention what was peculiar to this case. She shall be his wife, to wit, if her father consent to it, which is to be supposed out of Exodus 22:16 , it being not likely that the father should lose his paternal right of disposing his child when she was in some sort forced, rather than when she was enticed. He may not put her away all his days, which others were suffered to do, Deu 24:1 , and he who enticed the maid { Exodus 22:16} was not prohibited to do.

The fine was to be paid to the father, because the slander was against him principally as the head of the wife's family. If the damsel were an orphan the fine reverted to herself. The fact that the penalties attached to bearing false witness against a wife are fixed and comparatively light indicates the low estimation and position of the woman at that time.

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].

The last case: if a virgin was not betrothed, and a man seized her and lay with her, and they were found, i.e., discovered or convicted of their deed, the man was to pay the father of the girl fifty shekels of silver, for the reproach brought upon him and his house, and to marry the girl whom he had humbled, without ever being able to divorce her. This case is similar to the one mentioned in Exodus 22:15-16 . The omission to mention the possibility of the father refusing to give him his daughter for a wife, makes no essential difference. It is assumed as self-evident here, that such a right was possessed by the father.

How thoroughly Moses was filled with the thought, that not only individuals, but whole families, and in fact the greater portion of the nation, would fall into idolatry, is evident from the further expansion of the threat which follows, and in which he foresees in the Spirit, and foretells, the extermination of whole families, and the devastation of the land by distant nations; as in Leviticus 26:31-32 . Future generations of Israel, and the stranger from a distant land, when they saw the strokes of the Lord which burst upon the land, and the utter desolation of the land, would ask whence this devastation, and receive the reply, The Lord had smitten the land thus in His anger, because its inhabitants (the Israelites) had forsaken His covenant. With regard to the construction, observe that ואמר, in Deuteronomy 29:22 , is resumed in ואמרוּ, in Deuteronomy 29:24 , the subject of Deuteronomy 29:22 being expanded into the general notion, "all nations" ( Deuteronomy 29:24 ). With וראוּ, in Deuteronomy 29:22 , a parenthetical clause is inserted, giving the reason for the main thought, in the form of a circumstantial clause; and to this there is attached, by a loose apposition in Deuteronomy 29:23 , a still further picture of the divine strokes according to their effect upon the land.