--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 202 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/202/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 202. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/202/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 1 of 2. ## 202. Deuteronomy · 17 of 29 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/202/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/202/#p-N ### Verse 15 [¶1] Tokens of the damsel's virginity - This was a perfectly possible case in all places where girls were married at ten, twelve, and fourteen years of age, which is frequent in the East. I have known several instances of persons having had two or three children at separate births before they were fourteen years of age. Such tokens, therefore, as the text speaks of, must be infallibly exhibited by females so very young on the consummation of their marriage. ### Verse 17 [¶3] They shall spread the cloth, etc. - A usage of this kind argues a roughness of manners which would ill comport with the refinement of European ideas on so delicate a subject. Attempts have been made to show that the law here is to be understood metaphorically; but they so perfectly fail to establish any thing like probability, that it would be wasting my own and my reader's time to detail them. A custom similar to that above is observed among the Mohammedans to the present day. ### Verse 22 [¶5] Shall both of them die - Thus we find that in the most ancient of all laws adultery was punished with death in both the parties. ### Verse 25 [¶7] And the man force her - A rape also, by these ancient institutions, was punished with death, because a woman's honor was considered equally as precious as her life; therefore the same punishment was inflicted on the ravisher as upon the murderer. This offense is considered in the same point of view in the British laws, and by them also it is punished with death. ### Verse 30 [¶9] A man shall not take his father's wife - This is to be understood as referring to the case of a stepmother. A man in his old age may have married a young wife, and on his dying, his son by a former wife may desire to espouse her: this the law prohibits. It was probably on pretense of having broken this law, that Solomon put his brother Adonijah to death, because he had desired to have his father's concubine to wife, [1Kgs 2:13-25]. ### Introduction [¶11] Neither eunuchs, bastards, Ammonites, nor Moabites, shall be incorporated with the genuine Israelites, [Deu 23:1-3]. The reason why the Ammonites and Moabites were excluded, [Deu 23:4-6]. Edomites and Egyptians to be respected, [Deu 23:7]. Their descendants in the third generation may be incorporated with the Israelites, [Deu 23:8]. Cautions against wickedness when they go forth against their enemies, [Deu 23:9]. To keep the camp free from every defilement, and the reason why, [Deu 23:10-14]. The slave who had taken refuge among them is not to be delivered up to his former master, [Deu 23:15], [Deu 23:16]. There shall be no prostitutes nor sodomites in the land, [Deu 23:17]. The hire of a prostitute or the price of a dog is not to be brought into the house of God, [Deu 23:18]. The Israelites shall not lend on usury to each other, [Deu 23:19]; but they may take usury from strangers, [Deu 23:20]. Vows must be diligently paid, [Deu 23:21-23]. In passing through a vine yard or field a man may eat of the grapes or corn, but must carry away none with him, [Deu 23:24], [Deu 23:25]. ### Verse 1 [¶13] Shall not enter into the congregation, etc. - If by entering the congregation be meant the bearing a civil office among the people, such as magistrate, judge, etc., then the reason of the law is very plain; no man with any such personal defect as might render him contemptible in the sight of others should bear rule among the people, lest the contempt felt for his personal defects might be transferred to his important office, and thus his authority be disregarded. The general meaning of these words is, simply, that the persons here designated should not be so incorporated with the Jews as to partake of their civil privileges. ### Verse 2 [¶15] A bastard shall not enter - ממזר mamzer, which is here rendered bastard, should be understood as implying the offspring of an illegitimate or incestuous mixture. ### Verse 3 [¶17] An Ammonite or Moabite - These nations were subjected for their impiety and wickedness, (see [Deu 23:4] and [Deu 23:5]), to peculiar disgrace, and on this account were not permitted to hold any office among the Israelites. But this did not disqualify them from being proselytes: Ruth, who was a Moabitess, was married to Boaz, and she became one of the progenitors of our Lord. [¶18] Even to their tenth generation - That is, for ever, as the next clause explains; see [Neh 13:1]. ### Verse 12 [¶20] These directions may appear trifling to some, but they were essentially necessary to this people in their present circumstances. Decency and cleanliness promote health, and prevent many diseases. ### Verse 15 [¶22] Thou shalt not deliver - the servant which is escaped - unto thee - That is, a servant who left an idolatrous master that he might join himself to God and to his people. In any other case, it would have been injustice to have harboured the runaway. ### Verse 17 [¶24] There shall be no whore - See on [Gen 38:15-21] (note). ### Verse 18 [¶26] The hire of a whore, or the price of a dog - Many public prostitutes dedicated to their gods a part of their impure earnings; and some of these prostitutes were publicly kept in the temple of Venus Melytta, whose gains were applied to the support of her abominable worship. ### Verse 19 [¶28] Usury - See on [Lev 25:36] (note). ### Verse 21 [¶30] When thou shalt vow, etc. - See on [Num 30:2] (note), etc. ### Verse 24 [¶32] Thou shalt not put any in thy vessel - Thou shalt carry none away with thee. The old English proverb, Eat thy fill but pocket none, seems to have been founded on this law. ### Verse 25 [¶34] Thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand - It was on the permission granted by this law that the disciples plucked the ears of corn, as related [Mat 12:1]. This was both a considerate and humane law, and is no dishonor to the Jewish code. ### Introduction [¶36] The case of a divorced wife, [Deu 24:1-4]. No man shall be obliged to undertake any public service for the first year of his marriage, [Deu 24:5]. The mill-stones shall not be taken as a pledge, [Deu 24:6]. The man-stealer shall be put to death, [Deu 24:7]. Concerning cases of leprosy, [Deu 24:8], [Deu 24:9]. Of receiving pledges, and returning those of the poor before bed-time, [Deu 24:10-13]. Of servants and their hire, [Deu 24:14], [Deu 24:15]. Parents and children shall not be put to death for each other, [Deu 24:16]. Of humanity to the stranger, fatherless, widow, and bondman, [Deu 24:17], [Deu 24:18]. Gleanings of the harvest, etc., to be left for the poor, stranger, widow, fatherless, etc., [Deu 24:19-22]. ### Verse 1 [¶38] Some uncleanness - Any cause of dislike, for this great latitude of meaning the fact itself authorizes us to adopt, for it is certain that a Jew might put away his wife for any cause that seemed good to himself; and so hard were their hearts, that Moses suffered this; and we find they continued this practice even to the time of our Lord, who strongly reprehended them on the account, and showed that such license was wholly inconsistent with the original design of marriage; see [Mat 5:31] (note), etc.; [Mat 19:3] (note), etc., and the notes there. ### Verse 3 [¶40] And write her a bill of divorcement - These bills, though varying in expression, are the same in substance among the Jews in all places. The following, collected from Maimonides and others, is a general form, and contains all the particulars of such instruments. The reader who is curious may find a full account of divorces in the Biblioth. Rab. of Bartolocci, and the following form in that work, vol. iv., p. 550. "In - day of the week, or day - of the month A., in - year from the creation of the world, or from the supputation (of Alexander) after the account that we are accustomed to count by, here, in the place B., I, C., the son of D., of the place B., (or if there be any other name which I have, or my father hath had, or which my place or my father's place hath had), have voluntarily, and with the willingness of my soul, without constraint, dismissed, and left, and put away thee, even thee, E., the daughter of F., of the city G., (or if thou have any other name or surname, thou or thy father, or thy place or thy father's place), who hast been my wife heretofore; but now I dismiss thee, and leave thee, and put thee away, that thou mayest be free, and have power over thy own life, to go away to be married to any man whom thou wilt; and that no man be refused of thine hand, for my name, from this day and for ever. And thus thou art lawful for any man; and this is unto thee, from me, a writing of divorcement, and book (instrument) of dismission, and an epistle of putting away; according to the Law of Moses and Israel. [¶41] A., son of B., witness.C., son of D., witness." ### Verse 4 [¶43] She is defiled - Does not this refer to her having been divorced, and married in consequence to another? Though God, for the hardness of their hearts, suffered them to put away their wives, yet he considered all after-marriages in that case to be pollution and defilement; and it is on this ground that our Lord argues in the places referred to above, that whoever marries the woman that is put away is an adulterer: now this could not have been the case if God had allowed the divorce to be a legal and proper separation of the man from his wife; but in the sight of God nothing can be a legal cause of separation but adultery on either side. In such a case, according to the law of God, a man may put away his wife, and a wife may put away her husband; (see [Mat 19:9]); for it appears that the wife had as much right to put away her husband as the husband had to put away his wife, see [Mar 10:12]. ### Verse 5 [¶45] When a man hath taken a new wife - Other people made a similar provision for such circumstances. Alexander ordered those of his soldiers who had married that year to spend the winter with their wives, while the army was in winter quarters. See Arrian, lib. i.