Deuteronomy 22:20-22

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:13-30

These laws relate to the seventh commandment, laying a restraint by laying a penalty upon those fleshly lusts which war against the soul. I. If a man, lusting after another woman, to get rid of his wife slander her and falsely accuse her, as not having the virginity she pretended to when he married her, upon the disproof of his slander he must be punished, Deut. 22:13-19. What the meaning of that evidence is by which the husband's accusation was to be proved false the learned are not agreed,... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:20

But if this thing be true ,.... Which the husband of the damsel laid to her charge, that she was no virgin when married to him, and she had committed whoredom, of which there was plain proof: and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel ; by her parents, or those who had the care of her; or no sufficient reason could be assigned for the want of them, through any family defect, or any disorder of her own; which, as Maimonides F26 Hilchot Ishot, c. 11. sect. 12. says, the... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:21

Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house ,.... For his greater disgrace, and as a sort of punishment for his neglect of her education, not taking care to instruct her, and bring her up in a better manner: and the men of her city shall stone her with stones, that she die ; which was the death this sort of adulteresses were put to; others was by strangling, and the daughter of a priest was to be burnt; see Leviticus 20:10 , which shows that this sin was... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:22

If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband ,..... This law respects adultery, and is the same with that in Leviticus 20:10 . then they shall both of them die ; with the strangling of a napkin, as the Targum of Jonathan, which is the death such persons were put to; and is always meant when death is simply spoken of, and it is not specified what death; See Gill on Leviticus 20:10 , both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman ; they were both to die, and to... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Deuteronomy 22:22

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. read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Deuteronomy 22:20

Verse 20 20.But if this thing be true. If the punishment should seem to anybody to be somewhat too severe, let him reflect that no kind of fraud is more intolerable. A false sale of a field or a house shall be accounted a crime, as also the utterance of false money; and, therefore, she who abuses the sacred name of marriage for deception, and offers an unchaste body instead of a chaste one, much less deserves to be pardoned. The cause of severity, however, which is expressly mentioned, is much... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Deuteronomy 22:22

Verse 22 Deuteronomy 22:22.If a man be found lying with. A Political Supplement, whereby it appears how greatly God abominates adultery, since He denounces capital punishment against it. And assuredly, since marriage is a covenant consecrated by God, its profanation is in no wise tolerable; and conjugal faith should be held too sacred to be violated with impunity, whilst it is an act of horrible perfidiousness to snatch from a man’s bosom the wife who is as his very life, or at any rate half of... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:1-30

Divine care for sexual honor. In these, as in so many of the precepts of this book, we find civil precepts invested with religious sanctions. Nothing is more important for the honorable maintenance of social life, than that both men and women should honor each other's sex as well as their own. Those that do otherwise are an abomination to the Lord their God. There are five or six different cases supposed in the verses referred to at the heading of this Homily: Such sins would have been... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:13-21

Slander, unchastity, and fraud. No blame can lie against the Scriptures because they legislate on such detestable matters. The blame must lie at the door of depraved humanity, which perpetrates such deeds and makes Divine legislation necessary. The obscenity appertains to the vices, only praise belongs to the remedy. I. A WOMAN 'S CHASTITY IS HER MAIN DOWRY FOR LIFE . If she possess not this virtue, she is worse than worthless; she is a plague and a pest—a moral... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Deuteronomy 22:13-29

The laws in this section have the design of fostering purity and fidelity in the relation of the sexes, and also of protecting the female against the malice of sated lust and the violence of brutal lust. read more

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