Verse 20
20. A bondmaid In ancient wars there were but two ways of dealing with the captives, namely, putting them to death or reducing them to slavery. The latter, as the milder of these alternatives, was recognised and greatly mitigated by the Mosaic law. But when Christianity came, whose first evangel was peace on earth, the death blow was given to war and slavery, its hideous progeny.
Betrothed to a husband Rather, to a man, probably a fellow-servant. Unfaithfulness in a free betrothed woman was a capital offence. Deuteronomy 22:23-24.
Not… redeemed The rabbins specify four modes of redemption: 1.) by money, 2.) by a ticket of freedom, 3.) by testamentary disposition, or, 4.) by an act implying manumission, such as making the slave one’s heir.
Freedom This Hebrew word, chuphshah, occurs nowhere else in the Bible. It probably signifies “free papers,” or a certificate of freedom.
She shall be scourged Hebrew, there shall be a chastisement inflicted, evidently upon both parties. Thus read the Seventy, Vulgate, Syriac, and the Revised Version, and thus says the moral sense of universal humanity. The Authorized Version, which limits the scourging to the weaker criminal to the tempted and lets the tempter off with the fine of a ram, is an unpardonable blunder, and a foul blot needlessly cast upon the law of Moses.
Not free There was property invested in the woman, and probably in the man also, which would be destroyed by putting them to death.
Be the first to react on this!
