Deuteronomy 22:21

Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:13-30 These and the like regulations might be needful then, and yet it is not necessary that we should curiously examine respecting them. The laws relate to the seventh commandment, laying a restraint upon fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

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].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Quest. Why should she die when her crime was only fornication, which was not punished in a woman with death, Exodus 22:16,17?

Answ. Because there was not only fornication in this case, as Exo 22, but this was accompanied with deep dissimulation and injury to her husband in the false profession of virginity, and it might be presumed that she committed this folly after she was betrothed to him, and therefore so obstinately denied it, as knowing the danger of it in that case; or God ordered it thus for the honour and custody of the matrimonial bed from all defilement, that she, who being defiled before she was married or betrothed, and therefore not punishable by death, yet if she should presume to carry her defilement into the married estate with a pretence of virginity, she should then be put to death.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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 committed by her after her espousals, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra note; or otherwise it would have been only simple fornication, which was not punishable with death:

because she hath wrought folly in Israel: a sin, as all sin is folly, and especially any notorious one, as this was; and which is aggravated by its being done in Israel, among a people professing the true religion, and whom God had chosen and separated from all others to be a holy people to himself:

to play the whore in her father's house; where she continued after her espousals, until she was taken to the house of her husband, to consummate the: marriage; and between the one and the other was this sin committed, and which is another reason for her execution at the door of her father's house:

so shalt thou put evil away from among you; deter others from it by such an example, and remove the guilt of it from them, which otherwise would lie upon them, if punishment was not inflicted; the Targum of Jonathan interprets it of the putting away of her that did the evil.

Geneva Study Bible

Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. the door of her father’s house] Not at the town’s gate (as in other cases, Deuteronomy 22:24, Deuteronomy 17:5), because it was her father’s house which she had dishonoured. Therefore instead of to play the harlot, etc., read with Sam. LXX. turning her father’s house into a harlot’s.

folly] Rather, senselessness.

Heb. nebalah from nabal; ‘very difficult to render in English. “Fool” and “folly” are inadequate … The fault of the nabal is not weakness of reason, but moral and religious insensibility, a rooted incapacity to discern moral and religious relations, leading to an intolerant repudiation in practice of the claims which they impose … The cognate nabluth occurs Hosea 2:10 (12) in the sense of immodesty. Senseless and senselessness may be suggested as fair English equivalents …’ (Driver).

folly in Israel] this phrase, implying the sense of a national ideal and standard, a national conscience, which is found in J, Genesis 34:7, Joshua 7:15, and in Jdg 20:6; Jdg 20:10, does not elsewhere occur in D, and is evidence (so far) that we have here an earlier law interpreted by D.

so shalt thou put away] See on Deuteronomy 13:6 (5); and introd. note to this law.

Deuteronomy 22:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In the other case, however, if the man's words were true, and the girl had not been found to be a virgin, the elders were to bring her out before the door of her father's house, and the men of the town were to stone her to death, because she had committed a folly in Israel (cf. Genesis 34:7), to commit fornication in her father's house. The punishment of death was to be inflicted upon her, not so much because she had committed fornication, as because notwithstanding this she had allowed a man to marry her as a spotless virgin, and possibly even after her betrothal had gone with another man (cf. Deuteronomy 22:23, Deuteronomy 22:24). There is no ground for thinking of unnatural wantonness, as Knobel does.