Deuteronomy 22

De 22:1-4.

OF

HUMANITY TOWARD

BRETHREN.

1. Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and

hide thyself from them, &c.--"Brother" is a term of extensive

application, comprehending persons of every description; not a

relative, neighbor, or fellow countryman only, but any human being,

known or unknown, a foreigner, and even an enemy

(Ex 23:4).

The duty inculcated is an act of common justice and charity, which,

while it was taught by the law of nature, was more clearly and forcibly

enjoined in the law delivered by God to His people. Indifference or

dissimulation in the circumstances supposed would not only be cruelty

to the dumb animals, but a violation of the common rights of humanity;

and therefore the dictates of natural feeling, and still more the

authority of the divine law, enjoined that the lost or missing property

of another should be taken care of by the finder, till a proper

opportunity occurred of restoring it to the owner.

De 22:5-12.

THE

SEX TO

BE

DISTINGUISHED BY

APPAREL.

5. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither

shall a man put on a woman's garment--Though disguises were assumed at

certain times in heathen temples, it is probable that a reference was

made to unbecoming levities practised in common life. They were

properly forbidden; for the adoption of the habiliments of the one sex

nature by fostering softness and effeminacy in the man, impudence and

boldness in the woman as well as levity and hypocrisy in both; and, in

short, it opens the door to an influx of so many evils that all who

wear the dress of another sex are pronounced "an abomination unto the

Lord."

6, 7. If a bird's nest chance to be before thee--This is a beautiful

instance of the humanizing spirit of the Mosaic law, in checking a

tendency to wanton destructiveness and encouraging a spirit of kind and

compassionate tenderness to the tiniest creatures. But there was wisdom

as well as humanity in the precept; for, as birds are well known to

serve important uses in the economy of nature, the extirpation of a

species, whether of edible or ravenous birds, must in any country be

productive of serious evils. But Palestine, in particular, was situated

in a climate which produced poisonous snakes and scorpions; and the

deserts and mountains would have been overrun with them as well as

immense swarms of flies, locusts, mice, and vermin of various kinds if

the birds which fed upon them were extirpated

[MICHAELIS]. Accordingly,

the counsel given in this passage was wise as well as humane, to leave

the hen undisturbed for the propagation of the species, while the

taking of the brood occasionally was permitted as a check to too rapid

an increase.

8. thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood

upon thine house, if any man fall from thence--The tops of houses in

ancient Judea, as in the East still, were flat, being composed of

branches or twigs laid across large beams, and covered with a cement of

clay or strong plaster. They were surrounded by a parapet breast high.

In summer the roof is a favorite resort for coolness, and accidents

would frequently happen from persons incautiously approaching the edge

and falling into the street or court; hence it was a wise and prudent

precaution in the Jewish legislator to provide that a stone balustrade

or timber railing round the roof should form an essential part of every

new house.

9. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers

seeds--(See on

Le 19:19).

10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together--Whether this

association, like the mixture of seeds, had been dictated by

superstitious motives and the prohibition was symbolical, designed to

teach a moral lesson

(2Co 6:14),

may or may not have been the case. But the prohibition prevented a

great inhumanity still occasionally practised by the poorer sort in

Oriental countries. An ox and ass, being of different species and of

very different characters, cannot associate comfortably, nor unite

cheerfully in drawing a plough or a wagon. The ass being much smaller

and his step shorter, there would be an unequal and irregular draft.

Besides, the ass, from feeding on coarse and poisonous weeds, has a

fetid breath, which its yoke fellow seeks to avoid, not only as

poisonous and offensive, but producing leanness, or, if long continued,

death; and hence, it has been observed always to hold away its head

from the ass and to pull only with one shoulder.

11. thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts--The essence of the

crime

(Zep 1:8)

consisted, not in wearing a woollen and a linen robe, but in the two

stuffs being woven together, according to a favorite superstition of

ancient idolaters (see on

Le 19:19).

12. thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters--or, according

to some eminent biblical interpreters,

tassels on the coverlet of the bed. The precept is not the same as

Nu 15:38.

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].