Deuteronomy 21:9-19

9 "¹So you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD.

Domestic Relations

10 "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and ²the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive,

11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself,

12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall ³shave her head and trim her nails.

13 "She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and ⁴mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

14 "It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because * you have ⁵humbled her.

15 "If a man has two wives, the one loved and ⁶the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved,

16 then it shall be in the day he wills what he has to his sons, he cannot * make the son of the loved the firstborn before * the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn.

17 "But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the ⁷beginning of his strength; ⁸to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

18 "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will ⁹not obey * his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them,

19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

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Deuteronomy 21:9-19 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 21

This chapter treats of the beheading of the heifer, for the expiation of unknown murder, and the rules to be observed in it, De 21:1-9 of a beautiful captive woman an Israelite is desirous of having for his wife, and what methods he must take to accomplish it, De 21:10-14, of giving the double portion to the firstborn, which he must not be deprived of in favour of the son of a beloved wife, De 21:15-17 and of the stubborn and rebellious son, who remaining so must be put to death, De 21:18-21 and of burying a person hanged on a tree the same day he is executed, De 21:22,23.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 9

1. Deuteronomy 19:13
2. Joshua 21:44
3. Leviticus 14:8, 9; Numbers 6:9
4. Psalms 45:10
5. Genesis 34:2
6. Genesis 29:33
7. Genesis 49:3
8. Genesis 25:31
9. Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 19:3; Proverbs 1:8; Ephesians 6:1-3

Footnotes 12

[a]. Lit "do"
[b]. Lit "remove from her"
[c]. Lit "according to her soul"
[d]. Or "enslave"
[e]. Lit "hated"
[f]. Lit "hated"
[g]. Lit "hated"
[h]. Lit "makes to inherit"
[i]. Lit "hated"
[j]. Lit "hated"
[k]. Lit "is found with him"
[l]. Lit "and to the gate of his place"