The captive wife.
The kindness, thoughtfulness, and strict justice of the Mosaic laws is very striking. The Law here interposes to secure—
I. CONSIDERATE TREATMENT OF ONE BEREAVED. (Deuteronomy 21:10-14.) The case supposed comes under the law of Deuteronomy 20:14. The woman was a captive in war and a heathen, yet the Israelite is required to respect her chastity, and, if he conceive a passion for her, must not only make her his wife in a proper manner, but must allow her a full month to bewail her dead relatives. The question of religion is a difficult one in such cases, but we may suppose that no force was applied to captives and strangers further than forbidding to them the outward practice of idolatry. The laying aside of the symbols of captivity, and the purificatory rites of cutting the hair and nails, could only imply reception into the fellowship of the covenant nation in the event of the woman freely accepting Jehovah as her God (cf. Ruth 1:15, Ruth 1:16).
Learn:
1. That the tumult and disorder of war is no excuse for immoral license.
2. We are to consider the situation and feelings of those whose circumstances place them at our mercy.
3. Natural affections are to be respected underneath all differences of creed and race.
II. PROTECTION FOR ONE UNFRIENDED. (Deuteronomy 20:14.) The captive stranger wedded to an Israelite was not left to be treated by him as he listed. Her unfriended position exposed her to the risk of suffering from her husband's caprice and unfeelingness. While, therefore, he is permitted, if he lose delight in her, to divorce her—for the "letting her go" must be construed in the light of Deuteronomy 24:3—he must on no account sell her or detain her as a captive. Another instance of God's care for "the stranger." Hasty marriages, founded on passion inspired by mere external attractions, seldom result in lasting happiness.—J.O.