Ver. 1. Thou shalt not see thy brothers.] No not thine enemies; (Exodus 23:4) for, have we not all one father? (Malachi 2:10) [See Trapp on “Mt 5:44”]
Ver. 5. The woman shall not wear.] Because it is against both natural and civil honesty. Neither shall a man put on] That is, say stage players and those that plead for them, a man shall not wear women’s apparel ordinarily and daily, so as women used to do. But the word is, Put on, and so they do: the same word is used of David’s putting on Saul’s armour, which yet he put off again presently. So full, saith one hereupon, are our hearts of distinctions and shifts, odia restringere, ampliare favores, to restrain hatreds, as they call them—that is, the commandments that make against them.
Ver. 7. And that thou mayest prolong, &c.] They were commanded to spare the dam, because she represented the parents in bringing up of her young ones; and if their days should be for that prolonged, much more for this. The Hebrews reckon this commandment for the least of all in Moses’s law; and yet such a promise is annexed thereunto.
Ver. 9. And the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled.] Heb., Be sanctified, per antiphrasin, as, auri sacra fames; and Anthony’s fire is ignis sacer. So a whore is called in Hebrew, Kedesha, of kadash, i.e., holiness, (Deuteronomy 23:17) by a contrary meaning, as most unholy and unchaste.
Ver. 10. Thou shalt not plough.] These laws were made to set forth how God abhorreth all mixtures in religion, and how carefully men should keep their minds from being “corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3)
Ver. 12. Wherewith thou coverest thyself.] Ne in motu aliquid indecorum appareat; Lust and malice are sharp sighted. (2 Samuel 11:2 6:20)
Ver. 14. I found her not a maid.] Silvester Petra-sancta Iesuita calumniatur puellas plerunque corruptas nuptui dari in Reformato Evangelio: Quod de Evangelio Romano (ait Rivettus noster) potius dici posset; postquam puellae dementarunt a vobis seductae, et sub vestibus cordulis nodosis spurcis vestris manibus fuerunt ligatae. Papists falsely affirm that few maids amongst us come clear to marriage: cuius contrarium verum est. Jesuita Vapulans, p. 146.
Ver. 15. Then shall the father of the damsel.] Whose house hereby was dishonested, and by whom his daughter’s honour was to be defended, especially since children’s miscarriages reflect upon the parents, and the daughters sin is the father’s shame.
Ver. 16. And he hateth her.] Which is a monster in nature. (Ephesians 5:28,29)
Ver. 17. These are the tokens.] Which in those countries seldom or never failed.
Ver. 19. He hath brought up an evil name.] Which is a kind of murder. (Ezekiel 22:9) God shall clear the innocency of his slandered servants. (Psalms 37:6 Isaiah 54:17) As the eclipsed moon, by keeping her motion, wades out of the shadow and recovers her splendour, so shall it be with such.
Ver. 20. And the tokens.] Nor any natural impediment can be proved, as the Hebrews explain it.
Ver. 22. With a woman married.] Adultery was punished with death; because society and the purity of posterity could not otherwise continue amongst men.
Ver. 24. Humbled his neighbour’s wife.] So called, because betrothed, Quia nuptias facit consensus, non concubitus, as the lawyers determine it.
Ver. 25. And the man force her, and lie with her.] It was a speech of Charles V, emperor, If that impure fellow, Farnesius, who being the Pope’s general, had forced many fair ladies, were here present, I would kill him with mine own hand. Nec vocem iracundiorem unquam ex Carolo auditam ferunt. Never was he heard to speak so angrily. The Lacedemonian commonwealth was utterly ruined by a rape committed on the two daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra. Parei, Hist. Prof. Medulla.
Ver. 29. She shall be his wife.] Howbeit he must be humbled before the Lord, for entering into his ordinance through the devil’s portal.