Deuteronomy 21:10

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

King James Version · Read in your translation · Open the Explore console

Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
forth	תֵצֵ֥א te.Tze'	H3318	to go (causatively · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
war	לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה la.mil.cha.Mah	H4421	a battle (i.e. the engagement) · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
enemies	אֹיְבֶ֑יךָ 'o.ye.Vei.kha	H341	hating · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
LORD	יְהוָ֧ה Yah.weh	H3068	Jehovah · proper noun, a title
God	אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ 'e.lo.Hei.kha	H430	gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
delivered	וּנְתָנ֞וֹ u.ne.ta.No	H5414	to give · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
hands	בְּיָדֶ֖ךָ be.ya.De.kha	H3027	a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
taken	וְשָׁבִ֥יתָ ve.sha.Vi.ta	H7617	to transport into captivity · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
captive	שִׁבְיֽוֹ shiv.Yo	H7628	exiled · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Deuteronomy 20:10-16 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
Joshua 21:44 And the LORD gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies b…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 21:10-14

By this law a soldier is allowed to marry his captive if he pleased. For the hardness of their hearts Moses gave them this permission, lest, if they had not had liberty given them to marry such, they should have taken liberty to defile themselves with them, and by such wickedness the camp would have been troubled. The man is supposed to have a wife already, and to take this wife for a secondary wife, as the Jews called them. This indulgence of men's inordinate desires, in which their hearts walked after their eyes, is by no means agreeable to the law of Christ, which therefore in this respect, among others, far exceeds in glory the law of Moses. The gospel permits not him that has one wife t…

Read the whole note in the console

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 21:10

THE TREATMENT OF A CAPTIVE TAKEN TO WIFE. (Deu 21:10-23) When thou goest to war . . . and seest among the captives a beautiful woman . . . that thou wouldest have her to thy wife--According to the war customs of all ancient nations, a female captive became the slave of the victor, who had the sole and unchallengeable control of right to her person. Moses improved this existing usage by special regulations on the subject. He enacted that, in the event that her master was captivated by her beauty and contemplated a marriage with her, a month should be allowed to elapse, during which her perturbed feelings might be calmed, her mind reconciled to her altered condition, and she might bewail the…

Read the whole note in the console

John Gill on Deuteronomy 21:10

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies,.... This refers to an arbitrary war, as Jarchi remarks, which they entered into of themselves, of choice, or through being provoked to it by their enemies; and not a war commanded by the Lord, as that against the seven nations of Canaan, and against Amalek; since there were to be no captives in that war, but all were to be destroyed: and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands; given them the victory over their enemies, so that they were obliged to surrender themselves to them prisoners of war: and thou hast taken them captive, or "led his or their captivity (b) captive"; led them captive who used to lead others, denoting th…

The Church Fathers

But nevertheless I also intellectually have "gone out to war against my enemies, and I saw there" in the plunder "a woman with a beautiful figure." Whatever we find said well and reasonably among our philosophical enemies, or we read anything said among them wisely and knowingly, we must cleanse it. We must remove and cut off all that is dead and worthless. It is as if one were trimming the hairs of the head and the nails of the woman taken from the spoils of the enemy. Only then would you take her as a wife.
— Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 7.6.7

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Concubine — In the Bible denotes a female conjugally united to a man, but in a relation inferior to that of a wife. Among the early Jews, from various causes, the difference between a wife and a concubine was…
Crucifixion — A common mode of punishment among heathen nations in early times. It is not certain whether it was known among the ancient Jews; probably it was not. The modes of capital punishment according to the…
Captive · .Putting to — .Putting to
Concubinage · LAWS CONCERNING — LAWS CONCERNING
Divorce · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Servant · .Kidnapping forbid — .Kidnapping forbid
Strangers In Israel · Chiefly consisted of: Captives taken in war — Chiefly consisted of: Captives taken in war

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Deuteronomy 21:10

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 21:10-14

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 21:10

John Gill on Deuteronomy 21:10

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Deuteronomy 21:10

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 21:10-14

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 21:10

John Gill on Deuteronomy 21:10

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Deuteronomy 21:10-13

Keil & Delitzsch on Deuteronomy 21:10-11

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Deuteronomy 21:6

Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:10