Deuteronomy 21:10 - Meaning and Application

This law allowed a soldier to marry a captive woman if he chose. Because people’s hearts were hard, Moses gave this permission. Without some lawful outlet, men might have taken liberty to sin with these women instead, and that would have brought evil into the camp. The man is assumed to already have a wife, so this would be a second wife, as the Jews called such marriages.

This kind of allowance for selfish desires, when people follow their eyes and desires, does not fit the law of Christ. In this, and many other ways, the gospel is far more glorious than the law of Moses. The gospel does not allow a man who has one wife to take another, because from the beginning it was not so. It also forbids looking at a woman, even a beautiful one, in order to lust after her. It calls believers to put to death and deny all unhealthy desires, even when doing so feels as painful as cutting off a right hand. Our holy faith, more than the Jewish law, raises up the honor of the soul over the body, and the spirit over the flesh. This fits with the clear hope it gives of life and immortality.

Still, even though soldiers were allowed this liberty, care was taken that they should not abuse it.

They must not abuse themselves by acting too quickly, even if the captive woman was very desirable. If a man wanted her for his wife, he did not need to ask her parents, since she was his captive and under his control. But he was not to have any intimate relations with her until after marriage. This allowance was meant to honor a serious and generous affection for a pleasant and lovely woman in distress, not a filthy and brutish lust. He could take her as his wife if he wished, but he must not treat her like a prostitute.

He also was not to marry her at once, but had to keep her in his house for a full month (Deuteronomy 21:12, 13). This may have been meant to help him cool his feelings, because though marrying her was not wrong under that law, leaving her alone would have been better. So she was to shave her head, so he would not be drawn in by her hair, and let her nails grow, as the margin reads, to lessen the beauty of her hands. As the saying goes, we should hold back our affection from things we are tempted to love too strongly. Or more likely, this showed that she was renouncing idolatry and becoming a convert to the Jewish faith. The shaving of her head, trimming her nails, and changing her clothes all pointed to leaving behind her old life, which had been corrupted by ignorance, so that she might become a new person. She was to stay in his house and learn the knowledge of the Lord and how to worship him. The Jews say that if she refused and stayed stubborn in idolatry, he must not marry her. Believers, too, must not be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14).

They must also not abuse the poor captive woman. First, she was to have time to mourn for her father and mother, from whom she had been separated. She was being taken without their consent or blessing, and perhaps to marry only an ordinary soldier of Israel, though she had been well born and raised in her own land. It would have been very unkind to force the marriage before these sorrows had eased and she had grown more settled in her new home. She was not to mourn her idols, for she should be glad to leave them behind. The grief allowed to her was for her close family, whom she had truly loved.

Second, if the man who had brought her into his house, planning to marry her, later changed his mind, he must not profit from her as he would from other prisoners. He had to let her go free to return to her own country if she wished, because he had already humbled and hurt her by raising her hopes and then disappointing them (Deuteronomy 21:14). He had made a fool of her, so he must not turn her into a victim. This shows how binding the laws of justice and honor are, especially in matters of love, courtship, and promises of marriage. These are serious things, with something sacred about them, and they must not be treated lightly.