The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Marrying a Captive Woman
Deuteronomy 21:10–14 — Marrying a Captive Woman. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
10When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hand and you take them captive,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- ṯê·ṣê lam·mil·ḥā·māh ‘al- ’ō·yə·ḇe·ḵā Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā ū·nə·ṯā·nōw bə·yā·ḏe·ḵā wə·šā·ḇî·ṯā šiḇ·yōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
When you go out to the war against your enemies, and Yahweh your God gives him into your hand, and you carry away his captivity captive—
Where the English smooths the original
The war supposed here is one against the neighboring nations after Israel had utterly destroyed the Canaanites (compare Deuteronomy 7:3 ), and taken possession of their land.
and thou hast taken them captive, or "led his or their captivity (b) captive"; led them captive who used to lead others, denoting their conquest of victorious nations; see a like phrase in Psalm 68:18 .Gill catches the cognate idiom (captive/captivity) that links this verse to Psalm 68:18 and, through it, to Ephesians 4:8.
Read enemy (sing.) because of the following: and the Lord thy God delivereth him into thine hands (see on Deuteronomy 1:27 ); and thou takest captives from him (lit. capturest his captives ).
By this law a soldier was allowed to marry his captive, if he pleased. This might take place upon some occasions; but the law does not show any approval of it.
11if you see a beautiful woman among them, and you desire her and want to take her as your wife,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·rā·’î·ṯā yə·p̄aṯ- tō·’ar ’ê·šeṯ baš·šiḇ·yāh wə·ḥā·šaq·tā ḇāh wə·lā·qaḥ·tā lə·ḵā lə·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
and you have seen among the captivity a woman beautiful of form, and you have cleaved to her, and you would take her to yourself for a wife,
Where the English smooths the original
if a Hebrew soldier conceived a peculiar regard for a captive woman, and desired to marry her, he must not do it immediately after she became his prisoner, it being of dangerous consequence for the Israelites to marry Gentile wives.
Hast a desire unto her; or, hast cleaved to her , to wit, in love; or, hast taken delight in herPoole exposes the root sense of châshaq — to cleave — that BSB's "desire" levels out.
some understand this of the strength and rage of lust, but it rather signifies a passionate desire of enjoying her in a lawful way, as follows: that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; to be married to her in a legal manner
12then you shall bring her into your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wa·hă·ḇê·ṯāh ’el- tō·wḵ bê·ṯe·ḵā wə·ḡil·lə·ḥāh ’eṯ- rō·šāh wə·‘ā·śə·ṯāh ’eṯ- ṣip·pā·rə·ne·hā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
then you shall bring her into the midst of your house, and she shall shave her head and make her nails,
Where the English smooths the original
The shaving the head (a customary sign of purification, Leviticus 14:8 ; Numbers 8:7 ), and the putting away "the garment of her captivity," were designed to signify the translation of the woman from the state of a pagan and a slave to that of a wife among the covenant-people.
To take off his affections from her by rendering her uncomely and deformed; but then the last words must not be rendered shall pare her nails, but shall nourish them , or suffer them to grow , as the Chaldee, Arabic, and divers of the learned Jews and other interpreters render it.Poole lays out the very translation crux BSB's "trim" papers over.
Signifying that her former life must be changed before she could be joined to the people of God.
she was to shave her head, and make, i.e., cut, her nails (cf. 2 Samuel 19:25 ), - both customary signs of purification (on this signification of the cutting of the hair, see Leviticus 14:8 and Numbers 8:7 ), - as symbols of her passing out of the state of a slave, and of her reception into the fellowship of the covenant nation.
13and put aside the clothing of her captivity. After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hê·sî·rāh ’eṯ- śim·laṯ šiḇ·yāh mê·‘ā·le·hā wə·’a·ḥar kên wə·yā·šə·ḇāh bə·ḇê·ṯe·ḵā ye·raḥ yā·mîm ū·ḇā·ḵə·ṯāh ’eṯ- ’ā·ḇî·hā wə·’eṯ- ’im·māh tā·ḇō·w ’ê·le·hā ū·ḇə·‘al·tāh wə·hā·yə·ṯāh lə·ḵā lə·’iš·šāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
and she shall remove the garment of her captivity from upon her, and she shall dwell in your house and weep for her father and her mother a month of days; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
Where the English smooths the original
she was to sit (dwell) in the house, and bewail her father and mother for a month, i.e., console herself for her separation from her parents, whom she had lost, that she might be able to forget her people and her father's house ( Psalm 45:11 ), and give herself up henceforth in love to her husband with an undivided heart.
Those servile and sordid raiments which were put upon her when she was taken captive, as the manner was to do with captives, as the phrase itself seems to intimate; as prison garments { Jeremiah 52:33 } are such garments as prisoners use to wearPoole reads "raiment of her captivity" as prison-dress; Rashi and Gill read it as the finery worn to allure — the noun alone does not settle it.
Bewail her father and her mother a full month - This is prescribed from motives of humanity, that the woman might have time and leisure to detach her affections from their natural ties, and prepare her mind for new ones.
a full month ] Lit. a month of days , a usual period of mourning, Deuteronomy 34:8 , Numbers 20:29 , etc., cp. Genesis 50:3 .
14And if you are not pleased with her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes. But you must not sell her for money or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·hā·yāh ’im- lō ḥā·p̄aṣ·tā bāh wə·šil·laḥ·tāh lə·nap̄·šāh lō- ū·mā·ḵōr ṯim·kə·ren·nāh bak·kā·sep̄ lō- ṯiṯ·‘am·mêr bāh ta·ḥaṯ ’ă·šer ‘in·nî·ṯāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall send her away to her own self; but you shall not sell her at all for silver, you shall not deal as a master with her, because you have humbled her.
Where the English smooths the original
it was not to be in his power to use her as a prisoner of war, by either selling her for money, or making her a slave, but he was to give her her liberty, and let her dispose or herself as she pleased.
whither she will ] Lit. according to her desire ; therefore rather as she will , as full mistress of herself; cp. Jeremiah 34:16 of freed slaves.Cambridge ties "to her own self" (lᵉnap̄šâh) to the manumission language of Jeremiah 34:16.
The verb in the form here used occurs only here and in Deuteronomy 24:7 ; derived from a root which signifies to gather or press, it properly means to press for one's self, to lay hands on one, to use violence to one.
Humbled her, i.e. lain with her, as this phrase is oft used, as Genesis 34:2 Deu 22:24 ,29 Jud 19:24 Ezekiel 23:10 ,11 .
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The unit opens in the aftermath of a battle, not in the herem-war of conquest. Nearly every voice draws this line first. Barnes sets it as a war "against the neighboring nations after Israel had utterly destroyed the Canaanites." Matthew Poole states the exclusion bluntly — these are "of other nations, but not of the Canaanites, for they might not spare their women, and much less marry them, Exodus 34:16 Deu 7:3." Keil & Delitzsch ground the limit in the text's own seams: "as a comparison of the introductory words in Deuteronomy 21:1 with Deuteronomy 20:1 clearly shows, to the wars which Israel would carry on with surrounding nations after the conquest of Canaan." The Hebrew itself keeps the frame martial: tēṣēʼ lammilḥāmâh, "you go out to the war," and the cognate doublet wᵉšâbîṯâ šibyô, "you carry his captivity captive" (v. 10) — the same idiom Gill notes "see a like phrase in Psalm 68:18," which Paul will later read of Christ in Ephesians 4:8. The point of the framing is not to glorify the war but to govern what a victor may do with a person who has fallen, defenceless, into his hand.
The man sees a woman yᵉp̄aṯ tôʼar — "beautiful of form," the same idiom Scripture uses of Rachel and Esther — and cleaves (châshaq) to her. Matthew Poole recovers the buried verb: "hast cleaved to her , to wit, in love." From that desire the law builds a deliberate brake. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read the whole sequence as humane reform: "Moses improved this existing usage by special regulations... a month should be allowed to elapse, during which her perturbed feelings might be calmed... and she might bewail the loss of her parents, now to her the same as dead." The shaved head, the made nails, the discarded garment — Geneva reads these together as one sign, "that her former life must be changed before she could be joined to the people of God," and Barnes as "the translation of the woman from the state of a pagan and a slave to that of a wife among the covenant-people." Keil & Delitzsch press deepest, naming the captive bride of the royal psalm: the month exists "that she might be able to forget her people and her father's house (Psalm 45:11), and give herself up henceforth in love to her husband with an undivided heart." Provenance honesty: the rite-meanings are contested in the sources themselves — the nail-clause (wᵉʻâśᵉṯâ ʼeṯ-ṣippâᵉnehā) is read by Onkelos and the Arabic as let them grow (so Poole reports), by Keil and the Pulpit as cut them. We do not resolve what the text leaves open.
The closing verse is the unit's moral hinge, and it cuts against the grain of the ancient world. If his delight (ḥāp̄ēṣ) fails, he must šillaḥ her — the divorce-verb — lᵉnap̄šâh, "to her own self." Cambridge renders this "as full mistress of herself; cp. Jeremiah 34:16 of freed slaves." Then two absolute bars: he shall not sell her for silver (the infinitive absolute doubling mâkōr lōʼ-ṯimkᵉrennâh for force), and he shall not hithʻammēr — a verb so rare it appears only here and in Deuteronomy 24:7. The Pulpit Commentary: "it properly means to press for one's self, to lay hands on one, to use violence to one." The reason is given last and governs all: taḥaṯ ʼăšer ʻinnîṯāh, "because you have humbled her." Ellicott measures the contrast: ordinarily "these captives would be sold as slaves, without the restrictions imposed on Israelitish slavery" — this woman may not be. The law refuses to let a man's regret undo a woman's standing; having taken her dignity, he may never again treat her as merchandise.
Read under Sola Scriptura, this law is neither an endorsement of war-marriage nor a relic to be quietly buried — it is restraint legislated into the worst moment of a woman's life. Every clause runs against the victor's appetite: the month delays him, the mourning honors her dead, the rites make her a wife and not a slave, and the final verse strips him of the right to sell what he has touched. Matthew Henry is right that "the law does not show any approval of it"; the casuistic kî ("in the case that") regulates a thing it never commends. Yet the trajectory is unmistakably toward personhood: a captive of the nations is given a month to grieve, a place in the household, the status of wife, and — if rejected — release "to her own self," never to the slave-market. The same word that condemns the man (ʻinnîṯāh, "you have humbled her") becomes the ground of her protection. Where the ancient world saw a spoil of war, the Torah sees a soul whose violation creates obligation. This is a fallible reading, offered to be tested against the whole counsel of Scripture and against the better light of the cross, where the captive is not used but redeemed.
The verb that names his sin against her — you have humbled her — is the very reason he can never again sell her: in the Torah, violation creates obligation, not disposability.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The verb hithʻammēr (H6014, root ʻâmar in the sense "deal violently with") occurs in only three verses in the whole Hebrew Bible, and in this exact Hitpael sense only here and in Deuteronomy 24:7 — where it describes a man who kidnaps a fellow Israelite and "deals with him as a slave" and sells him, a capital crime. Both texts also share mâkar (H4376, "sell"). The captive bride is thereby granted, by deliberate verbal echo, the same protection the law reserves for a covenant brother: she may not be commodified.
Deuteronomy 24:7
basis: rare shared lexeme H6014 ʻâmar/hithʻammēr (in only 3 vv, and in this sense only Deut 21:14 and 24:7), plus H4376 mâkar (sell). Verifier-confirmed Hebrew↔Hebrew verbal link.
The noun tsippôren (H6856, "nail/claw, point") appears only twice in all of Scripture: here, where the captive "makes" her nails (v. 12), and in Jeremiah 17:1, where "the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with the point of a diamond" (tsippôren šāmîr, a claw-hard stylus). The shared word is a true rarity, not a coincidence; the sense diverges sharply — a nail trimmed in cleansing versus a stylus that engraves indelible guilt — which is exactly why we record it as a verbal link without forcing a thematic claim.
Jeremiah 17:1
basis: rare shared lexeme H6856 tsippôren — found in only 2 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible (Deut 21:12; Jer 17:1). Verifier-confirmed Hebrew↔Hebrew verbal link; sense differs.
The construct idiom yᵉp̄aṯ tôʼar (H3303 yâpheh + H8389 tôʼar, "beautiful of form/figure") binds the captive woman to the patriarchal and royal narratives where the same phrase falls: Rachel, whom Jacob loved (Genesis 29:17), and Esther, taken into a foreign king's house (Esther 2:7). The pairing is verbally exact — both rare lexemes shared — and thematically pointed: each is a beautiful woman taken into a household not her own, by a man captivated by her appearance. Jeremiah 11:16 uses the same pair of Israel herself, "a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form."
Genesis 29:17 · Esther 2:7 · Jeremiah 11:16
basis: the two-word collocation yᵉp̄aṯ tôʼar recurs verbatim, built on the low-frequency lexeme H8389 tôʼar (only 15 vv) paired with H3303 yâpheh; Verifier-confirmed Hebrew↔Hebrew verbal link. It is a shared fixed idiom across narratives, not a citation of this law — the motif (a beautiful woman taken into another's house) travels with the phrase.
Keil & Delitzsch read the captive's month of mourning through Psalm 45:10–11, the wedding song where the foreign bride is told, "forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty." The link is thematic and structural — the captive bride who must leave her kindred to belong to her husband — sharing the household and father vocabulary (bayith, ʼâb) but no rare lexeme, so it is recorded as structural rather than verbal. The same psalm has long been read messianically of Christ and His bride, which carries this law toward its typological horizon.
Psalm 45:10
basis: shared common lexemes H1 ʼâb (father) and H1004 bayith (house) plus the bride-leaving-kindred motif explicitly drawn by Keil & Delitzsch; common words only, so thematic not verbal.
The cognate doublet of v. 10 — wᵉšâbîṯâ šibyô, "you carry his captivity captive" (H7617 shâbâh + H7628 shᵉbî) — is the same figure that runs through the captivity narratives (Jeremiah 48:46; 2 Chronicles 28:5, 11) and, most famously, Psalm 68:18, "you led captivity captive," which Gill cites here and which Paul applies to the ascended Christ in Ephesians 4:8. The shared roots are common across the captivity literature, so the link is structural; its theological weight comes from where the New Testament chooses to take it.
Jeremiah 48:46 · 2 Chronicles 28:11
basis: shared captivity lexemes H7628 shᵉbî (47 vv), H7633 shibyâh (9 vv), H7617 shâbâh (42 vv) — common across captivity literature, a shared idiom/motif rather than a rare quotation; tiered structural.
The hinge of v. 14, "if you have no delight in her... you shall not sell her for silver," runs structurally parallel to the slave-bride law of Exodus 21:7–8: "if she does not please her master... he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her." Both share mâkar (sell) and the "if... not" construction, and both forbid reselling a woman the man has bound to himself and then rejected. The conceptual parallel is close; the shared words are common, so the link is structural rather than a quotation.
Exodus 21:8
basis: shared lexeme H4376 mâkar (sell) with high-frequency conditional particles H518/H3808; the binding link is the parallel legal structure (rejected woman may not be resold), so tiered structural, not verbal.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The rites of incorporation — shaving, washing away the marks of captivity, exchanging the prisoner's garment, and entering the household as wife — were read by Barnes and Geneva as the captive's "translation... to that of a wife among the covenant-people" and the changing of "her former life... before she could be joined to the people of God." The figure runs forward to Christ, who "loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word... that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:25–27). The Gentile captive made a wife is a shadow of the church, once alien and enslaved, washed and clothed and married to her Redeemer. Because this is a Greek-to-Hebrew link, it rests on figure and theme, not on any shared original-language word — the Verifier finds no shared lexeme, so the connection is argued typologically, not asserted as verbal.
Ephesians 5:25 · Deuteronomy 21:12 · Deuteronomy 21:13
Gill hears in v. 10's "led his captivity captive" the echo of Psalm 68:18, "You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive." Paul takes that very line in Ephesians 4:8 and applies it to the risen and ascended Christ, who took captivity itself captive and gave gifts to men. Where Deuteronomy's victor takes a captive and is bound by law to honor her, the greater Victor takes captivity itself captive and turns His spoils into gifts of grace. This is an ancient and widely-held reading; as a cross-Testament link it is typological, carried by the New Testament's own citation rather than by shared Hebrew/Greek vocabulary.
Ephesians 4:8 · Psalm 68:18 · Deuteronomy 21:10
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Three honesty notes specific to this unit. (1) The nail-clause is genuinely undecided in the sources. wᵉʻâśᵉṯâ ʼeṯ-ṣippâᵉnehā means literally "and she shall make/do her nails." Onkelos, the Arabic, Rashi, Aben Ezra and Maimonides read let them grow (disfigurement to cool desire); Barnes, Keil, the Pulpit and Cambridge read pare/dress them (purification, as 2 Samuel 19:24). BSB's "trim" silently adopts the second; we flag both rather than resolve it. (2) The garment is likewise contested: Rashi and Gill read "the raiment of her captivity" as the fine clothes worn to allure her captors; Poole reads it as the squalid prison-garb she is now permitted to shed. The Hebrew noun decides neither. (3) The cross-Testament threads (Ephesians 4:8; 5:25–27) carry no shared original-language lexeme — Greek cannot share a Strong's number with Hebrew — so they are recorded as typological/structural and rest on the New Testament's own citation (4:8 quoting Psalm 68:18) or on argued figure (5:25–27), never asserted as verbal links. Every Hebrew↔Hebrew badge above was confirmed by running the Verifier on the pair; the rare-lexeme claims (tsippôren in 2 verses, hithʻammēr/ʻâmar in 3) are the Verifier's computed frequencies. This unit is in Deuteronomy, so the Joshua 1:5 → Hebrews 13:5 flag rule does not apply.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)