Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 1 Complete John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
12. Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
12. Introduces eam domum tuam: et radet caput suum, ac praecidet ungues suos:
13. And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
13. Deponetque vestimentum captivitatis suae a se, et manebit in domo tua, ae flebit patrem suum, et matrem suam mensem integrum: et postea ingredieris ad eam, erisque maritus ejus, et erit tibi uxor.
10. When thou goest forth to war. The same thing is now commanded respecting wives as above respecting meats. As regarded the Canaanites, who were destined and devoted to destruction, we have seen that the Israelites were prohibited from taking their women to wife, lest this connection should be an enticement to sin; but Moses now goes further, viz., that the Israelites, having obtained a victory over other nations, should not marry any of the captive women, unless purified by a solemn rite. This, then, is the sum, that the Israelites should not defile themselves by profane marriages, but in this point also should keep themselves pure and uncorrupt, because they were separated from other people, to be the peculiar people of God. It was better, indeed, that they should altogether abstain from such marriages; yet it was difficult so to restrain their lust as that they should not decline from chastity in the least, degree; and hence we learn how much license conquerors allow themselves in war, so that there is no room for perfect purity in them. Wherefore God so tempers His indulgence as that the Israelites, remembering the adoption wherewith He had honored them, should not disgrace themselves, but in the very fervor of their lust should retain some religious affection. But the question here is not of unlawful ravishment, but Moses only speaks of women who have been made captives by the right of war, for we know that conquerors have abused them with impunity, because they had them under their power and dominion. But since many are led astray by the blandishments of their wives, God applies a remedy, viz., that the abjuration of their former life should precede their marriage; and that none should be allowed to marry a foreign wife until she shall have first renounced her own nation. To this refers the ceremony, that the woman should shave her head, and cut her nails, and change her garments, and lament her father and her family for an entire month, viz., that she may renounce her former life, and pass over to another people. Some of the rabbins twist the words to a different meaning, as if God would extinguish love in the minds of the husbands by disfiguring the women; for the shaving