* keep alive for yourselves.
It has been groundlessly asserted, that Moses here authorised
the Israelites to make concubines of the whole number of
female children; and an insidious objection against his
writings has been grounded upon this monstrous supposition.
But the whole tenor of the law, and especially a statute
recorded in De 21:10-14, proves most decisively to the
contrary. They were merely permitted to possess them as
female slaves, educating them in their families, and employing
them as domestics; for the laws concerning fornication,
concubinage, and marriage, were in full force, and prohibited
an Israelite even from marrying a captive, without delays and
previous formalities; and if he afterwards divorced her, he
was to set here at liberty, "because he had humbled her."
Le 25:44 De 20:14 21:10-14 2Ch 28:8-10 Isa 14:2
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