Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 21-23.

We are often horrified at the idea that the Bible allowed the Israelites to take women they captured in battle as their wives.  As a result we often miss a rather revolutionary idea which is contained in today’s passage: the only provision in the Law of Moses for someone to have sex with a woman captured in battle was for him to take her as his wife.  And once he had done that he could no longer treat her as a slave.  He could not sell her to someone else, as he could with other captives he had acquired.  He could divorce her, but if he did she was free to go where she chose, he could not keep her as a slave.  Because of our modern distaste for slavery we often overlook how this passage indicates that if a man has sex with a captive woman, he is making her his wife.   It further reinforces the idea that a man should only have sex with a woman who is his wife.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.