Text -- Deuteronomy 24:1-12 (NET)

24:1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house. 24:2 When she has left him she may go and become someone else’s wife. 24:3 If the second husband rejects her and then divorces her, gives her the papers, and evicts her from his house, or if the second husband who married her dies, 24:4 her first husband who divorced her is not permitted to remarry her after she has become ritually impure, for that is offensive to the Lord. You must not bring guilt on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. 24:5 When a man is newly married, he need not go into the army nor be obligated in any way; he must be free to stay at home for a full year and bring joy to the wife he has married. 24:6 One must not take either lower or upper millstones as security on a loan, for that is like taking a life itself as security. 24:7 If a man is found kidnapping a person from among his fellow Israelites, and regards him as mere property and sells him, that kidnapper must die. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

Respect for Human Dignity

24:8 Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy to follow precisely all that the Levitical priests instruct you; as I have commanded them, so you should do. 24:9 Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you left Egypt. 24:10 When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you may not go into his house to claim what he is offering as security. 24:11 You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security. 24:12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Deu 24:1

¹ tn Heb “nakedness of a thing.” The Hebrew phrase עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers here to some gross sexual impropriety (see note on “indecent” in Deut 23:14). Though the term usually has to do only with indecent exposure of the genitals, it can also include such behavior as adultery (cf. Lev 18:6-18; 20:11, 17, 20-21; Ezek 22:10; 23:29; Hos 2:10).

NET Notes: Deu 24:2

¹ tn Heb “his house.”

NET Notes: Deu 24:3

¹ tn Heb “hates.” See note on the word “other” in Deut 21:15.

² tn Heb “writes her a document of divorce.”

NET Notes: Deu 24:4

¹ tn Heb “to return to take her to be his wife.”

² sn The issue here is not divorce and its grounds per se but prohibition of remarriage to a mate whom one has previously divorced.

³ tn Heb “cause the land to sin” (so KJV, ASV).

NET Notes: Deu 24:5

¹ tn Heb “go out with.”

² tc For the MT’s reading Piel שִׂמַּח (simmakh, “bring joy to”), the Syriac and others read שָׂמַח (samakh, “enjoy”).

NET Notes: Deu 24:6

¹ sn Taking millstones as security on a loan would amount to taking the owner’s own life in pledge, since the millstones were the owner’s means of earning a living and supporting his family.

NET Notes: Deu 24:7

¹ tn Heb “from his brothers, from the sons of Israel.” The terms “brothers” and “sons of Israel” are in apposition; the second defines the first more specifically.

² tn Or “and enslaves him.”

³ tn Heb “that thief.”

⁴ tn Heb “burn.” See note on the word “purge” in Deut 19:19.

NET Notes: Deu 24:8

¹ tn Heb “to watch carefully and to do.”

NET Notes: Deu 24:9

¹ sn What the Lord your God did to Miriam. The reference is to Miriam’s having contracted leprosy because of her intemperate challenge to Moses’ leadership (Num 12:1-15). The purpose for the allusion here appears to be the assertion of the theocratic leadership of the priests who, like Moses, should not be despised.

NET Notes: Deu 24:10

¹ tn Heb “his pledge.” This refers to something offered as pledge of repayment, i.e., as security for the debt.

NET Notes: Deu 24:11

¹ tn Heb “his pledge.”

NET Notes: Deu 24:12

¹ tn Heb “may not lie down in his pledge.” What is in view is the use of clothing as guarantee for the repayment of loans, a matter already addressed elsewhere (Deut 23:19-20; 24:6; cf. Exod 22:25-26; Lev 25:35-37). Cf. NAB “you shall not sleep in the mantle he gives as a pledge”; NRSV “in the garment given you as the pledge.”