---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible -  Deuteronomy 22"
description: "CHAPTER 22   :-. OF HUMANITY
TOWARD BRETHREN. 1. Thou shalt not see thy brother"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/deuteronomy/22"
---

CHAPTER 22

. OF HUMANITY
TOWARD BRETHREN.

**1. Thou shalt not see thy brother's
ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them,**
c.—"Brother" is a term of extensive application,
comprehending persons of every description not a relative, neighbor,
or fellow countryman only, but any human being, known or unknown, a
foreigner, and even an enemy (). The duty inculcated is an act of common justice and
charity, which, while it was taught by the law of nature, was more
clearly and forcibly enjoined in the law delivered by God to His
people. Indifference or dissimulation in the circumstances supposed
would not only be cruelty to the dumb animals, but a violation of the
common rights of humanity; and therefore the dictates of natural
feeling, and still more the authority of the divine law, enjoined
that the lost or missing property of another should be taken care of
by the finder, till a proper opportunity occurred of restoring it to
the owner.
. THE SEX
TO BE DISTINGUISHED
BY APPAREL.

**5. The woman shall not wear that
which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's
garment**—Though disguises were assumed at certain times in
heathen temples, it is probable that a reference was made to
unbecoming levities practised in common life. They were properly
forbidden; for the adoption of the habiliments of the one sex by the
other is an outrage on decency, obliterates the distinctions of
nature by fostering softness and effeminacy in the man, impudence and
boldness in the woman as well as levity and hypocrisy in both; and,
in short, it opens the door to an influx of so many evils that all
who wear the dress of another sex are pronounced "an abomination
unto the Lord."

**6, 7. If a bird's nest chance to be
before thee**—This is a beautiful instance of the humanizing
spirit of the Mosaic law, in checking a tendency to wanton
destructiveness and encouraging a spirit of kind and compassionate
tenderness to the tiniest creatures. But there was wisdom as well as
humanity in the precept; for, as birds are well known to serve
important uses in the economy of nature, the extirpation of a
species, whether of edible or ravenous birds, must in any country be
productive of serious evils. But Palestine, in particular, was
situated in a climate which produced poisonous snakes and scorpions;
and the deserts and mountains would have been overrun with them as
well as immense swarms of flies, locusts, mice, and vermin of various
kinds if the birds which fed upon them were extirpated [MICHAELIS].
Accordingly, the counsel given in this passage was wise as well as
humane, to leave the hen undisturbed for the propagation of the
species, while the taking of the brood occasionally was permitted as
a check to too rapid an increase.

**8. thou shalt make a battlement for
thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall
from thence**—The tops of houses in ancient Judea, as in the East
still, were flat, being composed of branches or twigs laid across
large beams, and covered with a cement of clay or strong plaster.
They were surrounded by a parapet breast high. In summer the roof is
a favorite resort for coolness, and accidents would frequently happen
from persons incautiously approaching the edge and falling into the
street or court; hence it was a wise and prudent precaution in the
Jewish legislator to provide that a stone balustrade or timber
railing round the roof should form an essential part of every new
house.

**9. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard
with divers seeds**—(See on ).

**10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox
and an ass together**—Whether this association, like the mixture
of seeds, had been dictated by superstitious motives and the
prohibition was symbolical, designed to teach a moral lesson (), may or may not have been the case. But the prohibition
prevented a great inhumanity still occasionally practised by the
poorer sort in Oriental countries. An ox and ass, being of different
species and of very different characters, cannot associate
comfortably, nor unite cheerfully in drawing a plough or a wagon. The
ass being much smaller and his step shorter, there would be an
unequal and irregular draft. Besides, the ass, from feeding on coarse
and poisonous weeds, has a fetid breath, which its yoke fellow seeks
to avoid, not only as poisonous and offensive, but producing
leanness, or, if long continued, death; and hence, it has been
observed always to hold away its head from the ass and to pull only
with one shoulder.

**11. thou shalt not wear a garment of
divers sorts**—The essence of the crime () consisted, not in wearing a woollen and a linen robe, but in
the two stuffs being woven together, according to a favorite
superstition of ancient idolaters (see on ).

**12. thou shalt make thee fringes
upon the four quarters**—or, according to some eminent biblical
interpreters, *tassels on the coverlet of the bed.* The precept
is not the same as [Numbers 15:38](../../../kjv/numbers/15/38).

**13-30. If a man take a wife,**
c.—The regulations that follow might be imperatively needful in the
*then* situation of the Israelites and yet, it is not necessary
that *we* should curiously and impertinently inquire into them.
So far was it from being unworthy of God to leave such things upon
record, that the enactments must heighten our admiration of His
wisdom and goodness in the management of a people so perverse and so
given to irregular passions. Nor is it a better argument that the
Scriptures were not written by inspiration of God to object that this
passage, and others of a like nature, tend to corrupt the imagination
and will be abused by evil-disposed readers, than it is to say that
the sun was not created by God, because its light *may* be
abused by wicked men as an assistant in committing crimes which they
have meditated [HORNE].

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