Num. 31:18

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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 Deut 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."

Lev 25:44; Deut 20:14; Deut 21:10-14; 2Chr 28:8-10; Isa 14:2