then they shall bring out the young lady to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done folly in Israel, to play the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 21. Die. It was concluded that she had committed the sin after her espousal. If it had happened before, she was to receive only 25 sicles for a dowry; though, if she took an oath that violence had been offered to her, she was entitled to 50: which opinion of the Rabbins seems very equitable. Æschines (in Timarch.) relates, that a man at Athens punished the transgression of which his daughter had been guilty, while she was at home, by shutting her up with a horse, in order that she might be torn in pieces by the famished animal. Calmet.