Leviticus 21:9

Lev 21:9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.

Ver. 9. She shall be burnt with fire.] A peculiar plague, to show the hatefulness of the sin.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lev 21:9. And the daughter — And by analogy his son also, and his wife, because the reason of the law here added concerns all. And nothing is more common than to name one kind for the rest of the same nature, as also is done Leviticus 18. She profaneth her father — Exposeth his person and office, and consequently religion, to contempt.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 9. She shall be burnt with fire.] Probably not burnt alive, but strangled first, and then burnt afterward. Though it is barely possible that some kind of branding may be intended.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(9) And the daughter of any priest.—This statute, according to the administrators of the Law during the second Temple, applies only to betrothed and married daughters. Hence the ancient Chaldee version renders it, “and if the betrothed daughter”

She shall be burnt with fire.—Whilst the married daughter of a layman who had gone astray was punished with death by strangling (see Lev_20:10; Deu_22:23-24), the daughter of a priest who had disgraced herself was to be punished with the severer death by burning. Though the doom of the guilty partner in the crime is not mentioned here, his sentence was death by strangulation.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. For the form of punishment, cp. Lev_20:14.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the daughter of any priest,.... The Targum of Jonathan restrains it to one that is betrothed; but others, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra, whether betrothed or married; and all confess, as the former says, that the Scripture does not speak of one that is single or entirely free: but there is no exception in the text; and besides, the daughter of any man that was betrothed to a man, and guilty of the crime here spoken of, was to die, Deu 22:23; and therefore such a law respecting the priest's daughter would be needless; unless it can be thought that it was made merely for the sake of the different kind of death she was to be put to, and that burning was a more terrible one than stoning:

if she profane herself by playing the whore; which brings scandal and disgrace on any person, and much more on anyone that had the honour of being related to a person in such a sacred office, and the advantage of a more strictly religious education, and had eaten of the holy things in her father's house; all which were aggravations of her crime, and made it the more scandalous and reproachful to her: some render it, "when she begins to play the whore" (b); as soon as ever it is discovered in her, and she is taken in it; even for the first that she commits, she is not to be spared, but put to death:

she profaneth her father: which is another aggravation of her sin; she brings him under disgrace, disparages his office, and exposes him to censure, reproach, and ridicule, as not having taken care of her education, and taught her better, and kept her under restraints; men will upbraid him with it, saying, this is a priest's daughter that has committed this lewdness; nor will say of him, as Jarchi observes, cursed be he that begat her, and cursed be he that brought her up:

she shall be burnt with fire; not with hot melted lead poured down her mouth, but with faggots set about her; See Gill on Lev 20:14; no punishment is here fixed for the person that lay with her, but, according to the Jewish canons (c), she was to be strangled.

(b) "cum coepit fornicari", Pagninus, Montanus; so Tigurine version. (c) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 10. sect. 1. Maimon. Issure Biah, c. 1. sect. 6.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

burnt with fire - See the Lev 20:14 note.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Fire. Provided she be betrothed, and still in her father’s house; so that the infamy fall upon him. (Jonathan) --- For if she be with her husband, she must undergo the usual punishment of stoning. Other young women received no corporal punishment for simple fornication: the man was bound to marry them, if the father consented; and, at any rate, he was forced to give them a dowry, Exodus xxii. 16. (Calmet) --- But if the woman pretended falsely that they were virgins, they were stoned, Deuteronomy xxii. 20.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And by analogy his son also, and his wife, because the reason of the law here added concerns all. And nothing is more common than to name one kind for the rest of the same nature, as also is done Le 18.

She profaneth her father, i.e. exposeth his person and office, and consequently religion, one of whose prime ministers he is, to contempt.

She shall be burnt with fire; which was the severest of all the kinds of punishments among the Jews. Whereby God would show, both the greatness of their sins who stand in nearer relation to God than others, and how far God is from allowing sin in those who are nearest to him.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Daughter of any priest — Not only must the priest’s lips keep knowledge, but he must also exemplify in his family the holy religion of which he is the appointed guardian and teacher. The special safeguard of this law may have arisen from the fact that the priest’s home was less guarded than were those of other people, owing to his absence when ministering. Perhaps without this law Gentile ritualistic fornication might have been introduced.

She shall be burnt — After being stoned her body shall be burned, in order to impress upon the people the heinousness of sin in the high places of Israel. See Lev_20:14, note. The fires of the divine wrath blaze with the hottest flame around the holy altars.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the daughter - And by analogy his son also, and his wife, because the reason of the law here added, concerns all. And nothing is more common than to name one kind for the rest of the same nature, as also is done chap. xviii, 6. She profaneth her father - Exposeth his person and office, and consequently religion, to contempt.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

כי תחל לזנות means, if she profanes herself through unchastity, i. e. that a marriage-tie of some kind applied to her and she nevertheless prostituted herself either after betrothal (which constituted a kind of marriage-tie, since she would require a bill of divorce to enable her to marry someone else) or after marriage (having left her father's house for her husband’s). Our Rabbis are of different opinions regarding this (whether Scripture speaks here of an ארוסה or a נשואה), but all agree that Scripture is not speaking of a פנויה (a woman who is neither betrothed nor married) (cf. Sanhedrin 51b).

את אביה היא מחללת SHE PROFANETH HER FATHER — i. e. she profanes and makes light of his honor by her conduct (מחללת does not mean she causes him to become a חלל, one unfit for priestly service), in that people say about him, "Cursed be he who has engendered this woman; — cursed be he who has reared this woman” (Sanhedrin 52a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.