Exodus 34:16
Neither shalt thou take of their daughters a wife for thy son, lest after they themselves have committed fornication, they make thy sons also to commit fornication with their gods.
Open Exodus 34:16 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Nec uxorem de filiabus eorum accipies filiis tuis : ne, postquam ipsæ fuerint fornicatæ, fornicari faciant et filios tuos in deos suos.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ λάβῃς τῶν θυγατέρων αὐτῶν τοῖς υἱοῖς σου, καὶ τῶν θυγατέρων σου δῷς τοῖς υἱοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκπορνεύσωσιν αἱ θυγατέρες σου ὀπίσω τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐκπορνεύσωσιν οἱ υἱοί σου ὀπίσω τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ מִבְּנֹתָ֖יו לְבָנֶ֑יךָ וְזָנ֣וּ בְנֹתָ֗יו אַחֲרֵי֙ אֱלֹ֣הֵיהֶ֔ן וְהִזְנוּ֙ אֶת בָּנֶ֔יךָ אַחֲרֵ֖י אֱלֹהֵיהֶֽן
Haydock's commentary
Son. The Chaldean and Septuagint add, "nor give any of thy daughters to their sons;" or, joining this verse with the 15th, the Septuagint say, "make no covenant....lest they commit fornication after their gods....and call thee and thou eat....and thou take of thier daughters wives for thy sons, and thou wilt give some of thy daughters to their sons, and thy daughters shall go fornicating after their gods." The most imminent dangers attend those women, who have infidel husbands. (Haydock)
The intention of Moses, and the custom of the Hebrews, justly reprobated such marriages. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XXI. The answer to the question raised
Serenus : You have propounded two not unimportant questions, to which I will reply, to the best of my ability, in the order in which you have raised them. We cannot possibly believe that spiritual existences can have carnal intercourse with women. But if this could ever have literally happened how is it that it does not now also sometimes take place, and that we do not see some in the same way born of women by the agency of demons without intercourse with men? especially when it is clear that they delight in the pollution of lust, which they would certainly prefer to bring about through their own agency rather than through that of men, if they could possibly manage it, as Ecclesiastes declares: “What is it that hath been? The same that is. And what is it that hath been done? The same that is done. …