And the elders of that city shall take the man, and chastise him. Not with words, but blows. Jarchi interprets it of beating, and so does the Talmud (x); and both the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan render it,"shall beat him;''

that is, with the beating or scourging of forty stripes, save one.

(x) T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 46. 1.

The elders, as the magistrates of the place, were then to send for the man who had so calumniated his young wife, and to chastise him (יסּר, as in Deuteronomy 21:18, used to denote bodily chastisement, thought the limitation of the number of strokes to forty save one, may have been a later institution of the schools); and in addition to this they were to impose a fine upon him of 100 shekels of silver, which he was to pay to the father of the young wife for his malicious calumniation of an Israelitish maiden, - twice as much as the seducer of a virgin was to pay to her father for the reproach brought upon him by the humiliation of his daughter (Deuteronomy 22:29); and lastly, they were to deprive the man of the right of divorce from his wife.

And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;

22:13-30 These and the like regulations might be needful then, and yet it is not necessary that we should curiously examine respecting them. The laws relate to the seventh commandment, laying a restraint upon fleshly lusts which war against the soul.