Leviticus 19:20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

She shall be scourged Hebrew, There shall be a scourging, which probably may belong to both of them; for, 1st, Both were guilty; 2d, It follows, they shall not be punished with death, which may seem to imply that they were to be punished by some other common and considerable punishment, which scourging indeed was; but the paying of a ram was a small penalty, and very unsuitable to the greatness of the offence. And the offering of the ram, as a trespass-offering for the sin against God, is not inconsistent with making satisfaction other ways for the injury done to men, but only added here as a further punishment to the man, either because he only could do this, and not the woman, who being a bond- woman had nothing of her own to offer; or because his sex and his freedom aggravated his sin. Not put to death Which they should have been, had she been free, Deuteronomy 22:23-24. The reason of this difference is not from any respect which God gives to persons, for bond and free are alike to him, but because bond-women were scarcely wives, and their marriages were scarcely true marriages, being neither made by their choice, but their masters' authority, nor continued beyond the year of release, but at their masters' or husbands' pleasure.