Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore,.... Not by delaying to marry her, which is the sense the Jews give l, but it refers to a wicked practice among the Phoenicians or Canaanites, Athanasius m speaks of, whose women used to prostitute themselves in the temples of their idols; and to such filthy services, in a religious way, the Israelites, in imitation of them, are forbid to expose their daughters: such filthy practices, under a notion of religion, were committed at Babylon, Corinth, and other places;
lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness: of the wickedness of whoredom, both corporeal and spiritual, fornication and idolatry; both of which would be promoted by such abominable practices, and in process of time the land be filled with them.
l Targ. Jon. in loc. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 76. 1. m Contra Gentes, p. 21.