Changes

606. Now the translators cannot amalgamate the two senses, and get cohabitation out of them. They cannot have it both ways, after any such fashion. This noun means "dwelling place," pure and simple, or else it refers to indecent, God-defying wickedness. But what is more forced than to introduce the thought of "duty of marriage" along with a slave's food and clothing? And what is more natural than to mention "shelter" next after food and clothing, when speaking of one's obligations to a dependent? "Food, clothing and shelter" go so naturally together that one could have guessed what was said here, if no derivation could have been found for the word. The truth is, the other sense "duty of marriage," is only required, for this otherwise obsolete, word, because it was the sense desired by the early rabbis. The whole passage, then, should read: "If she please not her master, so that he hath not espoused her, then shall he let her be redeemed. . . . If he take another woman for his wife, her food and clothing and shelter he shall not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then she may go out free without money,"¾that is without paying for her freedom. And 1 Corinthians 7:3, cleared of the shadow of this perversion, means "what is due" in a more general sense.

"'Her duty of marriage' is to say the least arbitrary. You should add in this connection that the Syriac version has Mashkiva which means 'place of resting, of sleeping, or of dwelling', and this corroborates your interpretation of the word."