This passage more clearly proves that all unlicensed connections. were always unlawful in God's sight. It is a tame and forced interpretation to apply what is here said to spiritual fornication; and those also, who suppose that public stews only are forbidden, restrict the law too much, whereas God rather gives a general injunction that parents should preserve their daughters by means of a pure and chaste education. But even although we admit that nothing else is prohibited but that parents should be the panders of their daughters, still we gather from the word pollute [1] (for some render the word chll, chalal, too tamely to make common) that they are contaminated by their whoredom, and the reason given abundantly confirms the fact, that all whoredom is hateful to God, "lest the land fall to whoredom, (He says,) and the land become full of wickedness." It is plain that adultery is not in question here; but God declares it to be criminal if a man and woman have connection out of wedlock. Consequently, the people are taught in the Seventh Commandment to beware of all unchastity.

Footnotes

1 - Margin A. V., "profane."

Do not prostitute thy daughter - This was a very frequent custom, and with examples of it writers of antiquity abound. The Cyprian women, according to Justin, gained that portion which their husbands received with them at marriage by previous public prostitution. And the Phoenicians, according to Augustine, made a gift to Venus of the gain acquired by the public prostitution of their daughters, previously to their marriage. "Veneri donum dabant, et prostitutiones filiarum, antequam jungerent eas viris." - De Civit. Del, lib. xviii., c. 5; and see Calmet.

Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a (m) whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.
(m) As did the Cyprians, and Locrenses.

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; See Gill on Micah 1:7,
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. Jonah. in loc. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 76. 1. (m) Contra Gentes, p. 21.

"Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of vice" (zimmah: see Leviticus 18:17). The reference is not to spiritual whoredom or idolatry (Exodus 34:16), but to fleshly whoredom, the word zimmah being only used in this connection. If a father caused his daughter to become a prostitute, immorality would soon become predominant, and the land (the population of the land) fall away to whoredom.

Do not prostitute - As the Gentiles frequently did for the honour of some of their idols, to whom women were consecrated, and publickly prostituted.