John Gill Bible Commentary

But whoso committeth adultery with a woman,.... Which is a greater degree of theft than the former, it being the stealing of another man's wife; lacketh understanding; or "an heart" (t); the thief lacks bread, and therefore steals, but this man lacks wisdom, and therefore acts so foolish a part; the one does it to satisfy hunger, the other a brutish lust; he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul; is liable to have his life taken away by the husband of the adulteress; so according to Solon's law (u) the adulterer taken in the act might be killed by the husband: or by the civil magistrate; for according to the law of. Moses he was to die, either to be strangled or stoned; see Gill on Joh 8:5; and besides, he not only ruins the natural faculties of his soul, besotting, corrupting, and depraving that, giving his heart to a whore, but brings eternal destruction on it; yet so foolish is he, though it issues in the ruin of his precious soul; "he does this" (w), for so the first part of this clause, which stands last in the original text, may be rendered. (t) "deficit corde", Pagninus, Montanus; "caret corde", Mercerus, Gejerus; so Michaelis. (u) Plutarch. in Vita Solon. p. 90. (w) "ipse faeiet illud", Montanus; "ipse faciet hoc", so some in Vatablus; "is id faciet, sive facit", Cocceius; "ille facit id", Michaelis; "is patrabit illud", Schultens.