Matthew Poole and continuators on Deuteronomy 13:6

6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother , or thy son, or thy daughter , or the wife of thy bosom , or thy friend, which is as thine own soul , intice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, (which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers▪)

This is added, to restrain the signification of the word brother, which is oft used generally for one near akin, and to express the nearness of the relation, the mothers side being the surest, and usually the ground of the truest and most fervent affection. See Gen. 20. 12.

Thy piety must overcome both thy affection to thy nearest relation, and thy compassion to the weaker Sex.

Either 1. that is near to thy heart, that hath thy dearest love. Or rather 2. that lieth in thy bosom, as it is expressed, Mic. 7. 5. Compare Gen. 16. 5. Prov. 5. 20. Deut. 28. 54. So we read of the husband of her bosom, Deut. 28. 56.

As dear to thee as thy self. The father and mother are here omitted not, as some fancy, because children might not in this nor in any case accuse their parents, for certainly they owe more reverence and duty to God, who is injured in this case, than to their parents, and Levi is commended for neglecting his father and mother in this case, but because they are sufficiently contained in the former examples, for since mens love doth usually descend more strongly than it ascends, and the relation of a wife is and ought to be nearer and dearer than of a parent, that favour which is denied to wives and children cannot be thought fit to be allowed to parents.

Though it be without success, because the very attempt of such an abominable crime deserved death, as it is judged in case of treason.

s Unknown and obscure and new Gods, which greatly aggravates the crime, to forsake a God whom thou and thy fathers have long▪ known and had great and good experience of for such upstarts.

Marginal references: chap. 17. 2.