(3) To speak friendly unto her.--Literally, to speak to her heart--i.e., to bring about a kindly reconciliation (Genesis 34:3; Genesis 1:21; Ruth 2:13).

A couple of asses.--One was meant to convey back his wife on her return.

Verse 3. - To bring her again. So the Keri. But the Cethib has to bring him, i.e. it, again, viz., her heart. But the phrase to speak to her heart is such a common one for to speak friendly or kindly to any one that it is not likely that it should here be used otherwise, so that the pronoun should refer to heart. If the masculine is here the right reading, it may be an archaism making the suffix of the common gender like the plural suffix in ver. 24, which is masculine, though applied to women, and like the masculine pronoun itself, which is so used throughout the Pentateuch and elsewhere (see also Judges 21:12; Exodus 1:21). A couple of asses. One for himself and one for her. He rejoiced. No doubt, in part at least, because the expense of his daughter's maintenance would be transferred from himself to his daughter's husband.

17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.And her husband arose,.... From the place where he lived:

and went after her; to Bethlehemjudah, where her father lived:

to speak comfortably to her "or to her heart" (l); having heard perhaps that she repented of her sin, or if it was only upon a quarrel between them, his anger might cool and subside, and therefore sought for a reconciliation; and which was the more commendable in him, as he did not put her away, but she departed from him: and

to bring her again; to his own city, and to his own house and bed, as before:

having his servant with him, and a couple of asses; one of them for her to ride upon, and the other to carry provisions on:

and she brought him into her father's house; it seems she met with him before he came thither, in the fields, or in the street; and by this it appears that she was glad to see him, and received him in a loving manner, and introduced him into her father's house, so that things looked well, and promised success:

and when the father of the damsel saw him, he rejoiced to meet him; having a good opinion of him, and perhaps understood, even by his daughter's story, that she was most in fault, and therefore was well pleased to see him come after her; though he ought before this time to have sent her home, or sought for a reconciliation of her to her husband.

(l) "ad cor", Pagninus.