And now he has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.’ But here is the proof of her virginity.” And they shall spread out the cloth before the city elders.
These laws relate to the seventh commandment, laying a restraint by laying a penalty upon those fleshly lusts which war against the soul. I. If a man, lusting after another woman, to get rid of his wife slander her and falsely accuse her, as not having the virginity she pretended to when he married her, upon the disproof of his slander he must be punished, Deu 22:13-19.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 22:13-30
And the elders of that city shall take the man, and chastise him. Not with words, but blows. Jarchi interprets it of beating, and so does the Talmud (x); and both the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan render it,"shall beat him;'' that is, with the beating or scourging of forty stripes, save one. (x) T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 46. 1.
And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech [against her], saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these [are the tokens of] my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. (h) Meaning, the sheet, in which the signs of her virginity were.